How much should a Banggai eat?

[jenjen]

Hi all. I recently added a pair of Banggai's to my 55g. They seem to ONLY eat mysis, which is a pain because I was previously feeding pellet and adding frozen once a week.

Anyhow, I'm now feeding a blend of frozen at one feeding a day (I feed tiny amounts about 3x a day). They each manage to eat a couple of pieces before my crazy Clarkii's gobble up the rest.

I'm happy to keep feeding frozen as much as needed for the Banggai's, but I find it harder to control how much I'm adding so like to mix in the pellet when I can (I feed the pellets one at a time to the Clarkii's). I'm wondering is 3-4 pieces of mysis enough for a Banggai each day, or do I need to make sure they get a little more?

Thanks

 

[IFbettas]

What of size mysis are you feeding? My former pair of banggais only ate mysis too, even after more than a year in my care. I wouldn't count on them ever accepting prepared foods. I fed the smallish SFB mysis and they would each eat about 15-20 a day each.

 

[jenjen]

I feed PE Mysis - does it come in diff sizes? It seems large - say triple+ the size of frozen brine?

 

[IFbettas]

Standard PE Mysis is the largest mysis there is. I don't know the exact amount of food a banggai cardinal needs, but I think 3 or 4 mysis is not very much. You need to feed them other foods too because PE mysis is full of lipids that will eventually lead to health problems if fed exclusively. Try to mix it up with fresh fish, shrimp, squid, clams, whatever you can find that is of marine origin and fresh.

 

[jenjen]

Thanks IFbettas.

I've fed with frozen mix again this evening. They each ate another 3-4 pieces of Mysis. Funny - the frozen mix includes mysis, squid, clam and brine but they pick out only the mysis to eat. They aren't shy at all, but are 'slow' eaters compared to the other fish in the tank - they grab one piece then seem to take ages to savour it before grabbing another.

I'll try to make sure each is getting 6'ish bits of something each day by feeding frozen twice a day. Hopefully I'll be able to distract the Clarkii's a bit while the Banggai's eat.

I may never be able to have a tank-sitter again with this crew... thank goodness I took a vacation last summer!

 

[IFbettas]

That should be a good staple diet for them once they start eating the other ingredients too.

They will become more aggressive eaters with time. My pair were the most aggressive eaters out of the entire tank they were in. They were with some very active wrasses too.

Good luck!