Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My pellets all float - at least for a while. I reckon my fish would often prefer a pellet that sinks. Because my fish seem to stay in one part of the pond (eventhought the pond is small), any food that gets away from this part (either floating or sunken) often will not get eaten. I find myself fetching it out and chucking it back into the area where they eat. I probably should rig up some sort of feeding ring. Hopefully when I start moving back to shade cloth and getting rid of most of the panda, they will become accustomed to light again and will be happier feeding all around the pond.

My fish definately prefer a slowly sinking food - Barra dont feed off of the bottom

AM, I have seen a couple of mine eat as the food hits the bottom, but rarely are there any pellets that make it much past the surface.

Reminds me of these old pics. I miss having the perch in the aquarium

I love the one with the little bloke with his head out of the water.

Awww aint they so cute!! Just makes me want to eat them.

In the third pic - the perch is actually eating a pellet out of my fingers.

Still my favourite pics on the forum VB

Old thread revival alert

My silvers have stopped eating the last couple of days and today with the tank at 28/9 C they are cruising around slowly and near the surface sometimes, which is not what they normally do. Usually they scoot to the other side of the tank in the shadows as soon as I lift the lid.
Have put up the shade cloth over the hoophouse that covers the system and added 3 more air stones.
The tank has never been this warm before so guessing it has shocked them a bit
Any ideas

How have you got your tank temps up that high Mantis...

Check your pH as well...

Edited: Just checked... and you have an upper level low developing Mantis... the Silvers have probably reacted to the barometric pressure drop...

I have had the shadecloth off the hoophouse over winter/spring and the temp has just crept up. Another thing that coincides with the stopping of eating was a fairly large top up from the rainwater tanks, but this hasnt effected them before.

Water tests amm/nitrite zero and ph 7

fantastic pics!

if your fish prefer "sinking" feed and all you have is floating, you can hydrate it to get it to sink..
i did this to get my first batch of fish on floating pellets..
i used a 1 gallon ziplock bag, put a cup of pellets in, and maybe a half cup of water.. close the bag and put in the fridge, turn the bag over every now and again..
after a few hours or the next day, when you go to feed with the wet pellets, give them a light squeeze and they'll sink.. experiment a little and you'll be able to get them to sink slower..
feed this way for a couple days then add a little dry food when you go to feed...
add more dry as you go and pretty soon, you'll just be using dry floating pellets (it took me a couple weeks to get my yp eating floating pellets)

They get a mix of sinking and floating and have been cleaning up the lot. Again today they havent touched it. Weird, and its been 3 days now