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it has recently come to my attention that my needlefish is now eating flakes and shrimp pellets.this is no lie. however he will still eat about 3 rosy reds a day but i dont know how or why he started eating that kind of food. can anyone help me understand this

when your hungry you will eay anything.

Dont forget that even though you fed it minnows, the place were you go it from might of feed them dry foods.

Their isnt any problems with feedn hm dry foods. It has its benefts, bt contiunue what you doing.

How big is the needlefish, out of curiosity? Sounds like a nice fish!

Many fish can learn what is food over time. Although many species are predatory, they will go after the non-living pellets or flakes if they've learned that it actually is edible. For some species, such as tetras, learning flakes are food seems normal to aquarists. Needlefish are a little more of a stretch, but many of the more uncommon types of fish can still eventually be weaned from live (or frozen) foods onto processed foods.

In fact, this can be more convenient if you don't have live fish around as you can just chuck in some of your pelleted food from the cupboard and let your fish go to town without having to either keep live fish somewhere or buy them regularly. Feeding live fish also has the downsides of possibly introducing disease if they are from a bad source and such and such, and some people believe that feeding live fish is even cruel if it is unnecessary. It's also cheaper not to feed live fish if you're buying them, and the prepared foods are formulated to contain a variety of nutrients your fish needs. On the other hand, it's still better to feed a variety of foods so that your fish can get all the nutrients it needs, some which might even be missing from prepared foods.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Your Needlefish - are these Xenentodon cancila by any chance?

Only I gather it's pretty unusual for those fishes to eat non-live foods ...


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002