Food for Phyllonemys typus

plesner · Post by **plesner** » 29 Sep 2003, 11:48

What do you feed your Phyllonemus typus ? I've tried all kinds of foods, but so far they're less than interested in anything but frozen artemia (adult).

Any ideas will be appreciated.

Post by **Dinyar** » 29 Sep 2003, 12:10

Everything from flakes to pellets to spirilunia to frozen food to worms.

If yours are new, they may need a settling in period. Feed worms and brine shrimp and gradually add a quality flake.

Dinyar

plesner · Post by **plesner** » 29 Sep 2003, 19:28

Thanks for your reply.

I've had them for 3 weeks. They're 6 cm/2Â½ inches long. I bought them from a couple of German breeders who told me they gave them adult brine shrimp and Tetra Rubin (a good quality flake). I've been unable to talk them into even considering eating the flakes.

Maybe a stupid question but what kind of worms would you suggest ?

Apart from micro worms which of course would be way too small, I can't think of any suitable worms - at least not any which would be available here. Unless of course you mean live worms like those you can find when you dig in your garden. Once it was possible to get tubifex worms here, but that must be something like 8 or 10 years ago.

Post by **Silurus** » 29 Sep 2003, 19:31

Maybe a stupid question but what kind of worms would you suggest ?

You can try bloodworms. I'm sure your LFS would at least have frozen ones.

Sid Guppy · Post by **Sid Guppy** » 29 Sep 2003, 21:18

Phyllonemus can be tricky when getting used to a new home. Mine didn't show up for a solid month (!), and they definitely didn't have much leftovers at night (that tank was riddled with Syno's too).

They slowly got used to a wide arrange of food. These days they pick up whole tabs to drag them to their cave, doesn't matter wich kind of tab!

But me too, experienced them being fussy at first. They can go for weeks on end with little or no food, so no worries.
Just be sure not to overfeed them. All that non-eaten food can mess up the water, and that IS a problem.
skip a day or so with feeding and then, just before lights go down!, feed some cyclops or bloodworms or so. IME they prefer small prey, and I rarely feed bloodworms because it's "bad food" AFAI'm concerned. Sort of "MacSnack" for fish.

I prefer crustaceans, white and black mosquitolarvae and good quality flake and tab, including spirulina.

plesner · Post by **plesner** » 29 Sep 2003, 23:33

I don't use bloodworms for several reasons. First I'm VERY allergic to them, secondly having learned where they come from, I'd never use it as food. Finally when I did use it (10+ years ago), I lost quite a few fish to a condition which very much resembled dropsy.

They're alone in their tank and I do feed them shortly before the light goes out.

I will keep introducing new foods and see what happens.

Mine also hide all the time. They routinely 'shut the door' to their caves from the inside. I do hope to be able to get the ocassional glimpse of them sometime in the future. My Microsynodontis didn't come out for quite some time, but fortunately that has changed.