Feeding lake tang synos

[toby]

I am curious as to what feeding regimens are being used by keepers.
I have begun keeping petricola, dhonti, polli and granulosus and up to this point have been feeding a mix of flake (veggie flake) and Hikari sinking wafers - (still pretty low protein) -

http://www.hikariusa.com/products/tropi ... afers.html

From readings here and elsewhere, the obvious conclusion is a varied diet including some meaty foods

Can this group of lake synos be fed the same diet or would a higher "meat" diet affect some of these fish listed. By higher meat I am talking about including frozen/freeze dried mysis, brine, krill, bloodworms.

Also considering this pellet from Hikari - sinking carnivore -

http://www.hikariusa.com/products/tropi ... nivore.php

anyone using or tried this pellet?

I am also curious as to what feeding frequency is used by most of you, assuming a syno only tank and not a community setup with cichlids. 1x/day, or 1x/2days. If I am feeding shrimp/krill/bloodworm, how often should this be fed as part of the varied diet - should they get the higher meat food every couple of days with a staple/daily maintenance being a lower protein like a sinking wafer (mentioned above) with lower protein?
Is there a general consensus on flake?
Thanks for your comments.

[Richard B]

Varied diet is certainly my preference

I have actually just finished my pack of hikari carnivore pellets this week - they get wolfed down.

Mysis, krill, brine shrimp, bloodworm etc are all great, as are crabmeat, lobster, oyster, mussel, prawn, cockle etc although some of these need to be shredded or finely chopped.

Earthworms are another real favourite but i would suggest that none of my tang synos are at all fussy & they'll eat any flakes, pellets, foodsticks etc that are offered.

They only thing they seem to turn their noses up at are crab & krill sticks & green lipped mussel sticks - these are wolfed down by my ancistrus though.

I even feed flies, spiders, woodlice & any other "natural" foodstuff.

I also occasionally drop in green beans, peas, cauliflower, brocolli, cabbage, potato (all blanched) & the occasional dry seaweed sheet.

[toby]

Thanks Richard - looks like I'm on the right track. How often are you feeding? Is a heavy feeding with longer in between feedings better than daily? meaning every second day? From my list of petricolas, polli, dhonti and grannies - are they all OK with the same? If you're feeding every day, do you go with the same meaty foods (i.e the carnivore pellet or mysis/brine, krill, etc) or use something "lighter" if you know what I mean - (lower protein, higher fibre?) Or are you feeding more than 1x/day?

[Richard B]

They get fed once a day except on saturdays, when they get nothing.

They get whatever i can put my hands on first for the last week as an example they have had 1 feed of hikari carnivore pellets, one feed of frozen brineshrimp, one feed of minced prawns, 2 feeds of tetra prima & 2 feeds of floating wheatgerm foodsticks. Most likely next week will consist of 2 feeds of floating wheatgerm foodsticks, one feed of tropical welsi gran, 2 feeds of flake food (DelicaSea tropical) & a feed of shredded earthworms. Week after 1 feed of tropical supervit granulat, 1 feed of delicaSea catfish pellets, 1 feed tetra delica bloodworm, 1 feed of lobster eggs, 2 feeds of tetra prima, maybe.

All of my synos seem to react the same to the foodstuffs that go in the tank (even in respect of the previous post).

IME no syno species when established & in good health (in a tank with good husbandry) has proven that fussy at all - that would include all the stuff i have kept at home & all the stuff i have looked after when in the trade

Edit - actually if i watch them all closely i can tell that some of them have preferences for some items over the other species - like multis will eat a bit of cucumber but polli won't, sp2 will eat haricot beans more readily than granulosa etc

have you any pics at all - i'm interested to see other tang syno keppers' fish?

[Birger]

As well as the foods mentioned I would also like to suggest http://nlsfishfood.com/ This is a good base to work from as opposed to flake, as far as I am concerned flake and synos are a bad mix as they are such greedy eaters (I have hardly used flake in years) I tailor the different sizes of NLS to the size of the syno.

Also try adding snails in with some of these, especially the polli...a part of there natural diet is snails and they are quite capable of dealing with them.

I usually feed once a day but will purposely miss once or twice a week. I have no problem leaving them for longer periods(holidays etc) but then be careful to bring them back with smaller amounts to start as they will still eat just as much but will not be able to handle it as well.

Birger

[toby]

Birger,
I have also been using some NLS - I bought some of their new 2mm cichlid pellets and have been tossing this in the tank, as well as some 3mm veggie pellets from Dainichi. They seem to get quite the arousal in tank behaviour. What specifically are you using from NLS if it is different than their cichlid pellet - although most of their foods are pretty similar.
Thanks,

[andywoolloo]

my syno lucipinnis I learned how to feed here on this site, in fact from Birger and Richard and some others. I tink zeny and racoli maybe. Lots of people here.

They like spirulina flake, they love it actually. Go figure. Also, they like all Hikari defrosted but their favs are the spirulina shrimp, and mysis shrimp anf bloodworms and tubifex. Also they get NLS cichlid granules, the 1 mm sinking pellet. Also they like earthworm sticks and spirulina sticks that sink. And Hikari carnivore sinking. And Hikari Discus Bio Gold and Hikari Cichlid mini pellets. And they get the shrimp from the food store minced up in a machine at home then frozen in ice cube trays.

Just a rotation of those. I have added zuchini and cucumber and strips of sweet bell pepper and they just do not eat it.

oh and I forgot they also like the omega one cichlid flake food.

[Birger]

What specifically are you using from NLS if it is different than their c*****d pellet - although most of their foods are pretty similar.

I keep different sizes due to the size difference in my syno's...I tried just having the 3mm size and crushing down for smaller fish but this seemed to waste a lot. I use 3mm LG. Fish Formula mostly for my angelica which are my biggest, but I also like using 1 mm for them as they then have to sift the sand for it, I like watching them take in a mouthful of sand and then send it out their gills(I am easily amused). I use 1mm Spectrum Formula for all my Tang. syno's, I would rather have them pick up a few smaller granules than trying to swallow one or two 3 mm sized ones...but I don't have dhonti. I do use the .5 mm Grow for very young fish and for my Microsynodontis.

Like you say most of the NLS is similar excepting the Grow which has a higher percentage of protein.
I am not one to usually push one food over the other but this stuff really works well for the syno's.It is fairly clean, gets down to their level and keeps a healthy roundness to their bellies but is easily controlled so one does not overdo it.

Birger

[DJRansome]

I feed NLS to all my fish, cichlids and synos.