feeder fish confusion.... Please help

[Lazersniper]

Not sure if this belongs here but I figured I might get more responses here as chilids can/will eat feeders. I'm sorry if it does not belong here. I just have a few questions.

1. Would feeders be a good primary source of food if you grew your own? I have guppies going right now.

2. I know that the store bought feeders may be not in optimal health so it doesn't provide as much nutrition, but is this true for all 'feeders' or just store bought ones?

3. How/what could I feed the guppies so that what I feed them to will have a good source of nutrients?

The fish I have won't take anything but live food so I want to try and give him the best I can.

[valerie]

What sort of fish do you have?

[Lazersniper]

It's not a cichlid but I figured if anyone knew about feeders it would probably be cichlid owners. I have a ctenolucius hujeta (fresh water barracuda/slant nose gar). They are wild cought, and every web site I've gone to for research says that I should have live fish for a primary source of food. I've also already tried many other dry foods but he won't take em.

[fishlips]

Try mealworms or garden worms. Maybe krill. Store bought feeders can contain diseases which most people don't want to take chances on. Home reared fry are much better and safe. You could buy feeders and hold them for a few weeks. A good percentage die anyway. Most people raise guppies and cons for feeders. I have cons and plan to get guppies. Also, I have a worm bin in the basement.

[Lazersniper]

I'm sorry but I can't just keep going out and keep 'trying' different kinds of food for it. I've already around 10 different kinds of dry food that I"ve tried (anything from flakes to pellets to freeze dried blood worms). Luckily my other fish seem to enjoy them. I also now have black worms and ghost shrimp. He won't eat the worms, ghost shrimp will be in tomorrow. Too many cans of food laying around, hopefully they don't get stale too quickly. I don't want to spend more money on things that won't work. They are wild cought fish so they prob won't recognize anything else to be food except what they already know.

This is why I need to know how to make my feeders as nutritiouse as possibe.

[JesseJ]

After being exposed to air I think that most dry foods only last for 9 - 12 months and after that they no longer contain all the nutrients they schould have. I'm not sure if this is true but it makes sense to me to use the opened food up as quickly as possible without overfeeding your fish.

[Lazersniper]

ok... so I"m still stuck. Nobody here uses live food as a primary source of food? Nobody grows their own guppies and has exp. in prolonged feeding of these to their fish? No one has any clue as to how I could get my guppy fry to be 'nutritiouse enough'????


I'm sorry if I offend/ed anyone.. I"m just frustrated. I thought this was a common practice. I've used the search and people talk about how feeders don't have enough nutrients... Is this just from what they hear then ... or from exp....

[750t]

I use guppys as feeders. I raise my own. In fact it two fold. I really like guppys and enjoy trying to breed the color I want. I have six tanks of them. So Im always weeding out the ones I dont want. Its a pretty good supply. If I was going to just use them as feeders I would get a 20 gal and a 10 gal. I would use the 20 for breeding and the 10 for fry. Go with a ratio of 1male to 3 females and you will have guppys in no time.

[fishlips]

Most wild fish eat live food. Earthworms and meal worms are dirt cheap and I'm sure just about any fish will eat them. I have had freshwater fish that ate frozen shrimp before which were not natural to them. I had wild fish that refused all dry foods. I slipped in a garden worm or mealworms and they went crazy. Its the movement that attracts them. In the wild most carnavores eat other fish, worms and insects. Give it a try. People use worms to condition their fish for breeding. Its very good for them. If you feed live fish then gut load them then there is more nutrition.

[peifc]

What kind of nutrition a feeder has beside fat?

All my cichlids grow fast because of they take in from flakes, pellets, live worms, forzen food, home made fish food, and etc (no feeders). Also, even you grow your own feeders, they can be immuned to diseases that you can't see. Do you really wanna risk your water pet's health just to feed them feeders?

Beside entertainment reason, I really don't see what goods feeders will bring.

[daveedka]

Lazersniper,
I understand your frustration, I don't know how effective it really is, (It is just something I surmise might help) but I usually always fed my guppies all of the flake food I could get them to eat right before I put them in the tank. Just put them in a small holding tank Quart jar will work, and then fed them some high nutrition flake food untill they are pretty fat (distended). Most guppies will eat untill they are very bloated if you let them. All of the fish I kept eat them whole so they ingest anything the feeders have in their stomach as well as the feeder itself. I usually netted them out of the holding tank so there wasn't any worry about the excess food ending up in the bottom of a tank. I really don't know how much nutrition this adds, but it will surely help some.

You may also want to shop at the bait store rather than the LFS. You can buy reasonably small quantities of redworms, meal worms, wax worms, and sometimes grubs or may fly larvea (wigglers) many of these items are seasonal, but Wisconsin is a great state for fishing, and ice fishing is a popular time for a lot of these worms. I wouldn't reccomend trying to use freeze dried worms, only live ones. wash them well and see how your fish likes them. mix them up once you find out what he likes. Another option may be live brine shrimp, but it is my understanding that it takes a while to raise them big enough to be worth the trouble.

[DHR]

I have a couple of longnose gars (juveniles), and they like mealworms, crickets, roaches, occasional feeders. They also like freeze-dried plankton. Your filter or powerhead should move the water around a bit so there'll be some movement of the plankton. Bait shop is an excellent suggestion. Main prob with feeders is possible disease, just as when adding any new fish.