Tiny Fish that Rock!
- Thread starter Zack Wilson
- Start date
Pygmies will eat frozen bloodworms, so they would probably take other frozen prey as well. Live is best, though; daphnia and scuds are cheap and easy to raise. If you want to breed them you might also think about infusoria and microworms.
erv:
Hmmm.... feeding live is a bit of a problem for me but I think I could get away with frozen bbs and fd daphina
I've not tried any frozen foods with mine, so I can't say whether they would take them. Live blackworms are a handful, even for adults. A single average-sized blackworm is longer than an adult sunfish. Even frozen bloodworms would be on the large side for prey. I imagine they do some foraging and might eventually try out something like frozen bbs, but like notophthalmus said, live is better (won't foul as fast, more whole organisms, more nutritious). For raising fry you will need live foods of microscopic proportions. They are lazy predators as it is, and they need some movement to attract their attention. In the case of fry I use mostly infusoria and vinegar eels to start, and eventually move up to baby brine (freshly hatched) and microworms.
Malken- NANFA has a pygmy sunfish subforum: http://forum.nanfa.org/index.php?showforum=128
I wouldn't try to keep them on frozen alone. Like I said, my Elassoma zonatum would eat some of the frozen bloodworms that I put in for the ghost shrimp, but the mainstay of their diet was ceriodaphnia and baby scuds. Sorry if I made it sound like you could keep them healthy on frozen and freeze-dried foods; I don't think this is true.
If you don't want to raise live food, you should just add a bunch of scuds and pond or ramshorn snails to the tank; the adults are too large for the pygmies to eat, and they will provide lots of bite-size young. If even this is too distasteful for you, you should probably consider a different fish.
I wouldn't try to keep them on frozen alone. Like I said, my Elassoma zonatum would eat some of the frozen bloodworms that I put in for the ghost shrimp, but the mainstay of their diet was ceriodaphnia and baby scuds. Sorry if I made it sound like you could keep them healthy on frozen and freeze-dried foods; I don't think this is true.
If you don't want to raise live food, you should just add a bunch of scuds and pond or ramshorn snails to the tank; the adults are too large for the pygmies to eat, and they will provide lots of bite-size young. If even this is too distasteful for you, you should probably consider a different fish.
