Fish Nutrition

[Anonymous]

I have a damselfish with an apetite for hermits. whenever one of the hermits hits the bricks and tries to get into a new shell, the damsel zeros in and kills it. I just watched this happen moments ago.

I am wondering if I am not providing proper nutrition or if he is just living up to damselfish mythos. I feed the tank omnivore flake in the morning, just enough so that the fish eat 80% and about 20% settles to the bottom to feed the turbo and nassarius snails (a couple of new really tiny nassarius snails just showed up out of the blue) and in the evening I rinse and mince one shrimp and drop that in the tank. the 2 fish eat proly about 90% of that (they damselfish goes crazy).

Should I start feeding the tank more meat, or just get bigger crabs, able to defend themselves. The damselfish never bothers my peppermint shrimp at all.

 

[Anonymous]

You know i feed my tank a variety of things, mainly frozen foods, occaisonally flake food...I think its also the Myths of damsels and mother nature at work....I think a variety of food is just better nutriously overall for the inhabitants of your tank...
this is what i feed alternating a different food every day
1) frozen brine shrimp
2) frozen Mysid shrimp
3) frozen Krill
4) Prime Reef
5) Formula 1
6) frozen blood worms
7) frozen tubifex worms

8) occasionally flake
9) occasionally freeze dried plankton

i think thats it...

HTH

 

[ChrisRD]

I agree, I think some variety is best with feeding. Not sure it will really make any difference with your damsel though - I think that's more a personality issue.

FWIW, it sounds like you're adding an ideal amount of food if the fish are consuming 90% in the first few minutes. Better to not overfeed IMO as that will take a toll on water quality over time.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies. I have also read a post by Davi Mohr in which he describes a sort of chunky seafood pure' that sounds nutritious as well. I supose the crabs have been kind of destructive since my algae blooms have disaperared.

I am going to keep one crab that I really like (if he will stay off my mushrooms anyway) and replace the rest with snails.

I will look into providing a wider variety of foods, either with the pure' or with a weekly menu. I will just have to get used to how much of what they will eat, so that I do not overfeed.

I do have to admit, I learn something everyday in this hobby. it makes it interesting

Thanks again