Minimal Feeders Lifespan

[DiezelEinstein]

I keep feeder tanks, It is really more of a pain than anything. They don't grow fast enough and most of the smaller fish, guppies etc. barely make a snack. my 2 cents.

What do you breed for feeders?

Really the maintenance i dont mind so much as i have a pretty solid routine that works well so far..is that the painful part? or the fact that your fish dont seem satisfied?

My main goal is to stay away from going to the LFS to get feeders and having to QT them for a couple of weeks all the time.
If i can get some QT"d that will survive and reproduce, then i can better monitor their health and notice any issues with the tank. Rather than covering up the mistake before the doors open and customers come in to buy sick fish to feed to your healthy fish..

 

[DiezelEinstein]

I've found convict cichlids to be the most reliable renewable source of feeder fry. With live bearers, their ability to reproduce seems to deminish over time if you're not breeding them with any sort of plan. Most all of the adults, even the parents, will eat the fry too. I've found this to be true of all live bearers no matter what the books say. So, you have to set up your tank to make sure that doesn't happen or spend time trying to get prego mothers into breeder nets and all that. It really can be a bit of a pain.

With convicts, they take care of their fry so, you can pretty much just let be and you'll always have some fry around. And since you'll be dealing with one set of parents, you won't have to worry about the genetic weirdness that seems to occur in live bearer comminities that are left to breed randomly.

That's my .02

AHhh this plan sounds better...thats 2 peeps who said Cons....and i have seen some pairs for sale so that might be the way to go....

Thanks everyone....this is great info..