Is this a decent staple diet?

[cichlaguapote]

I knew there was someone who would say they fed it as a staple - for just the reason you gave - having so many large fish, pellets could get quite expensive. How often do you supplement with the vitamin products?

Honestly not as often as I should.. rarely ever. I mean that stuff is available for those concerned about their fish not getting enough vitamins but with my busy schedule sometimes I barely even have time for defrosting/chopping shrimp. Much less adding vitamins. But honestly I'm not the only probably feeding just shrimp. My barra that's all he eats is just shrimp. He wouldn't touch a pellet for nothin.. Plus he's a large silver fish with no color, so more vitamins would help faster growth but carotene wouldn't help him none.. lol But I do have pellets for fish like pbass/emporer cichlid that are in the same tank which they will sometimes eat.

There are large pellets you can buy in bulk bags from a feed store like trout pellets/others. But this way I know my fish will eat most of it, and the little bit of shrimp they don't eat stays in one peice and left over shrimp IMO doesn't cloud unless you leave it in there when all the fish are done eating.

Shrimp is cheaper in larger quanitys than pellets but you pay for that in prep time for the shrimp. Sometimes I'd really like to be able to just open a bag and toss some pellets in, instead of defrosting/chopping shrimp.

 

[M|L]

judging from what's in your signature, I'd say yes, shrimp is an excellent source of food. but you should supplement that with worms (earthworms, blackworms, what have you), fish fillet, beef heart (I use chicken heart as well) and pellets at least once or twice a week.

to be very honest, my predatory fish gets about 60% shrimp, 35% worms and 5% mixed (fish, chicken heart, pellets, feeders, etc).

 

[OscarRobinson]

I feed my gulper whatever fish is on sale that week. He won't touch pellets by themselves so I stuff them into the fillet and he doesn't know the difference.

 

[pcfriedrich]

I feed bloodworms every other day or every two days because that is another favorite of all the fish. I feed the market shrimp usually once a day. I feed twice a day. For the meals that I don't feed shrimp or bloodworms, I do feed a pellet (NLS, sinking carnivore, or broken up massivore). My Dat has not gone for pellets yet, and I don't think my Endli eats pellets, but I am not sure. If he is like my big Ornate, then he is foraging for pellets after lights out. Do 3 inch Endlies usually eat pellets?

I'd say that as long as they're getting pellets at least once a day, that is the staple (pellets provide the most nutrition and balance). anything else is the supplement.

 

[dmed]

They might like some zucchini, which you can blanch for a few seconds until it sinks for the loaches. Also blanched peas and algae sheets will help balance the diet of your omnivores.

 

[Mudfrog]

Depends on the fish too.. my wolves will not eat pellets so I feed shrimp as a staple, they get that 4 days a week, 2 days a week they get night crawlers and one day a week they get either beefheart or some kind of filet.

My Dovii on the other hand eats Hikari Gold most of the time with an occasional shrimp / worms or beefheart.

 

[pcfriedrich]

They might like some zucchini, which you can blanch for a few seconds until it sinks for the loaches. Also blanched peas and algae sheets will help balance the diet of your omnivores.

when people say algae sheets, I assume they're talking about some type of fish food I've not seen. But that makes me wonder, could you feed your fish the seaweed sheets used in sushi?

 

[ewurm]

Market shrimp is a good staple but I like to use pellets to insure vitamin content in the diet is good.