# Healthy Diet



## Kyle2154 (May 12, 2006)

I feed my, currently 9 2" RBP's every day, just small amounts, about the size of one of them.

I have three things I alternate feeding them Krill, Silversides, and Beefheart.

I have heard different things about beef heart, but my LFS feeds his fish beefheart and they have good size.

Is this a healthy diet for the most part? Just alternating these three foods? open to other suggestions/replacements.

Looking for SIZE here guys


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## Wide_Eyed_Wanderer (Aug 22, 2006)

Its pretty good but I think you could probably get the same size gain if not more by using tilapia fillet instead of the beefheart. Also, some guy on these boards used to give his Ps salmon not that its reccomended but his Ps were fat as f*ck.

and had a lot of size on them


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## Kyle2154 (May 12, 2006)

I'll pick up some tilapia tonight. I just want them to have a balanced diet. Salmon sounds like a good option too, now I won't feed 'em that everyday.

I'll just alternate Krill-SilverSides-beefheart-tilapia-salmon

I may pick up some frozen pinkies every now and then, along with appropriate live fish. As in, not goldfish/rosies etc.


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## LS1FDRx7 (Mar 6, 2007)

I dont know how your local meat store are like, but where I live, there's an abundant supply of frozen food. You can try small frozen headless birds if it's available to you. Here's a video of what I mean. 





Salmon leaves alot of oil ontop of the water surface.

I figure birds dies in the wild, or falls into the amazon water where piranha lurks and they'll eat it so it can't be that bad. Just make sure there's no perservatives in it.


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## Kyle2154 (May 12, 2006)

Damn! Like I said though, I do want to feed them crazy things once in awhile, just to keep them used to "If it hits the tank we kill it". I don't think I have seen headless birds, granted I haven't been looking for them.


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## LS1FDRx7 (Mar 6, 2007)

It might be listed under your Frozen Poultry Section of the Groceries stores. You'll be suprised what you'll find just by looking for it and reading labels. Try looking for "Quail bird"


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2008)

I am big on feeding *all* my fish earthworms. I think it's an almost ideal food.


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## NegativeSpin (Aug 1, 2007)

Good carnivore pellets are like 47 percent protein and are enriched with calcium phosphate so the fish get a lot more protein on a full stomach compared to ordinary meat (23% protein) to aid in muscle growth and repair as well as calcium and phosphorous for bone growth.


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## Piranha Dan (Nov 11, 2007)

^^Agreed^^
You forgot to mention that they also promote really nice color too. My Reds are alot 'redder' since I started feeding them pellets again (I feed them right before I do a water change so the tank doesn't end up stinking).


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## Dr. Giggles (Oct 18, 2003)

Kyle keep any mammal food such as beefheart only as 3% of their diet. Stick with white fish as a staple and chopped up shrimp and worms. Just my 2 cents man.


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## Kyle2154 (May 12, 2006)

Do silversides count as "white fish"?

Alright, so beef heart will be few and far between. Krill, Shrimp, Silversides, Talapia and where can I get some of these pellets?

My dad has pellets that he gives to his fish in his pond, but they are not 'carnivore'. Also, when I tried them, two years back, they floated...


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## Corner (Feb 27, 2007)

I do believe silversides are white fish, this basically just means the meat is white. The pellets you can get at most fish or pet stores.


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## Buckman (Jan 10, 2007)

ok 2 questions, jikari gold is a good pellet food right? and what about perch? is that ok to feed them?


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## Guest (May 1, 2008)

fett529 said:


> ok 2 questions, jikari gold is a good pellet food right? and what about perch? is that ok to feed them?


Yes, Hikari is a good quality fish food.

I'm not sure which species of perch you are referring to, but all perch are good food for your fish.


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## Dorkhedeos (May 8, 2007)

shanker said:


> Good carnivore pellets are like 47 percent protein and are enriched with calcium phosphate so the fish get a lot more protein on a full stomach compared to ordinary meat (23% protein) to aid in muscle growth and repair as well as calcium and phosphorous for bone growth.


Where exactly do you get a pellet that is 47%? The highest i could find was 40


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## Nick G (Jul 15, 2007)

I Use Hikari Bio-Gold floating pellets as about 60 percent of their diet, the rest is white fish (tilapia mostly) and shrimp.
those pellets are the best though. people say they stink, but i never experienced that... even when i was still training them to eat the pellets, and the pellets would sit in the tank for like an hour before i scooped them out.

the pellets definately take a TON of patience tho


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## BigBadBlackRhom (Sep 10, 2004)

I feed my rhom at least one meal a week with Hikari pellets. Its a little process but doable if your fish simply will not attack little floating or sinking pellets. I smash them up, add a bit of water and Boyd's vitachem to make a paste. I then use a injector (or a pippette) and fill the cavity of a whole smelt with this "Hikari Gold paste/vitamin" of course prior to filling the cavity with paste I pull some of the guts out of the smelt to make more room. I use this on silversides when i run out of smelt. smaller but you can still squeeze in about 5-6 pellets (ground up) in an average silverside. Fish swallows it- no mess.
Al


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## Buckman (Jan 10, 2007)

Nick G said:


> I Use Hikari Bio-Gold floating pellets as about 60 percent of their diet, the rest is white fish (tilapia mostly) and shrimp.
> those pellets are the best though. people say they stink, but i never experienced that... even when i was still training them to eat the pellets, and the pellets would sit in the tank for like an hour before i scooped them out.
> 
> the pellets definately take a TON of patience tho


i'm trying to get my spilo/mac to eat hikari gold right now, any suggestions on how i can do it? i dont want to not feed it anything and make it eat the pellets right now cause its so small. anything you could tell me would be greatly appreciated.


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## Nick G (Jul 15, 2007)

there is a guide somewhere on here i found, i roughly followed it. but basically what I did was i fattened my fish up with shrimp, which he ate easily for like two weeks, then i waited a day, and put pellets in, and after he didnt touch them for about 15 minutes so i took them out.
then i waited two days. and i tried the pellets again. still nothing.
then i waited again for about 2 or maybe three days, and he still wouldnt eat them, then i kept trying for about a month every other day, and one day, he noticed them and kinda started swimming close and even sucking them up and spitting them out. 
then i waited like 4 days and put them in and he went nuts and ate them all.
this was a red, and he was about 6 inches when i got him, and all he ate was feeders before i had him, plus being solo i think made it harder.
the rest of my reds i started on mini pellets when they were about 2 inches, and it was very easy, took about a day of starvation and they ate them, but at that time there was 12 reds so im pretty sure competition was stiff.

anyway, search for a guide, i think a guy named knife or something on here, it may even be pinned, it was very helpful. the hardest thing was to convince myself that they wouldnt die if they didnt eat.


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## Buckman (Jan 10, 2007)

i think my problem is that my spilo/mac hasn't realized that there is food at the top of the water. if i put mysis shrimp in there little chunks will break off and sink down. when she notices them she tears it up and goes into a little feeding frenzy and darts around everywhere. but if i put a pellet or freeze-dried shrimp in there she doesnt do a thing and she never notices it at the top of the water. its a young fish. could that be the reason?


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## Nick G (Jul 15, 2007)

i dunno, my guys could all be at the bottom of the tank, and when i put the pellets in, its almost like they smell food.

one trick is, if you have a HOB filter, to put the floating pellets at the outlet, and they get kinda kicked down in, then float back up. i think that the piranhas smell something is in their tank, even if they dont respond to it.
it takes forever, but its worth it in the end, them eating pellets is quite a site to see:




its a crappy vid (the first i ever made) but u get the idea.


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