Peacock Bass

is there some way of making "feeder goldfish" more healthy?

i know with the example of some live foods for reptiles (like crickets) they can be "Gut Loaded" which means they can be fed extra calcium or whatever.

what could you feed a feeder goldfish that would make it more nutritious for whatever eats it?
 
If I had a fish that I planned to feed live fish to, I would raise my own. Rosy Reds (they're just golden fathead minnows, so you could do those alternatively) are easy to breed, and don't get as large as goldfish. A ten gallon to keep a male and a two or three females in, another ten gallon for fry, and a thirty gallon for the fish you're going to use as feed to grow in would probably be the minimum number of tanks for growing your own. Obviously, these aquariums would be heavily stocked, so you would have to have a VERY good filtration system. For maximum nutritional value, I guess you should feed them a very high quaility flake food or pellet. I don't really know how much more nutrition these would have than fish sold as feeders in stores, but in growing your own you could at least keep tabs on disease and you would know what your fish would actually be eating.
 
We have a Peacock Bass at my store. We brought him in about 2, months ago, and he has grown about 2 inches. It's funny as you can see his tail is so much thinner than the rest of him, it isn't keeping up. We originally brought in 4, and 3 of them already sold.

I would write more but I gotta get to work.
 
is there some way of making "feeder goldfish" more healthy?
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As a rule Gut loading is the best advice I've been able to get. I personally have just never liked the goldfish, because they are a coldwater fish, and I tend to feed tropical fish to other tropical fish. Guppies are said to be more nutritious, but I really don't know that they are. I train my fish to eat prepared foods, but they get guppies as a treat fairly often. I raise my own, but have also bought them from reputable LFS's on occasion. There is more risk of deisease than anything else from the LFS, but with Oscars especially it is essential IMO to feed variety and good nutrition. I also believe very strongly that fish such as oscars and dempsey's are much happier with some live food be it snails, worms, fish, or shrimp. they just respond well to live foods.

Rosy Reds (they're just golden fathead minnows, so you could do those alternatively) are easy to breed,
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I've often wondered just exactly what a rosy red was, and how well they would breed I guess I'd better go buy another tank now:D :D
 
Link to a page on Rosy Reds

This website has a lot of info on rosy reds. I originally bought some to cycle my first tank (55 gallons), not knowing that feeders were big time carriers of disease and not the healthiest. Out of 10, I still have 4 a year and a half later. Five died within a couple days of getting them, and one died a couple of months ago from unknown causes. When I bought them the tank didn't have a heater, and after I bought one and took the temp up to 78° so I could keep tropical fish, they bred all of the time, mostly on the filter intake tube. I never actually attempted to save the eggs because I didn't have anywhere to raise the fry, so they ended up being eaten by other fish. The male of the species prepares the spawning place and gaurds the eggs after they've been laid. You can sex adult fish by looking for a fleshy growth on top of the fish that runs from it's head to the front of the dorsal fin. Fish that have this are male. The males are also territorial, but having more than one male in the tank encourages them to breed, supposedly. Anyway, now they're in a coldwater tank with two fantail goldfish, where the temp stays around 70° and I've never seen them spawn. So I guess higher temps are the key, or maybe keeping them at a lower temp and then raising it.
 
Of course, I am not always working and I wasn't working when those 3 were sold. We probably wouldnt have sold it to anyone less than a 55G, and they would have definitly known how big they would have gotten, and probably told to make plans for that. Remember, we're a Pet Store, not a fish store - we do our best.
 
jed3ell said:
Rosy reds are just minnows,I dont know how breed or breeding requirements.
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Did you notice the date this was first posted? 5/26/04. :huh:
 
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