Feeding Endlers

[gregswimm]

Last week I got 10 endlers for my 29 planted krib tank. They are doing well with my kribs, but they do not take any food other than adult brine shrimp (which I found very odd). They however do a lot of grazing on the leaves of plants and on my glass. The only dry food I have available is mostly cichlid based food, NLS with 34% protein and with 50%. I also tried some general fry food hikari first bites.

What do you feed your endlers?

 

[Cazgar]

Mine take anything that's offered, flake, micro pellets, they love frozen cyclops

 

[OldMan47]

I feed these guys mostly flake food with a reasonably high protein content.

 

[KittyKat]

They should take all flakes, all live foods (in all forms) that are not too large, suitably sized sinking pellets and eventually suitably sized floating pellets.

The endlers could be getting enough food as it is, or the kribs could be keeping them at bay during feeding (even through the sheer fact of their existence).

 

[HAMBONE]

my endlers eat brine skrimp, flake, pellet and algae pellets..

 

[gregswimm]

Is it ok to feed them that much protein? I read that they are almost pure veggies. They won't catch bloat or anything?

 

[KittyKat]

Is it ok to feed them that much protein? I read that they are almost pure veggies. They won't catch bloat or anything?

Veggies contain protein too (ok, ok, I know it's usually not as much as meat). As far as I am aware, endlers are bog standard omnivores, but in my experience, do have a tendency towards grazing, as do almost all livebearers (basically, with the exception of the ones that do not have mouths for grazing). Also, can you imagine an endler passing up on some mosquito larvae in the wild? I can't. The best diet for any fish is a varied diet with an emphasis on their natural diet, which would include live foods and fish (meaty foods), and veggies (greens). In other words, the trick is to strike the right balance between the two. Also, to prevent constipation (it's not bloat), leaving one day per week without any food works extremely well and I prescribe this for almost all freshwater fish (marine fish have quite a different metabolism, so they have quite different requirements).