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Hi,

I just got a couple of male Endlers (labelled "dwarf Endlers" at the LFS) in my 54L tank this past weekend. They're really tiny, about 1.5cm, I can hardly see them though the jungle of plants. My question is how and what do you feed Endlers since they have such tiny mouths? I gave them some Tetra flakes, but even after crushing them with my fingers, most of the flakes are too big for their mouth and they just ignore them (consequently they just fall to the substrate uneaten). Are they any properly-sized dry foods for feeding Endlers? One option I've thought about is grinding the flakes into tiny particles with a mortar & pestle.

I also tried giving them a couple of frozen bloodworms, but they didn't touch them (probably too big). What are good frozen/live foods for them? Daphnia? Microworms?

Thanks for any advice.

-P

there is a food called micro bites, but i would say that cruched flakes should be good. i have seen them eat tubeiflek worms.

I would take my basic tropical flakes and crush them to smaller pieces or powder and feed the small Endler's this as their basic food, then on occassion add fresh veggies, blood worms, BBS, etc. Good luck, heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

cant fit crushed flakes in their mouths? thanks impossible! you can always crush the flakes smaller. Hikari make micro granuels that might be small enough for them, but i just say crush the flakes smaller. do they just spit it out or outright ignore the flakes?

i bought a block of frozen BBS for my guppy fry and they love it, and so do all the other fish in the tank so maybe you could give that a go!

Last edited by sumthin_fishy at 10-Jul-2005 21:57

also they may not be eastting, b/c you just got them. i wouldn't stop trying the flakes so soon. i guess is they will probably eat the whole flakes, just nibble at it, just give them a few days.

Thanks for the responses. I noticed they weren't eating at all the day after I got them, but this morning they approached me as I opened the lid, so I think they know food is coming. They ate the tiniest bits (powder size) of flakes, but pretty much ignored all pieces bigger than their mouths. I'll get some frozen BBS this weekend.
Heidi: how do you feed the frozen bloodworms? Do you have to cut them up? That would be a bit of a challenge, I reckon.

Thanks again!

-P

ya i had the same problems, what i did was chop it up while it was frozen, this makes i alot easier.

just get a serrated knife, i use a serrated plastic knife, my mum would chuck a fit if she saw me using her knives to cut blood worms!! cut thinly lengthwise down the block, as your cutting the teeth on the knife will sort of grate the block and you'll end up with a whole lot of shavings and hey presto! small pieces of blood worms.

I know even my newest fry (1-2 day old) can eat the flakes when they are ground up, it ends up being more of a dusty powder...put what you want to feed them and break up in a ziplock bag, and roll it in your hands or using a rolling pin/coke can/glass to crush it to a dusty powder, it could be as Chris said they are still stressed from entering a new environment, don't give up on the flakes, they will eat them, trust me everything else will heidi





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"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle

I found both adults and fry absolutely love freshly hatched baby brine shrimp. Fry survival rates jumped way up after I started feeding BBS - apparently the adults would far rather eat BBS than baby endlers.

After the population got to a happy number, I stopped feeding BBS and now just feed flake, wafers, crips, whiteworms, grindalworms etc.

My endlers eat all sizes of flakes just fine.... They tear them up. It would be a really good idea to call up the petstore and just ask them what they were feeding the fish you bought.

Koi

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