Thursday, February 27, 2014

Feeding Baby Angelfish

When angelfish first begin to swim, it's time to start feeding!

The first food I feed my angels are live brine shrimp and First Bites. Live brine shrimp will cause the fish to grow very quickly and become more robust. It's very easy to hatch brine shrimp; one of the easiest methods is with a brine shrimp hatchery. But you can purchase the eggs at any pet shop and by adding aquarium salt to the water and shrimp eggs, you can grow them in almost anything, from old milk jugs to glass jars.

First Bites is an alternative if you don't want to grow brine shrimp yourself. This is prepared especially for newly hatched fish, so it is miniscule. When a tiny spoonful is put into the water (I use an 1/8 of a teaspoon) it floats through the water like live "bait". Angelfish are born with the instinct to go after this tiny food in the water, as well as any algae forming on plant leaves or glass.

Now that the angelfish are four weeks old, I have switched to dried brine shrimp instead of live. By crumbling it into the water, it's larger than freshly hatched shrimp and a bit more filling.



Within the next couple of weeks, I will be adding dried fish flakes to their feeding. By the time the angelfish are between eight and ten weeks old, they will have been weaned completely off the brine shrimp and First Bites and will be eating a diet consisting solely of dried fish flakes. This allows them to settle in much more easily with a community tank.