# Feeding Questions



## artlee6 (Mar 7, 2019)

I've had my Africans for a couple weeks now and just had a couple questions about feeding. I have mostly peacocks, a couple haps, and some yellow labs. I've been feeding twice a day. I started with Cobalt Spirulina flakes and recently got New Life Spectrum 1mm pellets. I feed twice a day. Try to keep it under a minute each feeding. I've been doing flakes in the morning and the pellets in the evening. Anyways to get to my question, the Turkis Peacock and Zimbabwe Rock both hang out on the bottom of the tank mostly, even during feeding. So when I'm feeding pellets the rest of the fish that go to top when I put food in seem to eat it all before any sink to the other two. When I feed with the flakes they seem to get broken up into really small pieces and find their way to the bottom and then those two fish will eat. I'd really like to stick with just the NLS pellets, but how can I do that if they don't sink to those other two fish in time?


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Good idea to switch to pellets, and they will get hungry and join the crowd at feeding time after a while. Give it a month.

They are on the timid side...do you have jacobfreibergi peacocks or hybrids in the tank?

Are they colored up well? If not you may eventually have to choose, if their health suffers longer term.


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## artlee6 (Mar 7, 2019)

There are a few hybrids. No jacobfreibergi though. They're all about 3 inches in size but both the z rock and turkis are showing pretty good color. They'll eat if they notice food around them, they just don't swim up to the surface like the rest of them do. Guess I'll give it some time and experiment a bit.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

My peacocks wait for it to fall, but catch it before it lands...at least some.


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## ken31cay (Oct 9, 2018)

My peacocks, haps, and Frontosa are all 5"-8" and I feed once a day. I feed enough Northfin pellets throughout at least two thirds of the tank that even the Frontosa, who eat slower and are strictly bottom feeders, get their fill. The fish take about 4-5 minutes until all the food is eaten. I think I may overfeed but I've been doing this for over a year now and the fish are fine. Though the first 4 weeks or so when I first got them I fed very sparingly giving them ample time to acclimate in order to minimize chances of bloat.


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## Kipnlilo (Feb 23, 2018)

I agree, they'll come around. Just be sure they're not getting picked on. My OB and DB are the first ones to hit the food. Even before a couple larger haps. You have an OB and 3 DB's (all hybrid) according to your stock list. I purposely spoon enough pellets that some hit close to the bottom:for the less aggressors. Six days a week, fast the seventh is my schedule.


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## artlee6 (Mar 7, 2019)

So yesterday and this morning, instead of dropping pellets on the surface, I took a pinch and sort of dunked my hand under the water and released the pellets an inch or two below the surface and they seemed to sink faster, some right away. I did it on the side of the tank that the Turkis as z rock are and some of the pellets made it down to them. So that seemed to work. It doesn't seem like there's any bullying going on when I feed. The OB, the 3 DB's, the labs, the flame tail and the yellow tail acei all come up to the surface and eat next to each other pretty much with no problem. But I'll definitely keep an eye on it. Now I just have to get the portions down. They devoured their pinch of pellets in about 5 seconds this morning. lol


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