nori and algae will color up the blue, green, and yellow on a flowerhorn. The best is spirulina.
Long Time Lurker, My New Flowerhorn
- Thread starter CaliFishKid
- Start date
I notice that you really want to compete at a flowerhorn show. Having competed at shows before, my biggest tip is choose a flowerhorn with visibly excellent genetics. Don't waste your time, effort, and money on a low-grade flowerhorn. Buy the most expensive young flowerhorn that you can afford. Or else you'll never have a chance at a show no matter what you feed or how you take care of it.
Genetics is almost everything. You don't see any midgets playing in the NBA, or any mentally-disabled people as theoretical physicists. If you can, find out about parents' genetics of the flowerhorn.
I've been feeding the red, purple, green nori mainly because it's what I feed my Saltwater tank. I make my own food for the saltwater tank as well and use spirulina in the mix.
Mainly was just trying to give a recommendation to the OP to see if his FH will eat some.
I don't want to derail this thread too much, but in my other thread I posted my competition one. I'm actually working with an owner that has won a good amount of Grand Champion awards. They see a lot of potential in mine and are helping me with developing a regiment. It was not a cheap fish so I'm going to see what it can do!
Nice, should be a fun project! Did you obtain that fish? Really curious how awesome it's going to turn out
I actually tried Nori too lol. Broke it up into smaller pieces but he immediately wasn't having it. I have Algaemax as well but he hates it as well. If anything, I figure eventually he'll get out of it when he gets bigger and I'll definitely try both again. He also didn't like peas.
I'll share some update pics after taking a few this weekend. Last week was my first time traveling (I travel once a month, week at a time for work) and being away. I've done this countless times with discus, for up to 20 days, but usually it's about 7-10 days. I feed heavier two weeks leading up, increase water changes the week of leaving, and do one really large water change the day before leaving. I also add a few bags of purigen as insurance.
I was gone 7 days this time, and when I came back the flowerhorn was doing just fine. Active, full bodied, etc. As expected, he lost some color, which came back in a day. I actually tried feeding him NLS pellets again given the 7 day starvation.. I cannot believe that he just spit them right back out lol. You would think that he'd eat just about anything after 7 days of not eating. He really is just insanely picky smh.
I did order some gamma vegetarian frozen food.. I'm hoping that he takes to it since it's frozen but we'll see. Gotta figure out a way to get more plant matter/veggies in for him. Right now the only source is spirulina, which is combined with the frozen shrimp.
I was gone 7 days this time, and when I came back the flowerhorn was doing just fine. Active, full bodied, etc. As expected, he lost some color, which came back in a day. I actually tried feeding him NLS pellets again given the 7 day starvation.. I cannot believe that he just spit them right back out lol. You would think that he'd eat just about anything after 7 days of not eating. He really is just insanely picky smh.
I did order some gamma vegetarian frozen food.. I'm hoping that he takes to it since it's frozen but we'll see. Gotta figure out a way to get more plant matter/veggies in for him. Right now the only source is spirulina, which is combined with the frozen shrimp.
Again, I've got to either get a dedicated camera or learn how to take better pics. But this gives you an idea of his current size. Happy and healthy.. and hungry. He also recently ate a bug bite pellet (which is a little longer than normal pellets) from the surface. More of a fluke, and he wouldn't do it again when I tried twice, but encouraging, pretty sure I could get him to do so normally with some practice.
So I finally got him to eat some veggies... through homemade gel food.
Recipe was pretty simple:
Peas/Carrots/Spinach/Seaweed
Spirulina Brine Shrimp
Bloodworms
NLS pellets (reg + algaemax)
Vitachem
Astaxanthin powder
Garlic Guard
Knox gelatin
This was all prepackaged fish food, mainly frozen with just a bit of pellets added. I had a ton of Gamma's vegetarian frozen fish food through an online order mixup. Used it + Hikari frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms, about 2 parts veggies to 1 part protein. The small amount of shrimp and bloodworms were just for added taste appeal. He went after this immediately. And it only took 15 minutes to make (plus two hours to set). Next time I'll use all raw ingredients to blend up and probably make one mainly protein and the other mainly veggie and switch back and forth.
Recipe was pretty simple:
Peas/Carrots/Spinach/Seaweed
Spirulina Brine Shrimp
Bloodworms
NLS pellets (reg + algaemax)
Vitachem
Astaxanthin powder
Garlic Guard
Knox gelatin
This was all prepackaged fish food, mainly frozen with just a bit of pellets added. I had a ton of Gamma's vegetarian frozen fish food through an online order mixup. Used it + Hikari frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms, about 2 parts veggies to 1 part protein. The small amount of shrimp and bloodworms were just for added taste appeal. He went after this immediately. And it only took 15 minutes to make (plus two hours to set). Next time I'll use all raw ingredients to blend up and probably make one mainly protein and the other mainly veggie and switch back and forth.
