Yellow perch planted tank newcomer

[snookman]

thanks for the advice snookman. last night they were pretty active and i put a couple freeze dried krill in the tank. one of the perch took two and actually ate them but the others are biting them and spit them back out after. maybe they arent happy with the taste. i'll starve them for a day or two then try again. Also i cant look at your photos until i get full membership.

What size tank do you have?? have they grown alot bigger? i heard that the size of the perch relies on how big your tank is.

Thanks for the offer fishkeeper1. i'll pass for now unless it gets to be a real problem with them feeding

Right now he's in a 125. I kept him in a 75 until he was almost 10" though with no problems.

update: after a few days of trying different foods my perch are now eating cut up meal worms, freeze dried shrimp, and also maggots, aswelll as the occasional minnow. I'm hoping to get them hooked on pellets but they seem very very uninterested not even trying to nibble at them.

Mine has never taken a pellet as far as I know. I've put them in the tank but I'm not sure if another fish got them as they were untouched...then when I woke the next morning they were gone. So I'm really not sure which one ate it. I don't believe it was the perch because he never shows any interest in the pellets when I put them in the tank.

 

[Owain4]

Its odd how you can feed them freeze dried foods but they dont even look at pellets. it must be the behavior of them, i believe they only eat things that somewhat resemble something living. picky but atleast there is alot of alternatives for food.

I checked out your album the other day (when i officially became a member) and i love the look of your perch, hes got that wicked arch in his body like pike do and the colours are extreme. awesome fish you have there

 

[cichlid fiend]

Had two in a 90 gallon and they did well on feeders and worms.

 

[snookman]

Its odd how you can feed them freeze dried foods but they dont even look at pellets. it must be the behavior of them, i believe they only eat things that somewhat resemble something living. picky but atleast there is alot of alternatives for food.

I checked out your album the other day (when i officially became a member) and i love the look of your perch, hes got that wicked arch in his body like pike do and the colours are extreme. awesome fish you have there

I think it's the strong scent that the krill gives off...like the stuff you put on bass plastic lures to add extra enticement. I think scent is under-appreciated for this. You may try soaking some pellets in water with frozen bloodworms and/or krill to put that scent on your pellets and then fish them out of the container without the other stuff and see if he'll eat it. Just food for thought.

P.S. Thanks for checking out the pics.

 

[Szabbath]

Hey im brand new to this forum and have been browsing. i havent found too much on people keeping yellow perch. im looking for any advice or help to a few questions i have. I have a 56 Gallon tank with a 240gallon per hour filter. i have a pretty heavily planted aquarium with 4, 4" inch yellow perch. 5 peices of drift wood and a couple snails. i feed my yellow perch minnows from the store. so i have a few questions.

1. With a heavily planted tank and sand/gravel substrate is there anyway of natural reducing the ammonia/ waste levels in my tank.? I'm trying to keep it as natural as i can, so i have to get a sucker i will but I'm trying to avoid that. do snails help remove excess waste or do they just eat algae?

2. im trying to get my perch to eat flake or freeze dried shrimp instead of store bought minnows (because of price and possible diseases or infections) but they are very very picky. any suggestions?

Thanks!

Hello so to answer your question, you can make an algae scrubber. There are a few ways to this i suggest looking up a diy one. I made one for my 90 gallon and ever since i put it in my nitrates have all but vanished.

 

[Magnus_Bane]

To help with upkeep of the tank you could add in some ramshorn snails to the tank. They would atleast keep algea at bay and break down some of the fish waste in the tank (they only break it down into smaller pieces not get rid of it entirely). Another idea I used to do to get fish to eat artificial foods was tie it to a string and drag it across the water to basically mimic live food. I just used sewing thread and tied it with just one loop, makes it easy for the fish to pop it off of the string or if their teeth catch the loop it's weak enough to break it.

Personally I prefer to feed perch live food, it's just amazing whatching a small group of fish hunt like a pack of wolves. When I still had a few they would have one lie in wait hiding behind a plant or rock while the other 2 would chase the prey over to him and in an instant they would smack em as hard and as fast as they could while all the bait fish panic. It was honestly so cool to see what most ppl think of as a mindless animal actually use tactics and teamwork and pull it all off flawlessly.

 

[esoxlucius]

Hello so to answer your question, you can make an algae scrubber. There are a few ways to this i suggest looking up a diy one. I made one for my 90 gallon and ever since i put it in my nitrates have all but vanished.

Firstly, welcome to the forum S Szabbath

You have resurrected a 9 year old thread with your post. No big deal but most of the guys in this thread haven't been active for a long while. As an example the original poster was last on the site in 2014!!

Browse through old threads by all means but be aware of how old they are before adding to them.

 

[Magnus_Bane]

Firstly, welcome to the forum S Szabbath

You have resurrected a 9 year old thread with your post. No big deal but most of the guys in this thread haven't been active for a long while. As an example the original poster was last on the site in 2014!!

Browse through old threads by all means but be aware of how old they are before adding to them.

Good thing ya mentioned this. I read thru the whole thing and even put my own input into it not even realizing how old this post is lol.