Food question...how much to feed?

[julielynn47]

All I have, at the moment, in my 75 gallon are 3 cories. So I am wondering, how much food a day to feed would be good.

They love algae wafers and I have the shrimp pellets. To be honest I am used to feeding a bunch of fish in a tank...not just 3. I have a tendency to over feed I am afraid.

So I am open to suggestions on how many shrimp pellets is a good number to feed only 3 cories per day?
I know the rule of thumb, only feed what they will consume in 5 minutes, but this cannot apply to shrimp pellets as they are hard, and it just simply takes more time for them to be eaten. So any suggestions to help an overfeeder like myself will be much appreciated.

The rams horn snails are eating holes in my plants in that tank and I need to control their numbers. So I certainly need to do something about my feeding routine, but I don't want to starve my cories.

 

[MattTHEFISHMANROOKIE]

Get some assasin snails, just feed the corys a few pellets until you get more fish.

 

[Byron]

If the three cories are all the fish in the tank, I would feed them one algae wafer on the day you feed this food, and on the shrimp pellet day feed two or three--depending upon the size. I use Omega One shrimp pellets and the pellets are roughly 2/8 or 3/8 of an inch or 4-5 mm. If you have larger pellets, less. Skip a day or two each week.

On the snails, ramshorn have been known to eat live plants according to some members. Pond snails, bladder snails and Malaysian Livebearing do not eat live plants, only dead or dying bits. Assasin snails are a threat to the environment, in the US there are efforts to prohibit them because if they get loose into the ecosystem they can kill off the native snails. So watch that.

Byron.

 

[julielynn47]

I use the same pellets as you do Byron. I feed every other day. I gave them about a half of an algae wafer and 6 shrimp pellets. I started this yesterday. In your opinion is that a good feeding or too much?

I started out with more fish. If anyone remembers, I had 3 pictus catfish...from WalMart and they looked healthy, but obviously weren't...they didn't make it long. I also had 6 cories, 3 from one store and 3 from another..one stores fish lived the other stores fish didn't make it any longer than the pictus. That left me with a powder blue gourami which only lived about 6 months. It looked really healthy from day one. Then one day it was off its feed, sitting on the bottom, or floating near the top and then it was gone.

Anyway, there is some history....and I know I overfeed. Which is probably why the snails are so bad. I am hoping if I cut back on the food they will die off on their own. But I don't want to starve my 3 healthy cories.

 

[Byron]

I use the same pellets as you do Byron. I feed every other day. I gave them about a half of an algae wafer and 6 shrimp pellets. I started this yesterday. In your opinion is that a good feeding or too much?

I would cut back on the shrimp pellets. I have 50 cories in my 70g, and when I feed the shrimp I put in maybe 15-20 max. It takes a few hours for these to be gone, though I suspect some may get eaten by the upper fish; my diamond tetras are aggressive feeders. Even if you are feeding alternate days, it is better to feed less than more at one time.

 

[julielynn47]

Thanks for the suggestion on assassin snails, but I really so not want more snails of any kind right now!