# food for small fish



## hollowpoint (Aug 26, 2014)

Hi Guys, 

I've added a number of small fish to my 30gallon shrimp tank:

4x Galaxy Rasbora
4x Strawberry Rasbora
10x Corydora Pygmy

My question is what do I feed the fish? None of these fish come to the surface to eat, so floating food just sits up there. 

The Cory's eat shrimp pellets off the bottom so I am not concerned about them. But the Galaxy's and Strawberry's seem to want food suspended in the water near the bottom. I suspect they would rather hunt than scavenge. Is there anything that you can think of that would be good for them?

Thanks!


----------



## Kimchi24 (Mar 22, 2013)

try live food like micro worms. im sure they would love those.


----------



## pyrrolin (Jan 11, 2012)

for small fish I crush up the flake food and it quickly starts to sink


----------



## Bullet (Apr 19, 2014)

I agree that crushed flakes are good for those fish 

Frozen baby brine shrimp is also good


----------



## hollowpoint (Aug 26, 2014)

pyrrolin said:


> for small fish I crush up the flake food and it quickly starts to sink


Thanks for the suggestion. I stopped by Big Al's tonight and one of the fellows there gave me the same advice, and demonstrated how to toss the flakes in under the water line so they would not sit on the surface.

Good suggestions.


----------



## Bigdaddyo (Jan 23, 2010)

Grindle worms would work great for both the danios and rasboras. The Cory's would only be to happy to scavenge the left overs.


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I've kept all these and have the latter two species now. There are several things they'll eat. Worms for sure, they love those, but you can't feed worms daily, they're pretty fatty. Great for fry as daily food but for adults, best only a few times weekly.

Another choice, if you can get some, would be be Golden Pearls; the 5- 50 micron size. I get them from the guy with the truck who comes around.

Hikari micro pellets for mid level feeders are very good also, Al's has those. I forget precisely what Hikari calls them on the package, but if you read the label, it says the pellets suit fish who feed mid level, just like your danios, rasboras and the cories too. The tiny pellets sink, quite slowly, so mid level feeders can catch them. These fish will also feed from the bottom, they'll follow pellets down and take them even after they hit bottom. 

It's just surface floating stuff they tend to ignore, as you have found. If you can swirl it around so it starts to sink faster, they'll probably take most flakes too. I have them in a tank with fan shrimp and I feed the shrimp some NLS Small Fry starter. It's very finely powdered and once it is swirled in the water, all the fish go for it too.

Any idea what sexes your Strawberries are ? Not that hard to distinguish except that they move so much and are so small. Both sexes have a black blotch on the side. Larger in males than females, noticeably so. Males also more slender & brighter colour to the fins. Females have less colour & are a bit larger with a rounder underline. I'm just curious. I rather hope mine might breed at some point, but I'm afraid I may have too many males in the mix for them to be content enough to breed.


----------



## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

I feed frozen baby brine shrimp.


----------



## hollowpoint (Aug 26, 2014)

I think I have 3 male strawberries, and 1 female. They may all be males though, and they are by far the most shy in the community, always staying close to the shrubs and almond leaves. When Shrimp Fever gets some more strawberries in I plan to add about 10 more so I can get a little school going. I bet that would make them feel safer. 

Thanks for the food suggestions!


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

I have, I think, about 18 of them. They stick together most of the time, quite tight schooling, but now and then I see one or two investigating off by themselves. Not for too long though.
Charming little things, aren't they ? I have them in with a lot of shrimp and some dwarf chain loaches. The loaches all stick together, and the strawberries all stick together, pretty much. It's interesting to watch them swim as a group from one area to another. It would be pretty cool to have about 30 or more in a bigger tank.


----------



## hollowpoint (Aug 26, 2014)

How big is your tank now? (trying to gauge how many fish I can keep in my 30 Gallon).


----------



## Fishfur (Mar 4, 2012)

10 G. It has a mini AC, but with a AC50 impeller running in it. It will be nice when I can finally put my larger tanks back up.. one of which is a 33G, more or less. With the exception of the loaches, everything in the 10G was living in a 5G up to just a few weeks ago. Space is cramped thanks to landlord issues that have been plaguing me since April, so I've had little choice but to do a lot of water changes and watch things closely. Shrimp, thankfully, have far less bioload than fish do.


----------

