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i went to my lfs yesterday to pick up some feeder goldfish. they usually keep them in the back so you can't see them, but the door was opened and i got a good look. they were all swimming at the top of the tank. i asked the girl if she had just fed them and (when she finally figured out how to 'speak english' and realized which fish i was talking about) she said she hadn't. my question is - could this be a sign that the fish are sick? it just doesn't seem right that all the fish in the tank were swimming up at the top when there wasn't any food up there. any advice would be great

Feeder tanks are among the worst situations. Most feeder tanks I've seen are pure colonies of ich, velvet, columnaris, septicemia, intestinal parasites, among many other maladies. They are overcrowded, probably poorly fed, the water is often cloudy and stinky (meaning parameters probably suck), and I've even seen chunks of fish floating around in them like the gravel vac chewed them up and spit them out. All of that leads to stress, which lowers immunity, and an endless cycle of illness. I must say that I've not seen a feeder tank yet that I would buy fish from for feeding.

Just think what Oscar has for dinner when he eats one - everything that was in that tank.

If I really had to feed my fish live food, I would raise it myself and provide high quality nutrition to them. But many people who have certain fish assume they have to eat live food when they don't. The most gorgeous Oscars I ever seen, for example, hadn't had live food for 4 years - just highly nutritious cichlid pellets. Goldfish are lousy from a nutritional standpoint and when fed as a one-sided diet, can lead to deficiencies in the fish eating them.

The reason they were at the surface, likely, is that they were piping for oxygen. Those things are normally way overcrowded. Other causes could be gill flukes, poor paramaters (especially nitrite would cause piping).

Last edited by Cory_Di at 23-Jan-2005 13:53

first of all, i don't own an oscar so i'll ignore the attitude.

actually - i have a clown knife fish that wouldn't eat anything i put in the tank (you can try to find the question i posted a couple months ago to confirm this if you want). as a last resort, i decided to try the feeder fish to get it to eat something. from a reliable store, i found a batch of kribs that were given to the store, so i purchased a group of those to attempt breeding. the offspring of these kribs are what i will be feeding the fish when they reach a reasonable size. just recently the clown has begun tentatively eating floatin cichlid pellets, but i dont' want to limit the food to just pellets unless he doesn't always eat them.

thanks for the 'advice'

Bayara,

Diane, or Cori Di rather, is a very experienced fish keeper, and I don't believe she was giving you an "attitude" at all. I think all she was trying to do, is explain the horrors of feeder tanks, and explain that goldies aren't nearly as nutritious and beneficial to our pet fish as we think.

I agree with her, fully, especially in saying that they were gasping for air.

I myself work in an LFS, and am exposed to several tanks of feeder fish daily. It's not an easy task keeping those tanks nice, though IMO they are nicer than others that I've seen. Still, I don't really trust those tanks, the only live food I trust from my shop is the BBS and blackworms/bloodworms. Unfortunately no matter what the store does, these tanks still manage to find a way to become home to disease.

Anyway in answer to your question...the goldies were most likely at the surface attempting to get air, because of overcrowding.

*shrug*



-Formerly known as the Ferretfish

Hey, hold on there. If anyone is showing an attitude it is you. I used the Oscar as an example. You asked a question about feeder tanks and fish piping for air. I gave you an honest answer. I never inferred or suggested that YOU personally feed your fish only this, I was talking in general. Try not to be so sensitive and reading into something that isn't there. I was also writing with others in mind who may wander into the post due to the topic.

EDIT: Ferret and I were posting at the same time - thanks Ferret.

One other thing on the topic is that if I had to use a fish that wasn't easy to rear on my own, I'd get the feeders then quarantine them in staging areas for up to 6 weeks at a time. Intestinal parasites aren't easily seen and may not even show an symptoms. Its a crap shoot.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 23-Jan-2005 16:05