Jumbo sinking fish food

We feed our pacu almost an exclusive diet of pond pellets. For over seven years feeding them has been a hassle, and this year it has developed into a serious problem for us. The pellets have been going faster and faster into the overflow box. We've put up foam "bumpers" around both overflow boxes which worked somewhat until one tore off. I started turning off the return pump from the wet/dry filter, waiting 15 minutes, then turning off the pump to the mechanical filtration, and then feeding our two fish. Our fish are so big, that one slap of a tail sent about 30 pellets into the slots of the overflow box yesterday. I recently bought 10 pounds of New Life Spectrum sinking food for large fish. The 3mm pellets are so microscropic, our fish can't see them, and the food sinks to the bottom like debris on the floor. This is a problem that we have to remedy before our fish are moved to their big tank. The big tank has 1/2" square grids that the water will be passing through to enter the overflow boxes. We're already having a major problem with food entering the small slots of the overflow box on the 300 gallon tank. Floating food would be a horrific nightmare in the big tank.

Came up with a semi-homemade food solution....Pond Pellets and NLS pellets mixed together with agar agar dissolved in boiling water.





Each chunk starts sinking immediately and makes a good mouthful for my boys. No more food in the filter system!!!! Happy!!!

Our fish are voracious eaters, and I don't know if they have a stopping point when it comes to eating. We were way overfeeding them with the new food which they love. Probably gave them six to ten times more than what they usually consumed before the pond pellets went down the overflow box. We became aware of the magnitude of our overfeeding when we had a power outage that lasted all day. The new generator had a problem, and it took ALL day to get it running. When I came home, the generator was running, and my husband was doing a water change. "WHY ARE YOU DOING A WATER CHANGE when the only hot water we have is what is left in the water heater?" The electrical man told me to go look at the fish tank "the water looks like peanut butter".

I freaked out when I saw the water. "WE HAVE A MASSIVE BACTERIAL BLOOM. OUR FISH ARE GOING TO DIE." With the mechanical filters working for the first time in 10 hours, a few minutes later I noticed that the water was starting to clear up. I also noticed that the water was not peanut butter colored, but a brown red color--the red color of the NLS pellets!!! My poor boys were swimming in their unflushed full toilet.

As much as they like to eat, and as much as we like to feed them and watch them eat, we've cut way back on their feeding. I learned how really well our mechanical filtration with spa filters works. The filters remove a ton of stuff that we never saw until the filters were off.

Vanimal said:

Why not feed veggies?


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Several reasons: First, with pellets, I am assured that they are getting the nutrients that they need (a balanced diet). Second, the water gets really fouled because they are messy eaters. No mess with pellets. Here's old video of them eating potato slices. You can see all the potato debris in the water. Yes, the mechanical filtration will clear it up, but why pollute the water twice? We feed them grapes/potatos/veggies on a very rare occasion, usually to put on a show for guests. Once, we gave them unlimited watermelon, and got an ammonia reading. It just doesn't make sense to me to feed them something that is going to foul the water and probably doesn't have all the nutrients that they need. It's all about simplicity.

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My fish are pigs/gluttons--they will eat anything/everything. They inhaled almonds without even chewing. I stopped giving them almonds for fear that even if the almonds didn't foul up their plumbing, the tank plumbing might get jammed. They can swallow grapes whole, too. They have voracious appetites. I guess it's a water quality issue. It is much easier to maintain good water parameters when our fish eat pellets then when they eat fruit and veggies. And I don't have to worry about whether they are getting adequate nutrition.