"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...
Ammonia and Nitrites read zero (wet test, not strips).

Unless it was a La Motte kit I woldn't pay much attention to them.

Actually, I don't know. The sunfish, bass and catfish they catch down at
the Lake here are well fleshed. In summer they're actually quite heavy.

With eggs. Now, lok at fish caught in the Orinoco year round.

There are all kinds of things in the foods I use. Fish meal is listed
first. The shrimp snack they sometimes get is 100% dried shrimp.

The problem with fish meal is it's not what fish eat. They eat worms
and crustaceans. Pure fish flesh is not what they eat, they eat whole
fish;
ones, scales, stuff in the gut.

I have no access to white worms and can't afford to feed this many fish
live
foods, even if I could find a place that sells them locally. They used to
carry clean tubafex worms and brine shrimp but no more. They all went
over
to frozen foods.

You can dulture worms and daphnica very very easily. And you can't beat
the price.

I have no room to culture what I would need for this many fancy goldfish and
the platys. I tried daphnia. I would need a small lake to raise enough to
use for fish food and they only multiplied in the spring - a period of about
a month, maybe 6 weeks. Larger GF don't even see daphnia. They ignore
them. Culture what kind of worms? I have a huge compost pile for the
garden and still can't harvest enough for more than an occasional snack for
them and that's only in the spring and fall.

I'll cut back to once a day and see if that helps. If not then I'll start
to skip days. The problem with keeping goldfish hungry is they start to
destroy the plants.

Let them! With proper fertilization and light you should be able to
outgrow
their intake. if not add more plants.

What kind of plants would outgrow constant daily destruction? Plants here
are not cheap! And if they eat what they tear up I'm back with the feces
problem. They get zucchini and oranges a few times a week and devour them.
So far they haven't done much harm to the plants.

I have a few tanks I don't bother
feeding at all because the fish eat the plants or eatbugs that grow in the
tanks.

My aquariums are all indoors. There are no insects or bugs to multiply in
these indoor tanks. Outdoors is different. I can't afford to keep
replacing aquarium plants as they destroy them. Even a small bunch of
anacharis here is $2.99+. I can't grow my own during the winter because it
gets too cold here.

The Flourish Excel arrived today and I added it about an hour ago. Both
of
the 55g tanks had massive water changes yesterday and the day before. The
new AC filter also arrived. The black-crud tank will have 2 ACs now.
That
may help as well.

How massive?

All I left in the bottom was enough water to cover their backs. About a 92
to 94% water change. I also vacuumed every inch of the gravel *again* and
ran the DE filter for a few hours.
--

Koi-Lo.... frugal ponding since 1995...
Aquariums since 1952
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
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