Golden Pearls for fry vs. frozen/live

[captmicha]

I was wondering if anyone has raised a group of fry on GPs and another group on frozen/live foods to compare the results? It would be nice if GPs could replace having to keep cultures of live fry foods, or frozen... Since my family keeps moving and defrosting my frozen foods.... But not worth it if feeding GP results in less health fry and lower survival rates.

It would be my preference to feed GPs as the base and I could pepper in anything I have live or frozen when I feel like it, instead of having to rely on feeding live/frozen.

Also, how do I know what size I need to order? How many microns? I was looking at Brine Shrimp Direct's GPs. http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/Original-Golden-Pearl-Diets-Active-Spheres-c11.html

The problem is, I'm not sure right now what I'm going to be breeding so I don't have a set size. I'd like to buy something for small fry that would otherwise need infusoria and something for larger fry, like guppies, that would eat BBS sized foods. Should I get 5-50 Microns and 100-200 Microns to cover a wide range?

 

[SubRosa]

Newborn Guppies will eat navel lint. You could get wonderful results on Guppies with GPs or any good quality prepared food sized for them and no live food at all. Frozrn can only help. Frozen cyclopeeze is my go to for fry large enough to take it that don't require live foods. But make no mistake about it, many fish require moving prey for at least the earliest part of their lives. Say you wanted to get into breeding Killies but didn't want to deal with live food. Your choices would be extremely limited because most Killie fry won't eat non living food at first. And don't forget that water changes are just as important as diet in determining rate of growth.

 

[captmicha]

Newborn Guppies will eat navel lint.

Lol. So would my adults. They beg worse than my dogs.

I thought the raspberry shape of the GPs mimic something live, floating in the current? It doesn't food them?

I have a paramecium culture anyways. But I always feel like I have to have a lot of variety.

 

[SubRosa]

Ithink the shape is more about giving the proper buoyancy than trying to mimic anything.

 

[BallAquatics]

I start my danio fry on the 5-50 micron size. At first the fry are too small to eat bbs so the Golden Pearls works great. At around 7 to 10 days I switch to bbs. I find they grow faster with bbs, and like SubRosa points out, lots of water changes. I get my GP's at Ken's.

Dennis