Food plays an essential role in our cory catfish life to ensure their good health and longer lifespan. Cory catfish are bottom dweller fish and feed on leftovers, decaying plants, and other waste.
However, we should not rely on leftovers and other waste as our cory catfish food and should feed them various types of food to ensure their growth and development. So, Can cory catfish eat brine shrimp? Let us find out.
Cory catfish can eat brine shrimp as they are rich in protein and helps your cory catfish in their faster growth and development. However, it also contains fat which can make your cory catfish suffer from constipation if overfed. Consider feeding brine shrimp to them one to two times a week.
This article will discuss whether cory catfish can eat brine shrimp and how often we should feed them brine shrimp. Also, we will discuss the ideal dietary requirement of a cory catfish. So, let us get into it.
Contents
Can I feed brine shrimp to my cory catfish?
Cory catfish will love to feed on brine shrimp.
You can feed brine shrimp to your cory catfish as it contains a good value of protein which will help in their growth and development.
However, don’t just rely on brine shrimp by feeding only brine shrimp to them every day.
Brine shrimp also contains a good amount of fat which can make your cory catfish constipated, and they can suffer from bloating.
You have to feed your cory catfish various types of other food too to ensure their good health and longer lifespan.
Also read: Can Cory Catfish Eat Bloodworms?
The ideal dietary requirement of a cory catfish.
Cory catfish are omnivore fish that require meat and plant matter food in their daily diet to ensure their faster growth and development.
They will need various types of food that include the nutritional value of meat and plant matter.
Feed your cory catfish with bloodworms, blackworms, tubifex worms, brine shrimp, mosquito larvae, pellets, and sinking flake food to fulfill their meat-based nutritional requirement.
Consider feeding your cory catfish with blanched vegetables like cucumber, zucchini, and lettuce to meet their plant-based nutritional requirement.
They will also love to feed on boiled peas.
Relying only on one type of food will not fulfill their ideal dietary requirements, and they will become weak and stressed out feeding only on one kind of food.
Also read: Are Cory Catfish Herbivores Carnivores Or Omnivores?
How often should we feed brine shrimp to our cory catfish?
Feed your cory catfish brine shrimp 1-2 times a week.
Brine shrimp contains a good amount of fat which can make them constipated if you overfeed them.
Also, we should feed a variety of food to our cory catfish and not just rely on brine shrimp every day.
Feeding only brine shrimp to your cory catfish daily will not provide them with all the nutritional value required to fulfill their ideal requirements.
Feed your cory catfish food in such a way that they can get both plant and meat-based nutritional value.
Also, make sure not to overfeed your cory catfish as it can result in constipation and an enlarged abdomen.
Swim bladder disorder can happen if you overfeed your cory catfish.
So, to ensure that you are not overfeeding your cory catfish, provide them food in a quantity that they can finish eating in one to two minutes.
If your cory catfish is taking more time to finish their food, you are overfeeding them, and if they are completing their food in seconds, you are underfeeding them.
Also read: Why Is My Cory Catfish Not Eating?
Should we feed our cory catfish live or freeze-dried brine shrimp?
These are the types of brine shrimp you can feed to your cory catfish:
- Live brine shrimp
- Freeze-dried brine shrimp
Live brine shrimp
Feeding live brine shrimp to your cory catfish is the best way to feed them.
Providing them newly hatched brine shrimp will do great for your cory catfish, and they will love to feed on them.
You can easily culture brine shrimp at home by buying a brine shrimp hatchery from amazon.
Culturing brine shrimp at home is pocket friendly, too, so you don’t have to worry about that factor.
I will suggest buying multiple brine shrimp hatcheries as the eggs will take two to three days to get hatched.
Also, you don’t have to worry about bacteria and parasites as they don’t contain any like worms.
Freeze-dried brine shrimp
You can consider feeding freeze-dried brine shrimp to your cory catfish if you don’t want to culture brine shrimp at home.
They are easy to feed to your cory catfish and will contain almost all nutrients like live brine shrimp.
Also, there will be a zero risk of bacteria and parasites in freeze-dried brine shrimp.
You can easily store freeze-dried brine shrimp in your refrigerator and feed them to your cory catfish whenever you want.
You will find freeze-dried brine shrimp at any pet store or online.
We recommend feeding Hikari bio-pure freeze-dried brine shrimp to your cory catfish.
You can buy this from amazon: Hikari Bio-Pure Freeze-Dried Brine Shrimp.
What are the other best foods to feed to my cory catfish?
Cory catfish are omnivore fish and require plant and meat-based food in their daily diet.
Also, they are bottom dweller fish that spend most of their time scavenging on the bottom in search of food.
They feed on leftovers, dead and decaying plants, and small dead fishes.
However, they will require various types of food to fulfill their ideal dietary requirements.
These are some of the best food you can consider feeding to your cory catfish:
- Bloodworms
- Blackworms
- Tubifex Worms
- Sinking flake food
- Sinking pellets
- Mosquito larvae
- Blanched zucchini
- Blanched cucumber
- Boiled peas
Conclusion:
Cory catfish can eat brine shrimp as they are rich in protein and will help your cory catfish in their growth and development.
However, you should not feed your cory catfish brine shrimp every day as it also contains a good amount of fat which can result in your cory catfish suffering from constipation if overfed.
Feed brine shrimps to your cory catfish one to two times a week.
Feed them in quantity they can finish eating in one to two minutes to avoid overfeeding.
You can culture brine shrimp at home as it is easy and pocket friendly.
Feed various types of food to your cory catfish that contain both meat and plant-based nutritional value to fulfill their ideal dietary requirements.
Reference: Wikipedia, ResearchGate