# How many live brine shrimp can my convicts eat per day?



## shamootie (Dec 27, 2011)

I also feed my convicts a flake and a pelett food along with blood worms ... i just created my own brine shrimp hatchery so i can feed them (and the fry they will have) live brine. they seem to eat just as much as i put in there, everytime ... i love watching them hunt down the brine ... very cool.

My question is along with the other supplemental food i feed them, how many live brine is ok to feed them in a day? Here are my tank perameters

My tank.
ph 8.0
nh3/nh4 = 0
no2 = 0
no3 =0

1 male convict
2 female convicts
1 5.5in pleco
3 in rainbow shark

45 gallon tank w/ lots of rocky caves & caverns, fake plants and sand bottom

weekly water changes


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## shamootie (Dec 27, 2011)

with all of the overly opinionated people that comment on this forum, i thought at least one person would have some kind of expertise that they could lend on the topic.


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## Chubbs the Jellybean (Jun 16, 2009)

I think I'd just use common sense and give a proportionately small amount. Brine shrimp should be used more as a treat anyways (which I'm sure you know).


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## jd lover (Mar 11, 2011)

ditch the bloodworm and brine shrimp. i feed my cons 2x a day pellet in the morning and flakes at night. and they only get brine shrimp and bloodworms on weekend. its their "candy bars"


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## shamootie (Dec 27, 2011)

thanks jd


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## aquariam (Feb 11, 2010)

Bloodworms are fairly useless to them other than as a source of fat. I'd stick to mostly a quality pellet like New Life spectrum for their 95% diet and throw in the brineshrimp as a treat. Frozen mysis shrimp would be more nutritious to them than fresh brineshrimp. If the brineshrimp were gutloaded with something it'd help, but since cons will eat anything they can swallow there's no point to that either. It's a good environmental enrichment thing for them to chase down brineshrimp but it should be a smaller part of their diet.


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## shamootie (Dec 27, 2011)

thanks *aquariam* i appreciate the advice


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## BillD (May 17, 2005)

aquariam said:


> Bloodworms are fairly useless to them other than as a source of fat. I'd stick to mostly a quality pellet like New Life spectrum for their 95% diet and throw in the brineshrimp as a treat. Frozen mysis shrimp would be more nutritious to them than fresh brineshrimp. If the brineshrimp were gutloaded with something it'd help, but since cons will eat anything they can swallow there's no point to that either. It's a good environmental enrichment thing for them to chase down brineshrimp but it should be a smaller part of their diet.


Bloodworms are not fatty. They are about .7%fat and 5% protein.


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## bwestgsx06 (Sep 21, 2011)

only thing Im gonna say is most likely one of your female convicts will probably get killed if/when the male and other female pair off. They will chase her around once the eggs are laid and just try to kill her :/


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## SVanzella (Feb 15, 2012)

I think it really depends on the keeper. Everyone with have different opinions on how much to feed them, what to feed them, and when to feed them. As long as you vary their diet there shouldn't be any problems as I have never heard of Convicts being picky eaters.

I personally feed my C.A. cichlids twice a day with pellets, and substitute one of the feedings of pellets with some sort of frozen food every couple of days. As long as you are not feeding them the same thing day in and day out, they'll be happy and healthy.


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## SVanzella (Feb 15, 2012)

I agree with BWEST, you should try and find another male the same size. Either that or wait until two pair off and then try and sell the other one or see if your LFS will take her.


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## PfunMo (Jul 30, 2009)

I think for the first question of how many they CAN eat, there may be a point missing. They CAN and WILL eat as many as you throw in. Fish are set up in nature so that they never find too much food so they will eat when they find it. It will often just come out the other end and they keep eating. The bigger question is how much you want to feed versus how much waste, you and your filters can deal with processing. Most people settle for feeding less and working less than the fish want to eat. That's where it is often funny to read about feeding only what the fish will eat in X amount of time. Some of my fish would eat the whole tub full in three minutes, others like angelfish may take a full minute to chase down and eat three flakes. It's all a judgement call.


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## SVanzella (Feb 15, 2012)

PfunMo said:


> I think for the first question of how many they CAN eat, there may be a point missing. They CAN and WILL eat as many as you throw in. Fish are set up in nature so that they never find too much food so they will eat when they find it. It will often just come out the other end and they keep eating. The bigger question is how much you want to feed versus how much waste, you and your filters can deal with processing. Most people settle for feeding less and working less than the fish want to eat. That's where it is often funny to read about feeding only what the fish will eat in X amount of time. Some of my fish would eat the whole tub full in three minutes, others like angelfish may take a full minute to chase down and eat three flakes. It's all a judgement call.


Agreed.


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## shamootie (Dec 27, 2011)

good advice thanks guys!


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## BillD (May 17, 2005)

PfunMo said:


> I think for the first question of how many they CAN eat, there may be a point missing. They CAN and WILL eat as many as you throw in. Fish are set up in nature so that they never find too much food so they will eat when they find it. It will often just come out the other end and they keep eating. The bigger question is how much you want to feed versus how much waste, you and your filters can deal with processing. Most people settle for feeding less and working less than the fish want to eat. That's where it is often funny to read about feeding only what the fish will eat in X amount of time. Some of my fish would eat the whole tub full in three minutes, others like angelfish may take a full minute to chase down and eat three flakes. It's all a judgement call.


This is mostly true. However, in nature fish spawning often takes place during times of high food concentration. This is to ensure that there is lots of food for fry to survive. An extreme case of this is with the annual killies. Their environment exists for a short time each year, so they have to grow quickly to ensure survival of the species. When water is present, the same situation occurs for the prey species the killies live on. These fish will hatch, go on an eating spree and within a few months reach adulthood, and spawn.
My personal experience with feeding large amounts of live food each spring is that while fish will gorge them selves, most will eventually stop. I keep live daphnia and assorted other aquatic larvae in front of all my fish 24/7 for several weeks each spring. The growth rate with young fish is incredible, but as mentioned above, the maintenance also increases because of the extra waste.
Studies done in aquaculture have shown that if you reduce a fish's optimum diet by 70%, it will still grow, albeit slowly. My experience growing out angels is that very high feeding rates ( BBS only for the first 5 weeks) will result in rapid growth, allowing egg to quarter size in as little as 8 weeks. This only works if accompanied with very clean water, which means large daily water changes. 
The other consideration when feeding live or frozen foods is that being around 90% water, it takes about 10 times the volume of a nutrient dense dry food that is only 10% water, to equalize the feeding.


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