I was wondering about how many people who keeping feeder fish as pets? I kept group of feeder guppies and they are fun. Sometimes I found some swordtail juvies mixed in feeder guppies tank and I raised the juvies to their adulthood. The swordtails turn out great looking adults. I used to have a group of red rosies in past as they are easy to take care of. Sometimes I wondered if feeder fish are not meant to be pet.
Cool idea for a post, Butch, I'll bet lots of people have 'feeders'.
As beautiful as Fancy guppies are, they're not what I want in a guppy.
So I've got some very pretty 'feeder' guppies with a lot of Endler evident - only the males'll typically harass not only females but each other into a decline if kept together.
Thought going into a community tank would fix it, but not.
Beautiful little things, but more guts and persistance than brains in that line...
Of course, feeders tend to be culls and often raised in bad conditions, so there have been deformities and weaknesses, etc. to worry about; I bought mine out of the communal feeder shrimp/guppy bin at an LFS.
Mine are pets: I wouldn't trade them for anything...
And, like Gazoo, had 'feeder' ghost shrimp but they sometimes (like the guppies they were kept in with) arrive with nasties tricky to treat under the circs. and don't always make it very long.
Well, the one lot did, but the rapidly growing biggest ate the others over time, and sat in the 'trees' snatching passing baby guppies, causing me to wonder about adults then (RIP) escaped into dry air when temporarily relocated into a smaller container - yup, prawn.
Another lot which rapidly died one by one in quarantine had what looked like a very tiny fish louse crawling on the body of one of the last, although I doubt that was what killed them...
Last lot - Murphy's law striking again, healthy and lively - were evidently prawns, which died as they'd try to aggressively face down a Betta rather than scoot out of the way, and actually stalked their tails as the fish hunted the bottom, so their loss wasn't as upsetting as it might have been, since I had a guppy in the one tank to worry about and was starting to wonder a little about the safety of the Bettas.
And now, darn it, at least one of those fish knows live shrimp are tasty and was cautiously hunting the last few...
But I couldn't agree more with Gazoo that they are really are great, if you manage to actually get Ghosties.