Feeder Guppies

[flipnshi]

Okay so I would like to set up a feeder tank. Ive transformed my 29 gallon fully cycled into this. I went and bought 60 feeder rosy reds. After a week have had some die off and Ive scooped ones that appeared to be not in the best of health, a white dot would appear on one and Id scoop it out. Or just sickly looking. Ive been feeding them daily flakes crushed up into lil pieces and Wardley algae discs. They seem to love the discs. The temp is maintained at 78-80 F. Weekly water changes 10 to 20 percent and have a marineland 350 penguin filter running with air strips and air stones. Tons of hiding spots. As a "clean up crew" I have a very small baby blue crayfish. I understand that he will eat some here and there til they get bigger. How long before they start breeding and when is a good amount of time to wait to feed them to some of my "trigger" fish as treats? Oscars, cichilds and a pike cichlid?

 

[dannybgoode]

Can I ask why you think it is a good idea to use feeder fish as food? As you have seen they can be riddled with parasites and may cause illness and death to the diners. Further they are of questionable nutritional value compared to specialist feeds available?

Cheers

Danny B

 

[Dieses Madchen]

I would suggest frozen fish as treats over live feeders. I fed my oscars frozen silversides, which they loved. I would chance the health of my large cichlids by wanting to let them chase and hunt possible diseased feeders.

 

[flipnshi]

That's why I got so many feeders....treating them as regular fish. So that they will grow up to be healthy fish. Weed out the parasite riddled and unhealthy ones. A friend of mine set one up like this and it turned out to be okay...a lot of time involved tho for them to grow mature enough to breed. Once grown he found the same adult fish to change up the breeding line for even more healthy fish.

As far as the why. I don't feed feeder fish to my own fish daily. More like once a week or bi-weekely treat, no fish eats more than one. Keeps them active and it is interesting to watch them "in their own" environment, trust me they eat healthy enough as it is. Frozen Beef hearts once a week and frozen PE Mysis Shrimp every three days. As well as switching in and out wafer discs, Hikari cichild Gold pellets and small amount of flakes daily. Not overfeeding as far as Im concerned everything gets eaten and have crays in all three tanks for what the bottom feeders don't get. Along with weekly water changes and weekly water tests with API.

Im here for advice and what others have done with their tanks and their experiences. Im no expert at all. I like fish keeping as a hobby and wanted to start a new project instead of adding to my bigger tanks. Feeder fish from the store are horrible choices for food almost no protein or substance. Can clog up digestive tracks and potential kill your existing fish with parasites. But if raised properly and fed high protein diet can be an awesome addition for a 2 year old to "help" out without harming our other family fish. Just have to thin them out when she isn't looking adding excitement to my side of it. lol