Not so messy fish food?
- Thread starter teqvet
- Start date
cut down to 25% weekly for a while, to give the bacteria time to grow. Im guessing this is the problem.
50% is quite a bit and twice weekly seems like too much.. you may also be removing more than 50% if you are using the water line at half way to measure,,
because of all the solid objects in the tank.
50% is quite a bit and twice weekly seems like too much.. you may also be removing more than 50% if you are using the water line at half way to measure,,
because of all the solid objects in the tank.
Me either, I just tossed it out there in case you weren't aware.
Large water changes are generally not an issue as the vast majority of ones bio bacteria are not found in the water itself, but in the filter media, and the fixed objects/decorations within the tank. Having said that in a fairly new set up I would agree, bi weekly water changes at 50% might be just enough to keep things slightly out of balance. I would also cut back on water changes, at most bi weekly 25% for now, until your system is more mature.
Not neccesarily. Pellet food is far more nutrient dense than flake food, especially when you compare the SF formula of NLS, and/or the NLS TherA formula, to most flake foods. You are most likely also feeding less flakes in weight, vs pellet foods. If you take a 100 gram container of flakes, and compare it to 100 grams of pellets, you'll notice how much different they compare ounce for ounce, vs size/volume. In either instance one is generally feeding a lot less nutrients to their system when using flakes, vs pellets. Less nutrients = less chance of a mini spike, which I still think is what is going on here.
BTW - I don't think that the OP should feed Xtreme, their smallest pellet is 1.5mm which is going to be too large for his fish which will simply add to his problem.
I wasn't asserting that it's a matter of whether they can handle it, but rather how they handle it (i.e. grinding it up and expelling bits through their gills).
Also, I wouldn't be too concerned about the water source for this issue since it only shows up after feeding in this particular manner, and not water changes. The only reason I asked about the pH is because nitrification drops off below a certain pH (around 6ish I think), but it should be fine around 6.8. Also, a pH of 6.8 would mean that there is significantly less unionized ammonia (UIA) than if the pH was 7 or greater, so if there is a mild ammonia spike you wouldn't necessarily notice it in the fish's behavior. Just as a reminder: unionized ammonia is toxic, but the ammonium ion (increasingly present with increasing acidity) is not.
However that water study ranked Pensacola the way it did based on the presence of fuel additives, and although I doubt they play a role in this scenario, I'm not a toxicologist so I won't rule it out.
As for flakes not being a nutritious food source....really? Has anyone else ever heard such a thing? I can see how it can reduce the amount fed, but maybe that's the problem we're looking at. Comparing NLS pellets to a different brand of flakes isn't exactly evidence. Unfortunately I can't seem to find an online guaranteed analysis of NLS flakes so I'll have to check at the LFS sometime. But the only thing I could see them doing different between pellets and flakes (of the same type) is the binding agent they use...maybe. But they design the flakes to be just as suitable of a diet as their pellets (by weight, volume is irrelevant). Usually the difference is in choosing which is the best way to get the highest % of the feed to the fish. Which I think might be the issue, and could influence an ammonia microspike. I also think that a spike the issue since it looks more like the bacterial bloom you get when the ammonia spikes, and not just suspended solids (TSS) in the water column.
I have had big cichlids and fed them big pellets/sticks. The bigger the size of feed, the more they waste by shooting it out their gills. My mayan hybrid does this even more when he wants to fit yet another stick in his mouth. It's like when dogs try to hold several tennis balls in their mouths - it just doesn't work!
If this is an ammonia spike I would add more surface area to your aquarium. That is actually one of my biggest complaints about most sands - they don't allow enough water flow through them to allow bacteria to colonize. With gravel pretty much the entire gravel bed can support BB, but with sand it can be very little. Maybe the first couple of centimeters. That's not a real value, since of course it varies with how fine the sand it.
Is all of the food consumed during your feedings? I guess I can't rule out overfeeding yet either. Maybe take an ammonia reading when you observe this phenomenon and another when you don't? An API kit might not be precise enough to detect it but it's worth a shot!
Understood, and IMHO that should still make absolutely no difference when only two small pinches are added to a properly balanced and filtered 125 gallon tank. Two pinches of food could go entirely uneaten in any of my tanks and I would never see any cloudiness, let alone cloudiness such as what the OP is experiencing. And having raised most of the same species of fish as the OP, on NLS foods, I'm also quite aware of how these species handle the different pellet sizes, at different life stages. I also understand, and agree with, the fact that some food can get wasted when too large a pellet size is fed to a fish. There is no argument there, I just don't think this is an issue in this particular case.
If you were directing that at me, I never said that, or anything remotely close to that. I was comparing the nutrient load of a set weight of flake food, vs the same weight of pellets, in a closed system. As an example, a 90 gram container of NLS flake food, is larger than a 300 gram container of their pellets, and two pinches of most flake foods, would not equal as high a nutrient load on a closed system as two pinches of NLS pellets.
Most fish require far more flake food by volume, to equal the same weight & same nutrient density of the same portion of pellets. Flakes also need to be fed in small pinches at a time, so as not to lose too many of the water soluble nutrients to the water column. This is why you won't find commercial aquaculture facilities feeding flake food, and why all of them feed pellets. Pellets are typically far more stable in water, and more nutrient dense, than flake food.
IMHO, any pellet feed fed to this tank, that has close or same nutrient density as the NLS Small Fish and TherA pellets, would have the same effect on the water clarity due to reasons already stated previously. The same reason that yourself and others have suggested, that being a bacterial bloom.
Just to add in case it was missed. This cloudiness only lasts for an hr or so after feeding, and then it is clearer again.
Quite appreciative of all the constructive comments. It gives me a few baselines to start with at least.
- yes all food is consumed with 2-3 minutes of being introduced.
Quite appreciative of all the constructive comments. It gives me a few baselines to start with at least.
- yes all food is consumed with 2-3 minutes of being introduced.
