to feed feeders or not

[somefinnfishy]

Ok here is the old debate again
i work a LARGE lfs and have learned ALL!!!!! fish can be trained to eat pellets
There is no need for feeders at all.
I watch all the people who by 100 feeders at a time every week and have come to the conclusion they just want to see a fish kill another fish.
"shock value" also they are the ones buying tons of meds LOL
I can definately say any fish will eat pellets if starved a bit and offered alternitives to live religiously.
Pirahnas will eat pellets only no meat and they are better looking and more active
Gars will take pellets so will oscars, all forms of pikes.
Havent met a preditor catfish who wont eat pellets.
even tiger fish and baracudas will eat them.
So basicaly feeders are for shock value only IMHO
Reason to stay away the farmed gold fish are swimming in a sea of nasty meds most the time they inturn absorb the chems and your fish eats the feeder absorbing the meds in the flesh of the feeder after a few thousand feeders your fish has absorbed so many toxins I would not even want to handle it.You might as well call hazmat to do a proper disposal of the toxic waste we called a pet.
I'm posting this not to bust the hump of those aready commited to fish they bought and started on feeders before they knew not to.
But to avoid new fish from the same fate.
I'm sorry but selling feeders to redneck jarheads is getting to me :sad
I'm not just venting here every person who buys feeders from me get this speach and It has worked on many hobbyist who changed over to non live foods with great results and are much happyer with their fish now.
Looking for a statement now to try to tell me what feeders ARE good for and why you have to and should feed only live.

 

[N8DOGG]

what feeders are good?? The ones YOU raise in YOUR own tanks will be the best, they still won't be the best food. And I don't think that you have or should only feed feeders.

 

[Hound]

Having worked for over 12 years dealing with the public I have sympathy for ya. Personally I'm not certain I could work at a LFS without going nuts trying to hold my tongue.

 

[somefinnfishy]

Self raised feeders are fine in moderation.
You know goldfish are actualy not good feeders they have a much denser bone mass/structure than most other fish our fish would ever eat in nature.
The extra bone does not digest well in some species.
Like I said most of you know this but I thought what most people dont know that you can keep some of these awesome preditors with the intention of feeding only non live foods.
I'm not getting down on the big preditors just how 90% of there keepers feed them.

Instead of knocking the feeders lets tell how we got our carnivore fish trained to pellets

One guy bought a 14" wild caught moto ray.The first month he feed live shrimp and a saucer of live black works just to make sure the transition from wild to captivity went well.After a month he started replacing the live blackworms with live blackworms just killed in the freezer this happened for a few weeks then he repalced the blackworms with frozen bloodworms a week or two later he added a few frozen shrimp to its feeding saucer after the ray started eating the frozen shrimp he started to add a string stuck through the shrimp and dragged the shrimp across the floor of tank eventualy a month or two down the road he had a ray that would eat frozen shrimp and other stuff out of his hand!!!!

Other fish can be taught to do the same thing you have a fish addicted to goldfish try not offering for a week then add a single dead gold fish every other day.Remove it after a few minutes if uneaten/uninterested he will get hungry enough to eat it.
Now we have it on step 1 continue this for a while you fish should learn to hit this fish quick before you remove it.Now its time to go to step 2 use somekind meat/shrimp around the same size and shape as the feeder do the samething offer it only for a few minutes.
And so on the key is to get it hungry and used to haveing to eat food as soon as its offered.this will sometimes make them hit stuff they would not normaly be interested in.
Also have heard of cats and pirahnas going a month or longer without food as long as your fish dont turn on eachother for food YOU WILL NOT STARVE THEM!!!!
Post your "breaking the feeder habit" storys sugestions

 

[somefinnfishy]

Having worked for over 12 years dealing with the public I have sympathy for ya. Personally I'm not certain I could work at a LFS without going nuts trying to hold my tongue.

I dont have to hold my tongue LOL I tell everyone who buys feeders my strong opinion once and I convert %20 of them over.
I set so many people strait but do it in a non confruntational way that lets them think about what i said instead of blowing my opinions off.

I have been told I can refuse ANY sale for any reason I see fit and practice this all the time I love the "no you cant buy it your tank is over stocked"
They call me the fish natzi "no fish for you" ROFL

Most I explane this to have been sold a bunch of feeders by other stores that NEVER mentioned pirahnas eat vegi matter and such.

Also my boss belives feeders are horrible and all our fish all 430 tanks eat pellets ALL the preditors we sell are willfully eating pellets and freeze dried foods.

I could never work a big box pet store to many idiots out there.

 

[xytrix01]

Having worked for over 12 years dealing with the public I have sympathy for ya. Personally I'm not certain I could work at a LFS without going nuts trying to hold my tongue.

I work at petco. trust me it hurts trying not to tell off half the idiots that come into the store who want feeders for thier fish, or to put in a tiny glass bowl for their kids. Luckly for me, store policy says that I am not to sell feeders for pets, so I can just fall back on that!

I caught my catfish in the delta when he was little, and when I looked him up, it said that he perfers livefoods. so I being the noob that I was bought feeders and let him chow down. I read on here that this wasn't a good idea, but I didn't know what else to feed! The day came at work where my manager said "could you clean out the feeder tank today?" I swaer to god I will never feed a goldfish to anything ever again. Those tanks may look nasty from the consumers point of view, but they don't get to see inside the filters or overflows of these tanks. All the water in the tank is being contantly circulated over a layer of dead deseased fish. I almost threw up like three times trying to clean the whole thing out. But now I had a problem. I had a hungry catfish at home, and it sounded like it would be dificult to train him off of the feeders. I bought some Hikari large cannivor pelets from work, and some frozen prawns and baby ocotopuss from safeway. I dropped a few of the pelets in the tank figuring I'd have to vacume them out in the morning. When I woke up all I could find were divits in the gravel where the pellets had been. "Wow!" I thought, that sure was fast! A few days later I de-shelled one of the prawns and dropped it in the tank. I went to wash my hands, and when I came back it was gone and my catfish had a big old belly! He ate it in like 30 seconds!!!!! I now feed him a mix of the pelets and the prawns. I have yet to try the octopuss, cuz I think that its gross! :sick:

 

[geoffgarcia]

I'm sorry but selling feeders to redneck jarheads is getting to me

not everyone that buys feeders is a a redneck jarhead

every person who buys feeders from me get this speech

if I was constantly given this speech I would most likely start shopping at another fish store. The very first time I got denied buying fish somewhere I would cease shopping at that store.

From what i've learned in this hobby: most LFS workers think they know more than every customer, I dislike having that shoved down my throat when I am looking to make a purchase.

 

[geoffgarcia]

Looking for a statement now to try to tell me what feeders ARE good for and why you have to and should feed only live.

soy is the only complete plant protein. If your giving animals a strict plant diet they could suffer from this lack of amino variety. The best diet is variety aand animal proteins are very important (IMHO)

Carnivorous fish require as much as 45% of protein in their diets. Without this much "meat" they suffer from severe malnutrition. Although many processed and dry fish foods are spiked with proteins specifically for the meat-eaters, the carnivorous species are happiest when they are fed live foods like worms and larvae. Aside from the nutritional elements they derive from live foods, carnivores find satisfaction in chasing after little wriggly prey — an activity they enjoy in their natural habitat.
http://oursimplejoys.com/freshwateraquaria/article1020.html

 

[DHR]

Well, the way this thread is shaping up I'm going to have to disagree with someone, so I might as well disagree with everyone. On the flip side, I guess I'm also sort of agreeing with everyone. Oh, well...

I am heartened by an experienced opinion that all fish can be converted to pellets. I have been working on that assumption, but so far my *** is getting kicked by a couple of my fish. Pellets are certainly a more economical choice, and allow you to do things like take vacations, not stop by the lfs for feeders, etc. I have even seen films of gars grabbing pellets (wow!). I have a xenentodon (needle-nose gar) who ignores pellets, but has always been fond of freeze-dried krill. Heartened by this, I recently got a short-nose gar (growing rather fast), who refuses to even acknowledge anything that isn't swimming. No freeze-dried anything, no live worms, bugs, nothing. "Give me minnows or I'll start chomping my tankmates". I just don't have time to stay home for a week or so and do behavior modification training. I'm spacing out the minnow days so that maybe he'll be tempted by one of the other morsels, but so far he's winning. Also have a Siamese Tiger Fish. He at least has come to accept frozen bloodworms, mysis shrimp, and mosquito larvae, but still "just says no" to pellets, flakes, etc. As for catfish, I've never met one that wouldn't eat anything and everything, so this is probably a case of just liking to watch, but after all, people buy fish "to watch".

Now we come to the feeders themselves. Anyone looking can see that they're mostly not in great shape, and that the conditions they're kept in are pretty gross. It does make me rather conservative about how often I feed them. Also pretty annoying to introduce parasites/diseases into the tank. However, it seems to me that some of the reasons against their use sound rather spurious. I have read, and believe that goldfish contain an enzyme that inhibits processing of B vitamins in some way. A good reason for a balanced diet, but not necessarily for abstinence. The bone density thing is new to me, but not very convincing. Again, seems to argue for non-exclusivity rather than abstinence. Even the overcrowded conditions they're kept in doesn't automatically disqualify. Been to a slaughterhouse lately? Still eat meat? The best reason for not feeding them seems to come back to introduction of disease and parasites. If you have the space & time, by all means raise your own. If this isn't feasible (and that is true for most of us), then we have to buy them. So we're back to Caveat Emptor. Try to find a good source, and try not to buy sick ones. Naturally, try not to use feeders (or anything) exclusively. Varied & balanced diet is what we've all heard since childhood. Sometimes easier said than done.

 

[Milky]

I think its just downright cruel to the animals to feed feeder fish
to another fish. Some people argue that its cheaper to raise and feed
guppies to there fish or to buy feeder goldfish, some people say well thats what they do in the wild... I think some people brag about it as if by them having feeder fish makes them somehow a better person or something, but to me its just giving in to unconscious cruelty... Im glad that you let your customers know that fish can live perfectly well on pellet food and frozen foods

The very first time I got denied buying fish somewhere I would cease shopping at that store.

This is the typical kind of response from someone who buys feeders and feeds live fish to there fishies....They dont like there cruel ways pointed out to them because they dont think there doing anything wrong, plus theyll adamitlly defend there positions as if i would really listen or care as to what a cruel person has to say...I always give them dirty looks when im at the fish store cuz i know there all chicken @##$. I give them that your sick /weird vibe and make em feel guilty because they are guilty, Its just one of the things I like to do to entertain myself when im at the LFS, I just cant help myself...