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Most people say not to feed your fish feeder fish. I somewhat disagree with this. first of all most cichlids in the wild eat live fish on a regular basis. So why cant demestic cichlids? i mean it should be okay to feed into them 1 or 2 times a week instead of not at all. Just inspect the feeders before putting them in. I dont think it is feeder fish that cause HITH disease. I think it is from a bad diet. Meaning not a varitey of foods. What is your opinion of feeder fish.

There's is just to many highly nutritious and quality fish foods on the market to day to ever make the need to feed your cichlids live food necessary. Plus you can't just simply look at the feeders before you place them in the tank and tell if they may possibly have something like an internal parasite or bacterial infection which will most likely be transfered to the fish that eats the dieased feeder. In this day and age it's simply not worth the risk. There's just to many alternative foods out there.

I totally agree with Cichlid Keeper.

The only way to be as safe as you can with feeding live fish to your fish is to breed them yourself but I still don't think it's necessary for the good health of your fish, it's just a matter of personal preference then

Feeder fish can be some of the worst food you can give. There are a couple species of fish that just will not eat anything else but thats when you raise your own. Feeders don't cause HITH its high nitrates that do. You can't just inspect feeder either. They would have to go through at least 2 weeks of treatment and quarentine. Also I dont think that theres very many goldfish in the amazon for oscars to eat. Sure you can feed them the fish that they naturally would eat but you'll be spending tons on food. There is a reason why companies spend so much money on reasearch for fish foods.

There is a cost effective way to give your fish feeders and still maintain quality. Get yourself a pair of convicts. In no time you will have a large quantity of feeders of known quality. I feed all my mating fish on convicts fry twice a week as part of their conditioning. As with any food tho its a good idea to mix things up. Mine get live 2 days, frozen worm or shrimp 3 days and flake 2 days. Normal diet when not breeding or for non breeding fish is 2 days of frozen foods and 5 days of flake. The only reason I feed live at all is that it seems to make the breeders more active and seems to entice the spawning behavior I am looking for more readily than frozen and flake only.

Last edited by tanker at 06-Jun-2005 09:10

Live food - more about the owner than the fish IMHO.

Some people like to see the behaviours that the live foods induce. Nothing wrong with that if that is what interests you. But you can't check for health by looking (I agree with the others on this.) Only way is for you to breed 'em.

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~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

So would it be safe to set up a 15 gal tank and bread guppys to feed to my convicts? I have never tryed small fish but they go to town on glass shrimp.

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Breeding your own fish to feed is probably the best method to go if you choose use feeders. Just make sure your guppies are properly quarantined also, the transfer from the LFS to the tank can bring in some diseases too.

Fish dont always eat other fish in the wild - theres always others they feed on such as worms, crawdads, shrimps, crabs, etc.

ya just got to be care full not to get unhealthy specimens cause in alot of my LFS don't take very good care of their feeder fish tanks

i feed my bigger chiclids,feeder fish as a treat,i normally use my own fry,if i dont have any fry going,i buy feeders from my lfs,then i put them in my qt for about two/three weeks giving them quality foods to clean them out.in doing this ive never had any trouble with using feeders.does anyone else use this method.