Ideal Diet For Variatus Platys?

[FishLover4+1]

i currently have 3 v. platys in a 20 gal temperate tank. they live on 'all-in-one' flakes and the algae that is taking over my tank (help!). what should i be feeding them??? and i also have a 1.5cm v. platy fry who is living on baby flakes. thank you. (im a bit of a beginner)

 

[Akasha72]

platies will eat anything from flake to algae to frozen food of any kind. Basicly, I find mine will eat just about anything!

They love frozen bloodworms, frozen daphnia, dried tubiflex, algae wafers, catfish pellets, my plants ...

 

[OldMan47]

Just vary the diet a bit .I feed mostly general purpose flake to platies but once in a while I feed spirulina flake and at other times I feed frozen foods like brine shrimp or daphnia. No single food is ever ideal for any fish. Let me make that a flat out statement. No fish ever is perfectly matched to any single food, no matter how well made it is. I try to always buy a different brand and type every time I buy more flake because I figure it may well contain something that was missing in the prior batch. A recent lecture that I attended suggested using nothing but commercial fish food made for use by fish farmers who sell their fish as human food. The idea was that it is more complete than other foods but even that guy, who runs a fish farm producing ornamental fish, admitted that he varies his feeding both based on time of day and from day to day. He feeds most fish a little bit several times each day and I must say, from the fish he brought to the convention, he does produce some amazing fish.

 

[FishLover4+1]

ok thanks so if i got some frozen brineshrimp or something simalar and fed once a week instead of their normal food and then another time on algae wafer??? or is that getting too compolicarted???

 

[OldMan47]

It is not at all too complicated, at least to me. A nice meaty addition to a feeding regime along with a more or less vegetarian feeding is a good way to mix things up. Your fish will prosper beyond what about any single food enthusiast will ever expect.

 

[Akasha72]

I tend to mix it up a bit with mine. Their breakfast consists of flake and catfish pellets (for my cories but I often see a platy being chased around with a pellet in it's mouth!)
Then their evening feed is rotated. I feed frozen bloodworm, frozen daphnia & dried tubiflex which I stick to the glass. I also add cooked peas and courgette slices. They will fight over the peas and the odd one will nip at the courgette.

If you sit and watch your platies they will be nibbling all day. Their normal behaviour is to spend the day nibbling on algae and any bit of missed food.

Hope that helps you a bit more

 

[FishLover4+1]

thanks when i go to my lfs (probably some time next week) i'll get some brineshrimp of daphina or something.

 

[Akasha72]

They will love you for it

I find plenty of live foods (as in frozen live food - bloodworms, daphnia etc) helps their colour. They seem brighter in colour after live food.

Quick tip for you: If you get the frozen blister packs defrost it in a cup of tank water and use a turkey baster or syringe to squirt a little in at a time. The daphnia especially is in tiny bits and it'll settle in your plants and substrate if you put it all in a once. I also find by adding a bit at a time everyone gets some instead the greedy ones stealing the lot

 

[FishLover4+1]

thanks Akasha27 i'm having some issues with my biggest platy stealing all the flakes i put in and she's getting a bit porky - can i make her lose weight without underfeeding the others??? the problem is she's bigger and faster than the others.

 

[FishLover4+1]

today ive finally got some brineshrimp for my v. platys. i'm thinking if on sunday mornings they have algae wafer and sunday night they get the brineshrimp.

 

[Akasha72]

thanks Akasha27 i'm having some issues with my biggest platy stealing all the flakes i put in and she's getting a bit porky - can i make her lose weight without underfeeding the others??? the problem is she's bigger and faster than the others.

Catch 22 on this one. You cut down and she'll still steal more and your other fish will go hungry. I know what it's like - I have one platy myself that's a real greedy so and so. She's not porky, just a greedy bully. You could try sprinkling a bit of flake at one side of the tank, wait for her to go get it then sprinkle a bit at the opposite side to confuse her. They are cleverer than we give them credit for. The other fish will soon realise that there's more coming in a different place and will manage to get fed.

I had issues in the beginning with getting the pellets to my cories as the platies and guppies would steal them and the cories would go without. Now the pellets go in first (they used to go in last), I watch for the platies to go for them then in goes the flake! That way by the time they've eaten the flake the cories have had some pellets

 

[FishLover4+1]

cool will do
they loved the brineshrimp but thre was too much in the packet so i gave the rest to my sisters goldfish

 

[OldMan47]

Goldfish are far more vegetarian in their nature than most platies. If you have an excess of things like duckweed, as I often do, feed that to the goldfish. They love the stuff. Feeding them live foods is a waste.

 

[FishLover4+1]

hmm wonder if i could save the platys some for next week....

oh and oldman47, plants like that last about 3 minutes.

 

[slimeneo]

I sort of have a similar question too, I know they like frozen bloodworms, but I bought some freeze-dried bloodworms and they weren't THAT happy to eat them.... at first I just put a whole worm in there, but they didn't really eat it so I had to break it apart in smaller parts. Is it just that they're not used to it, or.. is it not the same as FROZEN bloodworms?