Needlenose Fish

[JawsA10]

i have just tried feeding my needlenose fish live foods besides frozen. the fish i fed him was red and about an inch long, how long till i feed him 1 more of these again? thanks in advance

(my needlenose is small but he swallowed it)

 

[nmonks]

Please note that needlenose fish, according to Fishbase have been "observed to feed exclusively on crustaceans in the wild". While live fish may be a convenient dietary item, they are certainly not essential, and over the long term might not even be all that healthy.

Try and wean your specimens onto river shrimps, gammarus, live brine shrimps, and so on. Insects of various kinds might be an option, though black crickets apparently aren't a good idea (see CFC's excellent index entry for this fish, plus flamingonhot's comments). Needlefish will also take dead foods such as krill, which are very nutritious.

Without knowing what fish you used, some general advice is goldfish or minnows are a bad idea: these contain thiaminase that destroys vitamin B1. If you absolutely must use live fish for food, use livebearers such as guppies that you have bred yourself and gut-loaded. Cheap feeder fish from your pet store a little parasite time-bombs, and just aren't worth the risk. There's some general advice on feeder fish here.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[JawsA10]

i tried him on frozen brine shrimp and he just got skinny, so i put that fish in and within seconds it was gone. there is no problem with getting any live crustaceans with me though. thats all i needed to know. thanks for all the help

 

[JawsA10]

im sorry but, i forgot to see how long until i feed him again? a week or so?

 

[nmonks]

No personal experience of these, so can't comment on how often to feed them. When I kept gar (Lepisosteus sp.) I fed them daily, and gave them a small piece of food that fit neatly into its mouth rather than a huge great hunk it had to chomp away at. My halfbeaks (which are very closely related to needlefish) eat maybe 1-2% body mass per day, if that. A 10 cm halfbeak might get four or five bloodworms and a couple of flakes.

You can't easily "overfeed" a fish to the point where you cause harm, but you can put so much food in the tank the water quality plummets. So if in doubt, check the nitrites and nitrates.

Carnivores are adapted to eat infrequent meals, so daily feeds are probably a luxury rather than a necessity. For a 30 cm needlefish, I'd have though 2-3 live river shrimp or a medium-sized earthworm a day would be about right.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[JawsA10]

thanks for the reply, my needlenose though is only about4 inches long