Here at the Stickleback Stock Center, we have an easy, daily feed regime for our fish.

We partner with Dr. Dan Bolnick’s fish room to share with you a couple options for feeding your research Stickleback.

Begin feeding hatchling fish with Artemia AKA Brine Shrimp!

〰️

Begin feeding hatchling fish with Artemia AKA Brine Shrimp! 〰️

Feed hatchlings 24 hour artemia. After collection, we use a pipette to feed each breeder box (each clutch of hatchlings). A dense 1-1.5 mL of artemia is enough to feed 10 hatchlings; this looks almost opaque and the orange/pink color of artemia. If the density of artemia is thinner— where you can see them swimming around—, use two or three pipettes to feed 10 artemia. With the youngest hatchlings, you can see when their bellies are full.

It is important to clean any over-fed artemia, so they do not cause the hatchlings to die in the cloud of artemia fluff that settles at the bottom of the breeder mesh. You can use a different pipette to clean this up or be careful to avoid hatchlings. Hatchlings should swim away when you do this.

Dr. Milligan-McClellan’s Feed Recipe

Juvenile feed recipe:
Preparation for Juvenile Food Mix

1-part New Life Spectrum Grow (comes in a 50 g container, this is my 1-part measure)
1-part Hikari Tropical semi-floating micro pellet (I buy a 1 kg bag and either need to measure the grams or use the empty New Life Spectrum Grow container to scoop an equal part)
1/8-part spirulina flake (can use a tablespoon or your gloved hand to measure)
1/8-part Brine Shrimp Direct Freeze Dried Copepods (use tablespoon)
1/8-part Brine Shrimp Direct Golden Pearls (use tablespoon)

All pellet and flake feed items from the Juvenile and Adult mixes were purchased from Amazon, but you can purchase copepods and golden pearls directly from Brine Shrimp Direct. I keep the mix in a clean food container with tight-fitting lid.

Adult feed recipe:
Preparation of Adult Food Mix

1-part New Life Spectrum grow
1-part Hikari Tropical semi-floating micro pellet
1-part Hikari marine S
¼ part Hikari cichlid sinking gold pellet, this is only found in “mini” pellet size and is the main reason for the coffee grinder step in preparing the mix

Until the fish are able to eat the the micropellet size, all food should be ground to a smaller size. I use a hand-powered coffee grinder on the smallest setting. An electric coffee grinder can also give a small size with a longer pulse or larger size with a shorter time running the motor.
I always grind the Hikari cichlid sinking gold when adding it to the adult mix on the largest setting. This pellet only comes in a mini size as the smallest pellet diameter instead of the micro size seen in the Hikari Tropical semi-sinking micro pellet.

When feeding juveniles with ground pellet mix, start with one 1/8th teaspoon per 100 individuals and see how much food they can consume in the first ten minutes. Afterwards, clean up any leftover food. Adjust initial feeds as needed. As they grow, the ratio will become one 1/8th teaspoon per 80, 60, 40, and eventually 1 per 20 adult-sized fish. When you adjust the feed ratio, always watch to see if the fish eat the entirety of the diet offered within 10 minutes. If it takes less than 5 minutes to consume, consider adding more food per fish. If not all food is consumed after 10 minutes, consider waiting another 3-5 days for the fish to grow before trying again with a higher food to fish ratio.

For adult fish, 1 1/8th teaspoon feeds 20 fish.