Correct Pellet Size

[RD.]

Not to pick on Dwayne, but now that his ad is in the archives I thought it might be best if I addressed the issue of pellet sizes when feeding fish.

The 3 mm size is good, I find, for fish two inches long (5 cm) and up.

One of the biggest mistakes that I see/read with regards to pellet food (no matter the brand) is feeding a pellet that is too large for the fish to swallow whole. Large fish can eat small pellets (they just have to work a bit harder at it), but if the pellet size is too large for the fish, they will usually spit it back out, or worse, expel a large portion of the pellet into the water column while chewing. Obviously this not only means adding unwanted pollution to your tank, but over the long haul it's not very cost effective.

The key is to use a pellet size that allows the fish to swallow it whole.

As an example, I have fish that range in size from 2-7" in one of my tanks, and they all eat 1mm sized pellets. Very little food is lost to the water from the smaller fish, and the larger fish don't waste a single morsel. While 1mm pellets may seem rather tiny for a 7" fish, an ounce of 1mm pellets will provide the same amount of nutrients as an ounce of 3mm pellets, and will provide even more if the fish swallows the 1mm pellets whole, vs chewing & expelling a portion of each 3mm pellet.

HTH

Edited March 15, 2007 by RD.

[JORG]

I agree I thought the 1mm was to small for my 4'' to 5'' D. dimidiatus's and picked up some 3mm and all they did was fill up thier mouth's and chew away till you could see small particles flying out of thier gill plates so I went back to the 1 mm( any chance of a 2mm in the future RD ? )

[dcookcan]

I think the 1 mm pellets are great for my earth eaters. They love to sift through the sand all day anyway.

But how realistic is it for central and south American bruisers? I have a breeding pair of JDs alone in a tank with their fry. They are around 4 - 5". When they are fed the 1 mm, they rarely get more than a few pellets before they are lost in the gravel and I don't have time to drop 2 to 3 pellets at a time until they are done eating. (They are getting the nutrition they need with nls, as this is all I have been feeding them - they have fry now and their colours are much more vivid than pre nls.)

Edited March 15, 2007 by dcookcan

[RD.]

Sorry, it doesn't sound like there will ever be a 2mm pellet put out by NLS.

Gravel is always a problem when using smaller sinking pellets, so in that case, such as for larger CA & SA species, you really have no choice but to use one of the larger sinking or floating formulas. This would apply no matter what brand one uses. Of course using sand as your substrate would resolve that issue, but I understand that not everyone is keen on using sand.

[HOSStile]

Sorry, it doesn't sound like there will ever be a 2mm pellet put out by NLS.

Gravel is always a problem when using smaller sinking pellets, so in that case, such as for larger CA & SA species, you really have no choice but to use one of the larger sinking or floating formulas. This would apply no matter what brand one uses. Of course using sand as your substrate would resolve that issue, but I understand that not everyone is keen on using sand.

That is eactly the reason I feed 3 mm to my discus, they are never in a hurry to get to the food while it sinks and 1 mm is too small for them to pick out of the gravel.

[CalgaryFan]

Yeah having gravel and sinking pellets would kind of blow, I have been feeding my Bolivian Ram 1mm nls pellets, they just sink and land on the top of the sand and the ram see's them when he's swimming around and eats them.

[punman]

The only down side to small pellets I find, is that they sometimes get blown to bits in the current of the filters. I don't want to turn the filters off because sometimes I forget to turn them back on.

[RD.]

Blown to bits???

I run 3 AC 500's on a 125 & drop the pellets directly in front of the center AC output, and I only feed 1mm pellets in that tank. They get blown around the water column & substrate, but they certainly don't get blown to bits.

My only reason for starting this thread was to make sure that people understood that when you feed a pellet size too large for the fish to swallow whole, some of that pellet is going to waste.

The 5 1/2" hap shown below, still eats 1mm pellets as his sole source of nutrition, and as you can clearly see he certainly isn't suffering.

[FishBrain]

I usually mix the two sizes and drop them in, that way somew of the larger fish (bala sharks) get 3mm and the smaller get 1mm or they can pick and choose.

I find they end up grabbing both anyhow

[Vallisneria]

I also find that the larger 3mm pellets end up dirtying the water more then the 1mm. The fish grab as many as they can fit in their mouths and then begin to chew them and out comes a bunch of pellet bits into the water. This doens't happen when I feed the 1mm. My fish are africans ranging from 2" to 6".

I also find with the smaller pellets its easier not to over feed the fish. When I feed the 3mm pellets a couple fish end up gorging themselves to the point they can hardly close their mouths before all the other fish have gotten their share. With the 1mm pellets all the fish get about the same and no one of "over stuffed".

I can see how the larger pellets would be better for large CA cichlids but for most fish the 1mm pellets work great. I feed the 1mm to all my tanks without any problems.

[dcookcan]

Sorry, it doesn't sound like there will ever be a 2mm pellet put out by NLS.

Gravel is always a problem when using smaller sinking pellets, so in that case, such as for larger CA & SA species, you really have no choice but to use one of the larger sinking or floating formulas. This would apply no matter what brand one uses. Of course using sand as your substrate would resolve that issue, but I understand that not everyone is keen on using sand.

I have been changing over to sand. I only have one tank left that has gravel, it just happens to be where the CA cichlids are kept. I try to drop the pellet over a large flat rock so that they have a chance to eat them after they hit bottom.

[hanner944]

i fed my african tank 1mm. even the 11.5 venestus thrives on the 1mm.

i agree with neil's reason for this post.

-paul