Feeding Pellet Food- to pre-soak or not

[nohofish]

I was interested to hear what folks do.

Do you pre-soak your pellets prior to feeding or not? If you do soak them for how long.

I have been feeding my africans NLS and HBH cichid attack and have tried both methods.

[chc]

I definitely do not soak my pellets before feeding. Doing so reduces some of the water soluable vitamins and nutrients. The only thing I soak is frozen or freeze-dried foods, and even then it's for a specific reason (generally the use of medication).

Also, if you're feeding a very high quality pellet (like the NLS you're using) there's no nutritional need to soak them in Selcon or anything like that. If you're soaking them just in water in an attempt to make them more palatable you can eventually wean the fish off that a little at a time.

Another approach is to feed a smaller pellet size. Even most of my 12"+ fish will take the tiny 1mm pellets. They actually seem to like the grazing behavior associated with feeding small sinking pellets. Of course they receive much larger pellets too, but the trick is to offer a size they can easily swallow. That eliminates some of their aversion to the hardness of pellets.

[nohofish]

yeah- I think I'll get the smaller pellets next time - I have 2mm now

I definitely do not soak my pellets before feeding. Doing so reduces some of the water soluable vitamins and nutrients. The only thing I soak is frozen or freeze-dried foods, and even then it's for a specific reason (generally the use of medication).

Also, if you're feeding a very high quality pellet (like the NLS you're using) there's no nutritional need to soak them in Selcon or anything like that. If you're soaking them just in water in an attempt to make them more palatable you can eventually wean the fish off that a little at a time.

Another approach is to feed a smaller pellet size. Even most of my 12"+ fish will take the tiny 1mm pellets. They actually seem to like the grazing behavior associated with feeding small sinking pellets. Of course they receive much larger pellets too, but the trick is to offer a size they can easily swallow. That eliminates some of their aversion to the hardness of pellets.

[smitty]

You know HBH make a moist pellet. Actually I think they sell a couple of things in moist form. Check out www.Jehmco.com (http://www.Jehmco.com)

[Dean Hougen]

I likewise don't soak pellets. I also prefer the smaller pellets. Among other reasons, I find that aggressive fish can dominate the food supply more easily if you feed fewer, larger pellets than they can if you feed the same amount of food but spread out among more, smaller pellets.


Dean

[chc]

Good point there, Dean, about aggressive fish hogging the larger pellets. There's a tendency to feed the largest pellets a fish can fit in their mouths, but as you say that's not the best way to spread the food around evenly.

I had a A. sp. 'Chancho' that made it his goal in life to eat every single pellet that hit the surface in less than 5 seconds! It got crazy how fast he'd hammer a handful of pellets while the other fish were still on their first bite! I found that mixing sinkers with floaters is another good way to spread the food around as the really boisterous guys seem to wait for the larger floaters.

[smitty]

Dean that jumped out as a great point. I feed alot of flakes also but not because I thought of the reason you gave it just so happens it how I feed my fish, But you have given me a reason to stick to what I was doing.

[Dean Hougen]

Chris, your point about sinkers and floaters is excellent too.

Jeffrey, I feed mostly pellets but I do sometimes use flakes for small fish for just this reason.


Dean