Due to an improperly selected diet, even such unassuming fish as Angelfish (also know as Pterophyllum Scalare) can get sick and lose their wonderful appearance. It is important that the diet is varied, and then you will not have to worry about the health of your pets and take complete care of your fish.
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what do angelfish eat in aquarium?
Fish eagerly eat any live food, they are especially useful during the period when Angelfish are spawning. However, this type of feeding has three significant disadvantages:
- it is not always on sale;
- may be spoiled;
- often causes infectious infections.
The microorganisms that fish like to feast on include:
- amphibian and mosquito larvae ;
- copepods and small planktonic crustaceans;
- cores – larvae of non- blood – sucking mosquitoes;
- tubules – small-bristled filamentous worms;
- Mormysh are freshwater amphipods belonging to the arthropod family.
But in natural form, these “food” of Angelfishcannot be served the food is pre-frozen or bought already frozen, with the exception of the tubifex, since after freezing the bodies of crustaceans turn into a continuous mess. It is also dangerous to feed fish with self-caught bloodworms, since there is always a risk of infection.
Can be purchased in specialized stores for mormysh fishermen and freeze yourself. First, the crustaceans are heat-treated in the microwave (for 2 minutes), after they turn red, they are placed in the freezer. Before giving food to fish, it must be thawed and kept at room temperature for some time (food cannot be given cold).
Mormysh is more suitable for large specimens, but it is better not to feed your pets with a dried product (like daphnia). This is the opinion of experienced aquarists, who believe that there is nothing useful in them for ornamental fish.
Other food for feeding Angelfish or Pterophyllum Scalare
At home, it is customary to feed the Angelfish with dry plant food, as well as homemade minced meat. This is necessary for the health of adults and for the rapid growth of young fish.
No less than live, Angelfish, or scalars love dry food (dried daphnia, brine shrimp, Gammarus). They come in the form of flakes and granules, but in the experience of breeders, the fish prefers flakes. In addition, this food does not clog the water in the aquarium. The main advantage of the dried product is a balanced composition containing minerals and vitamins necessary for the body of an aquatic animal. Serve portions should be dosed so that they are completely eaten.
It is important to periodically feed the Angelfish with plant foods that support their immunity and are necessary for normal digestion. To do this, once a week, the fish are given fresh greens of such aquarium plants as:
- liver moss (riccia);
- rootless algae wolfia from the duckweed subfamily;
- flowering aquatic plant – duckweed.
Some aquarists give their wards scalded leaves of white cabbage, lettuce. If the Angelfish refuses the proposed options, the way out will be special food for herbivorous inhabitants of aquariums, produced in granules.
There are some tricks for feeding Angelfish: first, they are given less tasty food, for example, plants, and only then frozen live food, which is a delicacy for them. If you do the opposite, after daphnia or koretra, the pet is unlikely to eat grass or moss. Plants supplement the diet once every 7 days.
Meat Feeding
Along with dry and frozen food, it is useful to diversify the fish menu with beef heart shavings. To do this, you need to cut off the fat from it, wash it thoroughly, and cut it into small pieces. They are taken out of the refrigerator, rubbed on a fine grater, rinsed in a strainer to get rid of blood and small particles that the Angelfish does not eat, pouncing on large pieces. Food is served warm.
Minced meat is also a nutritious organic feed, which, in addition to the beef heart, includes several other components useful for fish:
- dry pharmacy nettle;
- cabbage leaves;
- Bell pepper;
- seafood (squid, mussel, octopus and shrimp).
For 100 g of meat, the same amount of additional components is taken in equal parts, all products are crushed in a meat grinder or blender, mixed well, 1 raw egg is added to the mixture. Then a pancake is formed, which is baked in the microwave for 1-2 minutes. After cooling, it must be placed in the freezer.
An indicator of normal freezing is food that crumbles into small pieces. This is important because large pieces of Angelfish can choke, or even not eat them at all.
By the way, these ingredients can be easily replaced with others: meat and seafood – with the fillet of sea fish, pepper and cabbage – with zucchini, canned corn grains or green peas.
With regard to food, the Angelfish can be extremely picky – what she does not like, she can spit it out. It is especially difficult to accustom her to new dishes. Experienced aquarists recommend repeating attempts and offering food unfamiliar to the fish – after starving for several days, it will still begin to eat the proposed foods.
Specialized food for Angelfish
It is very convenient to feed fish with dry combined mixtures, but it is impossible to completely compose a full-fledged diet from them. Of the ready-made feeds, varieties such as are best suited:
- TetraMin premium;
- Tetra Rubin;
- Sera Vipan.
They are produced as light flakes that are soluble in water. The balanced composition contains all the necessary nutrients, a complex of vitamins and minerals, it is easily absorbed by tropical fish.
For the full development and life of the Angelfish, it is necessary to combine different types of food, alternating live, vegetable, and dry food.
In addition, raw beef and heart can be added to the fish diet as animal food. To do this, keep a small piece of lean meat in the freezer, which is rubbed on a fine grater before feeding and slightly warmed to thaw the product. It is most convenient to prepare pre-chopped meat, packaged in small portions, for example, in ice molds.
Feeding Angelfish with organic food
Like many other cichlids, angelfish love organic food. Alas, it is not always available from breeders. In addition, care must be taken with it, because it can provoke the development of a bacterial infection. Frozen food is the way out of the situation. As ice cream, you can buy daphnia, cyclops, bloodworms, carriages. But the pipe maker cannot be frozen: after defrosting, only a liquid gruel remains from it. Spoiled food, of course, should not be given – there is a risk of spoiling the health of the fish.
Organic food can be fed once a day, which is enough to get the necessary nutrients.
Dry food for Angelfish
Now on the shelves of pet stores, there are many options for dry pelleted food for Angelfish. This balanced diet contains essential nutrients – vitamins, micro, and macro elements. The Angelfish enjoy eating dry flakes, which, by the way, are better than pelleted foods as they pollute the aquarium less.
How Often To Feed Angelfish A Day?
It is important to know that the stomach of the fish is quite small, so the best option is 1-2 feedings per day. It is advisable to feed the fry 3 times a day, as growing organisms need food more. From about 3 months, you can switch to feeding 2 times a day and then at your discretion.
How to feed Angelfish properly?
The feeding regimen is important so that the Angelfish do not feel hungry and at the same time do not overeat. This is due to the fact that a large amount of food is detrimental to the overly small stomach of the fish. Overfeeding leads to a variety of digestive disorders and may even result in the death of the “wards”. If the fish is constantly malnourished, then a dystrophic process may begin, so it is important to dose the food. As for the feeding schedule, it should be as follows:
- to feed the fry, you need to give them food 3 times a day, at about 3 months young fish are transferred to two meals a day;
- in the future, adults eat 2 or 1 times a day, it all depends on their size and appetite, but it is important that they eat the food in 2-3 minutes;
- dry and live food must be alternated with herbal supplements, the main thing is that the wards do not overeat, for this they should arrange a fasting day once a week, that is, do not feed at all.
With regard to feeding the babies that have appeared, it is necessary to start with ciliates and boiled yolk – this is the best food for them, from which they quickly develop and grow. The boiled product is kept in the freezer, when it is time to eat, they take it out, break off a piece and brush it over it with a brush, which is rinsed in a jar of water.
Then they wait until the yolk particles settle, drain the water and pour in fresh water, as a result, it should get rid of the turbidity and become clean. Then the remaining particles and a small amount of water are poured onto the compressor bubbles, and the fry eat them until they settle to the bottom.
Since the yolk is capable of polluting the water, caring for the fry consists in constantly purifying the water, by the way, ampullia, snails that perfectly clean the bottom, can help with this. In addition to “live dust” and eggs, you can buy special dry mixes for juveniles, and after a week the fry are transferred to gill-footed crustaceans – brine shrimp.
High-quality nutrition is an important aspect of the maintenance of Angelfish, which allows you to maintain the health of the fish and increase their life up to 10 years.
Minced meat recipe for Angelfish
100 g grind beef heart without fat in a blender (meat grinder) or grate frozen. Grind cabbage, carrots, bell peppers (preferably red), dried nettle leaves (available at the pharmacy). The choice of herbal ingredients can be anything – that is at hand. By volume – the same as hearts. Mix everything, add one raw egg and beat well.
Pour the mixture onto a regular plate and microwave for 2 minutes. You should make a cake. It remains to cool it down, pack it in a bag and send it to the freezer. If the ingredients have not been ground until smooth, then the cake will most likely crumble into pieces. That’s exactly what happened to me. The main thing is to make sure that you do not come across very huge pieces. The fish may choke, or there will simply be no one to eat them.
Canned green peas and corn can be added as herbal ingredients. You can pamper your fish with squid, shrimp. Replace the heart with fish, preferably sea fish. Or buy a “sea cocktail” – a kind of set of shrimp, squid and mussels. All this can become components of minced meat for Angelfish. I think that it is not the essence of what to mix in the minced meat. All of these products are good. The main thing is to ensure that the Angelfish appreciate your work and recognize this mess as food! This will require some persistence.
Large Angelfish can be fed with morms. I buy live mormysh in winter in a shop for fishermen. Mormysh can be frozen immediately. But I came up with an even more reliable way to preserve it and disinfect it. I wash the mormysh in running water, filter it through a colander, squeeze it and send it to the microwave for 2 minutes. Then I mix and turn on the microwave for another 2 minutes. During this time, the mormysh turns red it is practically cooked. Now you can freeze it and give it to the fish as needed. The Angelfish eat the red mormysh more readily than the usual raw gray color.
And the last thing: do not feed the fish, especially the Angelfish, with dried daphnia and dried mormys! This is not food for aquarium fish! Only live-bearers can stretch on such a feed. There is nothing useful in it. Moreover, a full-fledged healthy fish cannot be grown on it.
If you live in the city, it is not a problem to buy balanced dry food in cereals. It is better for villagers to catch live food on their own in the summer and freeze it, thus preparing food for the fish for the future practically until the next season. Of course, I myself do not catch daphnia and bloodworms. In the summer, when it is cheaper, I buy fresh Daphnia and Cyclops from the market. I stuff it in plastic bags and send it to the freezer. In winter, the same feed would have to buy the second more expensive. Why not take care of him in season?
