I Feel Cruel...

[willowstwin]

so, I'm sat reading about fish, and what happens when they breed, and lots of places reccommend feeding fry freshly hatched brine shrimp.

What turns up at my lab this morning? A pack to grow your own brine shrimp (for the kids to look at and see life cycles). I found myself thinking this would be excellent if I could get any of my fish to breed.. that thought lasted all but 2 seconds and then I felt bad.

Is this what you have to do to feed fry? or is there an alternative? Because, as with breeding my fish, I don't think I could watch little sea monkeys hatch and then throw them into the tank of fry

Please help!

 

[micko]

Many people use BBS but I never have. Crushed up flakes I've used for livebearer fry.

 

[Delloy12]

I also use crushed up flakes

 

[willowstwin]

phew thank goodness for that!

 

[Squidward]

Well it's natural - happens in the wild.
I often feed live food (brine shrimp & daphnia) to my fish. They love it and it is nutritious.

 

[fluttermoth]

when they're newly hatched (the brine shrimp, not the fish fry!) they just look like tiny dots; they don't look like actual shrimp; I find that makes it easier.

 

[Scott MacAdam]

I use crushed up flakes and these little drops you can buy called fry food. depends on the size of them.

 

[Geoff-]

if you feel bad about brine shrimp you should also feel bad for animals bred for meat. and about cows and chickens kept for milk and eggs as they are not free either. and you might as well feel bad for grass when you step on it because you're damaging a living thing by doing so.

kind of ironic you're into fishkeeping at all really - most fish are captive bred, inbred at that, kept in tight confines until sale and then spend their life in a tank in your lounge room. they'll never see freedom but on the plus side they can have a healthy and long life without threat of predators and natural disasters.

life is cruel, and we all live in cages to some degree. ethics is a human construct, animals have no knowledge of this. without getting into a huge debate on the subject i'm suggesting you just relax and stop overthinking it or you'll end up in extremes as above

 

[Mowbz]

if you feel bad about brine shrimp you should also feel bad for animals bred for meat. and about cows and chickens kept for milk and eggs as they are not free either. and you might as well feel bad for grass when you step on it because you're damaging a living thing by doing so.

kind of ironic you're into fishkeeping at all really - most fish are captive bred, inbred at that, kept in tight confines until sale and then spend their life in a tank in your lounge room. they'll never see freedom but on the plus side they can have a healthy and long life without threat of predators and natural disasters.

life is cruel, and we all live in cages to some degree. ethics is a human construct, animals have no knowledge of this. without getting into a huge debate on the subject i'm suggesting you just relax and stop overthinking it or you'll end up in extremes as above

Couldnt have said it any better....

 

[swanseastilo]

Yeah next time you go to mcdonalds or KFC or eating your Sunday dinner. Think about that poor cow/chicken/pig that died just so you can eat it.

Any way time for a cooked english breakfast.

 

[Delloy12]

I've got chickens in my garden

 

[swanseastilo]

They must taste so good. Fresh chiken

 

[Delloy12]

We haven't eaten them but you can taste the difference between fresh eggs and eggs from the shops

 

[swanseastilo]

I know what you mean. chicken also tastes better from a farm where they run about.

 

[willowstwin]

Thats a tad extreme geoff.. my main point was that I'd be feeding live food... I dont eat a cow inbetween a bun with ketchup while it's alive! It's like I couldn't feed a live mouse to a snake, and as some people have pointed out on here in other threads, if you add certain small fish to a tank with aggressive larger fish, you're feeding live food.

I'm not stressing over every aspect of humane, and trust me when I say I know that ethics is a purely human concept, but I was asking if there was an alternative to feeding fry live feed when I'm not comfortable with it. You will not make me feel ridiculous or bad for having some feelings towards animals, and not being comfortable with certain things. I was ridiculed at university by my lecturers as well as fellow classmates for my views on certain things, but I refuse to let others influence my feelings and beliefs.

My main point was that I didn't want to cause suffering to a living creature by feeding it alive to another - and before you argue that "it's nature/natural - it's what they'd do in the wild", as you yourself pointed out, they're not in a natural environment. They don't require the movement stimulation of live prey in order to feed correctly (like venus fly traps for example, which need the struggling movements of flys in the traps to stimulate the secretion of digestive enzymes - putting a dead fly in to trigger the trap just causes the fly to fester and rot in the trap), so if there is an equal (and dead) alternative, I'd prefer to use that.