|
Petrochromis like Tropheus are grazing fish. Feeding the species call Petrochromis for the most part is easy , as they are pigs. Petrochromis will eat you out of house and home. Petrochromis will also leave a mess that shows you that they are pigs. There are varieties of foods that you can feed these vacuum cleaners. But the safest is a fish food that simulates what they eat in the wild. A green vegetable base product containing Algae / Spirulina would be ideal. Other foods such as green beans/peas , Romaine lettuce. There is also a variety of pelleted foods and flake foods that can be fed to Petros as well. A good rule is if you can feed it to Tropheus then you can feed it to petros. But remember petros are pigs and they will leave a lot of poop….
If you acquire a group of petros that come from another petro hobbyists then chances are they are eating well. In addition to purchasing these petros you might want to ask what type of food were they eating… Once you get these beauties into your tank, you can continue to feed the same food, or you can switch to the brand of food that you are accustomed to using. Changing the food that is presently being fed to your petros might be a bit of a problem. The petros might not eat the new food as you will see them engulf the food then spit it out. If this happens don’t feed your petros for a day then try again. If this does not work try not feeding for two days, then feed a small amount of the new food to your petros. If this does not work try a blend of the old food and the new food slowly changing the blend to more and more of the new food.
If you acquire a group of petros that are wild (newly imported) then sometimes getting your petros to eat can be challenging. Try using the technique from above by not feeding them for one or two days. First try feeding flake food to your new WC petros. A lot of exporters feed flake food to the WC before they are exported. If this in fact does not work try feeding freezed dried Krill. In your attempt to feed flake food does not work as was the case with some of my newly wild caught petros, try feeding krill as was also mentioned all wild petros like Krill.
Sometimes when getting petros they seem to look underfed. You can quickly remedy this problem by feeding these pigs constantly during the course of the day. Feeding seven or more times a day. As you are feeding your petros, you will notice how fast all of the food disappears. If the food is gone within a minute feed a little more at that time. A good pellet food should be more filling than flake food. Try getting a nice size of pelleted food to feed to your petros as this may take a longer time to digest these opposed to a different type of food.
Getting those petros into breeding condition may require an additional type of feeding. In this case I used what’s called Shrimp Mix. Once your fish look like they have not been underfed, Then try feeding this Shrimp Mix (see below for the recipe ) for a whole week feeding one or twice a day. Then perform a nice water change. Usually when I performed this routine, I would see a few females holding within a couple of days. Remember feeding these pigs generated a lot of fish poop, so good water filtration is a must.
I have noticed that when these petros are well fed then there is less aggression. In one variant when the petros were not fed for a day and the lights were left on then it was not uncommon for one of the petros to be beaten up pretty badly that would result in death or simply just find a dead petro in the tank. So feed those petros….
Good luck and welcome to the world of PETROS.
1: 1 pound of frozen green peas. 3: Fresh Romaine lettuce. |