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Getting my fish to eat different foods

Started by Sean Phillips , Jul 09 2014 09:09 AM

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8 replies to this topic

#1 Sean Phillips

NANFA Member

Allegheny River Drainage, Southwest PA

Posted 09 July 2014 - 09:09 AM

I can't get my green sunfish or Greenside darters to eat many foods. The sunfish eats cichlid pellets and frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. The darters eat snails ( whenever I can get a few) and frozen bloodworms and brine shrimp. I'm afraid if I can't ge them to eat green matter such as spiraling and chopped up lettuce that they aren't going to be as healthy as they should be. So how should I go about getting them to eat these and similar foods?

Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

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#2 Guest_gerald_*

Guests

Posted 09 July 2014 - 09:28 AM

Try peas (buy frozen, cook a few minutes, peel off skin); nearly all fish will eat them. Neither green sunfish nor darters tyoically eat plants much in nature. They get their B-vits and other plant-made nutrition by eating other animals that eat plants (insects, amphipods, snails, tadpoles). You can also "gut-load" your live foods (snails, blackworms, mosquito larvae, scuds, etc) with veggies.

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#3 Sean Phillips

NANFA Member

Allegheny River Drainage, Southwest PA

Posted 09 July 2014 - 09:56 AM

Try peas (buy frozen, cook a few minutes, peel off skin); nearly all fish will eat them. Neither green sunfish nor darters tyoically eat plants much in nature. They get their B-vits and other plant-made nutrition by eating other animals that eat plants (insects, amphipods, snails, tadpoles). You can also "gut-load" your live foods (snails, blackworms, mosquito larvae, scuds, etc) with veggies.

Thanks for the quick response! I didn't know that green sides didn't eat much plant matter. I assumed they did since mine haven't been eating any and they aren't very green right now, more brown and I'm sure one is a male so I don't know why.

Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

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#4 Guest_gerald_*

Guests

Posted 09 July 2014 - 01:41 PM

Greenside darters turn green due to hormones, influenced by temperature, photo-period, food abundance, and social dominance. I don't think eating plants has much effect on their color, although the insects and snails that darters eat in springtime are probably grazing on new algae and plant growth, so maybe it does indirectly.

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#5 Guest_NotCousteau_*

Guests

Posted 09 July 2014 - 03:59 PM

I've noticed that my rainbow darters do not change colors due to food intake (whether from direct result of the food or simply glee), but that my southern redbelly dace often color up (bright red bellies) after a nice feeding frenzy, as if they are in a good mood or something. I'm not a scientist; just sharing my observations.

If you got your darters at the height of mating season, they may have been in prime coloration and am now in their off season coloration. That's how one person explained it to me anyway. (I'm fairly new to darters.) I have noticed that after dialing back my LED white light output from 100% to something like 55-65% and moving the light to the very front, thereby creating a lot of shadows in the back of my aquarium, my male and female rainbow darters have stayed a bit more colored up consistently.

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#6 Sean Phillips

NANFA Member

Allegheny River Drainage, Southwest PA

Posted 09 July 2014 - 06:51 PM

Then maybe lighting is a factor. Just got a new bulb for the hood but as always the same thing happens, I'll turn on the light and it will stay on for half an hour them go out for twenty minutes by itself and it just keeps repeating the process. When I got them they had the same colors as now, just expected them to be greener.

Sean Phillips - Pine Creek Watershed - Allegheny River Drainage

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#7 Michael Wolfe

Board of Directors

North Georgia, Oconee River Drainage

Posted 09 July 2014 - 07:44 PM

I've noticed that my rainbow darters do not change colors due to food intake (whether from direct result of the food or simply glee), but that my southern redbelly dace often color up (bright red bellies) after a nice feeding frenzy, as if they are in a good mood or something. I'm not a scientist; just sharing my observations.

Yes, this is common to many other Notropis shiners as well... my local yellowfins for example, will respond (like you said, almost as if they are just plain happy to have a great meal) to a particularly good feeding or sometimes even to a cold water change by coloring up to almost full breeding colors in just a few minutes.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. - Benjamin Franklin

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#8 Guest_gerald_*

Guests

Posted 09 July 2014 - 09:50 PM

I assume this is a straight-tube fluorescent light. If it has a separate starter (looks like a little round metal can, about 3/4 inch diam) then get a new starter. If not, then the starter is built into the ballast and you need a new ballast.

Just got a new bulb for the hood but as always the same thing happens, I'll turn on the light and it will stay on for half an hour them go out for twenty minutes by itself and it just keeps repeating the process.