[areuben]

I would be interested in hearing what some of you petro keepers are feeding your petro groups - type of food, quantity and times per day. I keep several groups and am always wondering whether or not I am feeding enough. One of the reasons for this is I don't seem to be getting any females conditioned with my regimen - acknowledging that there are other parameters involved in this. But my questions relate to feeding regimens. Currently I feed all of my petro groups flake (HBH graze /Omega One mix) as well as Dainichi Veggie Deluxe 3mm pellets. For example, on a tank of about 20 5-6" fish they get fed 2x day with about 3-4 pellets per fish/per feeding followed by about a 45 second flake feeding. I guess this stems from the old rule of underfeed versus overfeed. I have been doing this for several years and the fish seem to be doing well but no conditioned females. What are you feeding / how much / how often and for how long have you been following this regimen. I wonder if I should be upping my feed amount to get females into condition? Anyone using algae wafers - like the Hikari algae wafer? I recently read on a european forum where a keeper was feeding european shrimpmix and wafers - I am assuming pellets or algae wafers. I was surpised that he was feeding a group of about 25 fish ( what seems like 6-8" fish) 300 grams of shrimpmix and 2 handfuls of wafers per day split into 4 feedings. For those of you not up on the metric conversion, the 300 grams is about 10 ounces!! of shrimpmix - 12 ounces is 3/4 of a pound. That's a lot of feed plus the wafers. Look forward to reading about your feeding regimens.
Al

 

[geoff_tropheus]

Al,

I feed my Petros twice a day, New Life Spectruum Cichlid Formula - 1mm and Aquarian Tropical Flake Food.

I feed the pellets first about 5-7 good 3finger pinches to about 44 fish. (15 Trewavasae 4-6" and 21 Famula Chimba 3-5" and 9-Tropheus lunangwa).

Then I feed a solid pinch of Flake Food about a minute later, so that everyone who did not get full on pellets, will get some food.

I perform weekly 50% waterchange or bi-weekly 75%.

After having most these fish for about 5 months now, I am thinking of switching over the New Life Spectrum Large Fish Formula. John Jolley feed this to his Petro Blue Giant, and did really well. I think my Trewavasae now are getting large enough to where they need to go up in pellet size.

I've had the Famula for about a year, since they were spit babies.

I have not had any spawns yets from any of my Petro groups. John kept Trewavasae and the Famula together in this same 300 gallon, and he feed them with New Life Spectrum also and had several spawns of them. His Trewavasae were bigger than mine, and his Famula were all wildcaught adults.

Which Petro types are you keeping?

I am not trying to say the NLS is better than Danichi or anything like that. I think you might want to try it and see. AS you know anytime you change foods, take it easy at first and blend in over time.

I have read many times where people give their Petros frozen peas, whole leaf spinach, and romaine lettuce. Just some other options...

Geoff

 

[lloyd]

Hello Al...i feed my herbivore tank 3x a day, and i also mix 1mm NLS with 3MM dainichi, to assure the smaller fish are getting portions. IME, they do appear more 'needy' for feed compared to carnivores, if only fed morning and evening. aggression levels also rise substantially, both prior and aft of feeding, if the tank has been left alone for a full day. the tank is a 210gal. with petro trewavasae, longola, tembwe, with a few mixed tropheus loners from previous colony failures.
in comparison, i feed my large carnivores once per day, and some only once every 2-3 days.
i was also considering algae wafers as a supplement, but want to stack them in a screened container, to force the petros to suck their portions from it more slowly. my intent, is to offer another food source, that cannot be devoured within minutes of delivery.

 

[areuben]

Geoff,
Thanks for the comments.
I am using the 1mm NLS with a group of golden kazumbas (30)/longolas(10)/simochromis babaulti(12)/goby mix(8) in a 210 - they are all about 3+ inches and it works pretty well with my mixed flake. Been using it with these guys for probably a year/year and a half. Haven't had any issues with the NLS. The larger guys - I'm keeping a mix of moshi (14) with some ubwari (8) and a lone ikola in a 150 and they are all around the 5-6" mark. The ubwari are just about unmanageable, continually having to be put into Q. I like a challenge but it's getting to be a little bit much. I had my moshi tank going with only the moshi and the ikola and all was wonderful - as you can guess I couldn't leave well enough alone and I figured the addition of the ubwari would up the numbers and lessen their aggression and diminish the moshi aggression which I expected to start changing as they got a little bigger - right now they are a great group but the ubwari have been disrupting the tank - they are non stop warriors. I have a 60 acrylic quarantine tank that was made in three sections with an AC500 sponge built into each section. I divide each section diagonally with eggcrate so I can get 2 in a 20G space. I tried a 1mm pellet but they just ignored them pretty much. I have another group of texas gold and trews along with a couple of tricolors - 4-6" in a 6x2 135 and they also get the 3mm dainichi and flake routine. Again, not seeing many conditioned/ripe females on this routine. My last group is a group of famula orange silverstreak fry which I have on flake only at this point and they are growing like weeds.
Lloyd, I am going to wait and hear some more responses, if any, and may just try the algae wafers. I may also keep the amount I am feeding at each interval but go to three feedings/day. Interesting about you finding less aggression with the three feedings. In my situation, my moshi tank faces a basement window and if I keep the lights off on the tank, things settle down pretty quickly if there is a situation as they stop swarming around the tank and hit the rocks for grazing and sifting substrate with everyone doing their own thing.

 

[areuben]

Sorry about the emoticons - don't know how they got in the message - they replaced the number 8 in my message - 8 gobies and 8 ubwari.

 

[geoff_tropheus]

Al when you post check the box that says "Disable smiles in this post" before you hit submit and it will work. There is a automatic function anytime you have the 8) in your text to make it a smile. Kina annoying at time but..oh well..

Dude, you got Petro heaven going on there. I know how you feel with the QT tanks. I have a 20L that I got eggcrate siliconed in to make three dividers for Tropheus QT and timeout. Sometimes those pesky ******** will not give up, but you keep on trying.

I am suprised your Longola are not giving you trouble, but I am guess those are F1's What I am finding so far, is the F1's seem to be growing up much better together and are not so territorial as the wilds are. Just some differences I see so far in the Wild Famula vs. F1 Famula

What ratio do you have in Trewavasae and the Tri-colors?

You got Moshi fry so far? If yes what ratio is the group?