feeding cacatuoides

[orcun]

first of all,sorry about my english(its not so good)
I am new to forum and apisto's and I have a question,I will be glad if you answer;
got my first apisto's(cacatuoides) 3 days ago,they are 1-2 cm long,
how can I feed them?
I cant find live food and I have tetra bits now,is it a good choice for them?
which food will be the best?(brand name and kind please)

 

[farm41]

You should be able to get them some frozen food, they'll eat frozen brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, bloodworms. They will eat flakes once acustomed to it.

Of course live is best, but most don't feed live.

 

[cootwarm]

If they don't take dry food, you can feed them baby brine shrimp (BBS) until you can wean them on dry food. At 1 to 2 cm they'll still go crazy over BBS.

When I feed dry food, I usually give them vitamin enriched flake food. I feed even the adult apistos BBS often (about once every 2 or 3 days) and I also feed them white worms occasionally (about once a week).

Michael

 

[orcun]

thank you for your replies...

 

[Neil]

orcun,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

If you even have trouble getting some of the frozen foods Matt mentions, you can get them to eat some crushed flake foods. You just have to find one they like (or at least will accept). I have had alot of luck with OSI marine flake. Most of my apistos seem to go for it more readily than most other flake foods and it has a very good suppliment of all vits and minerals.

Good luck,
Neil

 

[Christine-FishGrrl]

i feed my A. cacatoides flake food (i mix OSI marine veggie flake, OSI brine shrimp flake, and earthworm and egg flake), several types of frozen food, and I have a culture of grindal worms on hand too. They happily eat all of it but love the live and frozen worms the best.

 

[orcun]

I have frozen bloodworms now and cacatuoides are doing well with them,
I will also buy some OSI marine flake and OSI brine shrimp flake as you advice
thank you all for your help,my fish are now happy

 

[fishboy20]

I have never had an Apisto take to prepared foods very well. Frozen and live always seem like the best option. Of course you have to make sure to mix it up quite a bit when doing that. I would have to agree with the Baby Brine Shrimp, regular brine shrimp, if you can find sm. bloodworms try them, you might even want to find some live foods for them. You might wait til the weather warms up a bit but you could do a mail order for some live foods. I have daphnia if you wanted me to send you some. Just mix the diet as much as possible. Smaller foods are better at that size. In the meantime I would probably use the baby brine for most of the feedings until they grow.

 

[orcun]

I am from Turkey and it is nearly impossible to find live food here(of course there are some live foods like worms but I dont think they are healthy because most of them are collected from fens/marshes.
when I first bought my cacatuoides I feed them with these worms,now some of the fish are rubbing their stomach to the gravel I don't exactly know if the worms did this or not.
maybe the worms caused some parasites so I don't want to feed them with these worms anymore.
I can find some artemia eggs and hatch them,do cacatuoides eat newly hatched artemia? is it the thing that you talk as baby brine shrimp?
and what is the difference between artemia and daphnia?its ok I mean which one is better for my fish
Fishboy,I found OSI flake foods and I will get some.
and also I will search the way to get some live food by mail order as you said. I will be glad if you send me some daphnia as a starter culture.

do you have any suggestions for rubbing?Do I need to put some salt or some medicals?

thank you all for your replies they are very useful for me as a beginner to apistos

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Orcan,

Artemia (BBS) -> http://petfish.net/artemia.htm

daphnia -> http://petfish.net/daph.htm

Can you get white worm & grindle worm cultures from your local fish store (LFS)?
Cultures are easy to grow and you don't need to worry about parasites from them.

White worm cultures -> http://www.livefoodcultures.com/whiteworms.html

You might want to post the health issue on the Dwarf Cichlid Health Forum.

Michael

 

[Christine-FishGrrl]

I never give any fish live tubifex or black worms - even from 'safe' sources you'll occasionally get a batch loaded with parasites. I do give mine frozen tubifex which have been sterilized as part of the processing.

My wild-caught cacatoides didn't want the flake food at first but as soon as he saw the other fish eating it, he went after it with gusto. :roll: If you don't mind chopping up earthworms from your garden, you can feed them that too.

 

[mikewang]

Hi, i feed my apisto cacatoides tetra colorbits. after a week, i saw color differences. the colors of my apistos become more rich and bright.

i also feed all my fish along with my cacatoides, frozen brine shrimp, frozen blood worms, flakes. i plan on getting some shrimp pellets and hopefully live brine shrimp.