[leifthebunny]

Hey all, I had two questions about my new tank.

First, what do people do about piglet fish that eat all the food before the other fish can get it? I've tried doing multiple types of food hoping to distract the voracious fish, but they just consume the floating food and dive in after teh sinking food and push the other fish off. they are starting to show signs of being overfed while the other fish now spend all day scavanging for food.

Second, I understand that it's expected that fish from the store are pale due to stress, but is it common to have a brownish/black coloration to the scales? Most fish in the tank it's not that excessive but a couple of the female cherry barbs I'm doing double takes on as they are looking fairly well brown.

 

[Mr.Todd]

Hey! Glad to hear your starting a tank!

For your first question, I also have a little family of Cichlids that are extremely aggressive and often times fight for food. My little guys even know to hang out below the others and catch their scraps... The way I usually get around this is to put food at several different locations in the tank at the same time. Anything to distract the aggressive feeders... Depending on what kind of fish you have you could also provide some sort of passive feeding for "grazing." I notice my smaller fish feed off of their seaweed salad much more than the larger ones (probably because they are more hungry)


For your second question, I have seen this in some fish store fish and I am not sure how to answer it (I am sure someone else here has a great answer). However, I will tell you that I have a Yellow Lab that is MUCH MUCH brighter now than before after I have fed him plenty of brine shrimp and other nutritious foods...

Good Luck!

-Todd

 

[leifthebunny]

Todd, thanks for the response. I've tried dispursing it including putting flake food out and slipping the algae wafers in for the cories at various locations and at the same time. I purposely started with a community tank for the "peacefulness" of the tank. One of my coworkers raised cichlids before moving out here from Seattle and said he used to like going to hte LFS and checking out who was the biggest bully of the tank to deal with his bully at home as a means of checking the heirarchy and keeping balance unbalanced. Not sure that would work well in a community tank.

 

[Lupin]

Second, I understand that it's expected that fish from the store are pale due to stress, but is it common to have a brownish/black coloration to the scales? Most fish in the tank it's not that excessive but a couple of the female cherry barbs I'm doing double takes on as they are looking fairly well brown.

I'm not sure if I understand correctly what you mean. I am under the impression though that you are asking why some of your fish are pale similar to how you saw them in your lfs. Well, most fish do depending on their moods.

 

[leifthebunny]

Well, I think it's more the fish were fairly pale bringing them home and now they are settling in and the coloration is starting to show up on their scales and such.

As for the food problem, the LFS recommend doing three types of food. The flake, micro pellets and then the algae wafers to try and keep the greedier fish off guard. Seems to be working a little better.