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Hi:

This may seem an odd question for this forum, but I imagine some of you who keep predatory species do use some live feeder fish at times (I'm aware some prefer commercial foods, to avoid such hazards as transmitting gill flukes).

I'm working on a project where advising people about live food sources is part of it. Feeder crickets are much cheaper at bait stores than pet shops and can be fed gut-load feeds after purchase, so some people may wonder about bait store 'shiners' (minnows).

Somewhere, somehow, it's floating around in my head that the bait store minnow water is blue because of a copper-based agent, and since copper-based agents are used as algicides and for killing some fish diseases, and we know that at higher levels these are toxic and can kill fish (this had been brought up using copper-based algicides in farm ponds), and given that predators can accumulate larger toxin concentrations than their prey, I'm thinking it'd be a bad idea to use bait store shiners (or fathead minnows/red rosies from bait stores) as feeders for pets.

But can anyone confirm any of this?

Thanks! I searched online before posting and couldn't find a good answer.

Richard.

I think you will find that the same people sell to both trades. Honestly I have no idea why they are treated differently one way to find out is simply ask them why? Bait stores will want a quick turnover also posibly work on a far less mark up.

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The feeder fish that my store receives are shipped in blue water. They are however held in vats of normal freshwater, without the "medication". Interestingly, we do get our feeders from a bait/fish store. I'm not sure, but I suspect that many other fish stores have their feeders packed in the blue water. Input from other lfs workers would help with confirmation.

I'm not a big fan of using feeder fish as food regardless. They are almost always in bad health, and can't be trusted not to get other fish sick. Not only that, they often are fed minimally or not at all. This means that there is lessened nutritional value for whatever eats them.

---

And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Heh. Okay, now you've got me worried about the pet store feeders, too!

Years ago I visited an online forum on a type of Giant Asian softshell turtle called Chitra chitra. People were buying young juveniles and mortality was a big issue. These turtles were typically fed mainly feeder fish. A poster speculated that copper-based agents used to treat feeders might lead to accumulation and I think liver damage in the turtle. Someone at some point had some sort of softshell necropsied and the liver had higher than normal copper concentration, for whatever that's worth.

I like red rosies because they're attractive, a temperate climate native species color morph, about the right size, some turtles like the taste better than guppies I believe, and they're not ridiculously hard to catch, either.

I can catch native fish, but bluegills are hard to catch and predatory. I tend to feed the feeders (ghost shrimp or red rosies) or put them in a 1,000 gallon stock tank pond with water hyacinth where there's food to be had (I don't want bluegill eating all the bugs). Live fish give my chicken turtle some stimulation (most turtles are lousy fisherman outside of small, enclosed aquariums. A few species, like chicken turtles, can catch some).

Interesting stuff.

Richard.

I've done some more online research using different search terms in Google than I used previously. Some interesting bits:

http://www.turtleman.com/turtlecare.html This page at Loggerhead Acres Turtle Farm states:

Goldfish should be avoided because of certain treatment (copper sulfate) the fish farms use that is toxic to turtles after a certain level is reached.

But then it says:

Guppies, Rosy reds or small minnows are best.

Why wouldn't the rosy reds and guppies also get the same chemical treatment as the goldfish?

The California Turtle and Tortoise Club has this page on Mata Matas: http://www.tortoise.org/archives/matamata.html

It says:

Food of captive matamatas is probably one of the most contested issues in chelonian care. Goldfish are at the center of the debate. I have been told that live goldfish will erect their dorsal fins when sucked up, and that eventually a fin bone will puncture the throat lining, leading to infection and finally killing the turtle. Many goldfish are mass raised in outdoor ponds into which copper sulfate is added to stop the growth of algae. It has been suggested that the build up of copper sulfate in the fish, and therefore the turtle, can lead to a toxic level that kills the turtle. I have been told that goldfish, in addition to many other fish, have thiaminase, a vitamin B1 enzyme which can cause vitamin B1 deficiencies. Also, many fish in the pet trade have a plethora of microscopic pathogens that can infect and kill the turtle. However, I have spoken with one keeper who had fed frozen goldfish exclusively for five years without problems (Formanowicz et al., 1989).

CentalPets.com has this page on Mata Matas: http://www.centralpets.com/php/PrintFriendly.php?AnimalNumber=2628

It says:

In captivity they require live fish of the appropriate size for the turtles, so they can swallow the fish whole. Bait fish, like minnows are commonly used. The fish should be kept in a separate tank before feeding them to the turtles to ensure that they don't have any diseases and to get rid of all the drugs and chemicals in the fish's system. There appears to be a lot of debate concerning feeding of goldfish. Some caregivers state that they can cause injury to the turtle with their fins. In addition some keepers state that goldfish (like some other fish) have a B1 enzyme that can lead to B1 deficiencies in the Mata Mata. Lastly most goldfish are raised in environments with copper sulfate in the water. Many keepers of Mata Matas believe that increased exposure to the copper sulfate will become toxic.

So, whether you're keeping a mata mata, chicken turtle, oscar or a gar, if you're feeding comets, red rosies of guppies, I wonder if the copper sulfate issue applies to all of them, and how long it'd take to clear from their systems if kept in a separate tank?

Richard.

I used to keep a brackish small predators tank before I went on active duty and the Marines moved me from Texas to the east coast and then to SoCal. I prefer to feed live foods if I can, because that's usually what they'll get in the wild and brackish predators aren't usually captive bred. However, I also don't think it's a good idea to introduce sick food to a tank that I can't medicate (white-cheecked moray = no copper whatsoever). So, I overcame this problem by breeding my own. I set up two smaller brackish tank where I just bred mosquito fish, guppies, enders livebearers, mollies, ghost shrimp, and pond snails.

If you're looking to advise people on feeding live, my suggestion would be to breed your own. Livebearers, ghost shrimp, snails, convict cichlids, and a ton of others are inexpensive and breed very easily in captivity.

I've bred guppies and Columbian Ramshorn snails for feeders. Some snails of the genus Goniobasis are known to transmit lung flukes (Heronimus mollis) to loggerhead musk turtles, and snails have a rep. for being parasite vectors, so I don't aim to use wild-caught snails.

From what I understand Ghost shrimp need heavily vegetated water and some form of food the young can eat, such as can be had by breeding snails in the same container.

I've heard of people breeding convicts for feeders; it would be interesting to see. I used to keep electric yellow cichlids and they bred, although I sold them to a pet shop (it'd be hard to feed those guys to the chicken turtle, and cichlids are pretty sharp for fish; might be hard to catch!).

For many keepers, it's a matter of scale. A feeder colony large enough for regular, substantial harvesting tends to need a fairly large setup (granted, with guppies and Columians that's not quite as true).

Good point about breeding your own, though.

Richard.

I didn't need a massive feeder setup for my tank, since they were small predators (a leaf fish, two freshwater morays, a freshwater sole, and a freshwater sculpin). They're also all lazy fish that don't require a ton of food (except the leaf fish -- that thing could eat like you can't imagine). I kept java moss, snails, and ghost shrimp in one 20 high with a small media-less filter, and livebearers in a traditional set-up 20 long with more java moss. The java moss helps to keep nitrates down, along with algae, allowing the inverts to live and breed there. When it was time to feed, I'd snag a few fish, snails, and shrimp and drop them in. The predators ate at thier own pace and I refilled the food supply every three or four days.