Live feeders can be so much fun!

[romanr]

It seems that everyone is always talking about weening your fish from live food. I'm particularly addressing lions & anglers in this post. I understand why some would want to do that but it seems like live feeders are seldom encouraged as a permanent diet. Expense and convinience are too reasons but if neither of those is an issue then why not encourage it? I myself get the most fun out of watching my Lion and Angler stalk their prey and gobble up those feeders.

Now you will of course want to feed appropriate food. I consider gut loaded shrimp (salt, brackish or fresh) to be a great food. I feed these to my fish about twice a week and I gut load them with different foods at every feeding. I feed the shrimp NLS, Cyclop-eeze, Formula flakes and pellets, even the occasional Rod's blend. I feed the shrimp about 15 minutes prior to sacrificing them.

To make things more convenient I bought a 5 1/2 gallon glass tank with a light and hood (for aesthetics since it's in plain view). I have a small heater and power filter hooked up to it. I buy the shrimp for about 10 cents a piece (freshwater grass shrimp) and I put in about 100 in the tank per month. The grass shrimp can actually live for a day or two in the saltwater display tank making the feedings all that much more entertaining.

So let's see other examples of reefers who have incorporated live feeders into their regular feeding regimen.

 

[tcmfish]

Your way of feeding feeders is great, but many people just feed goldfish which aren't very nutritious. Keep up the great work though!

 

[Jeff]

I got my angler off of live food right away for convenience purposes. Freshwater shrimp are not going to be any more nutritious then goldfish unless they are fed protein from a marine source before being consumed.

 

[romanr]

I'm doing just that but let me ask you this why are Cyclop-eeze and PE Mysis touted so highly since both are freshwater? Also, you can feed lions and anglers Krill (saltwater food) and many experts claim it to be a nutritionally inferior food responsible for lockjaw and other ailments. So I guess the question is; Is it as simple as Salt good, Fresh bad for every given scenario?

 

[Jeff]

Freshwater life doesn't have much in the way of omega fatty acids and such. I don't know that much about it. I have always read that feeding freshwater feeder shrimp and fish things like Formula One food is way more beneficial to the fish that they feed.

 

[tcmfish]

Also live blackworms, although not a food to feed solely to saltwater fish it is great for conditioning some smaller fish and getting finicky fish to eat!

 

[anbosu]

Whenever I can I try to get a few dozen shrimp from a bait shop and let my eels and lionfish have at them. I think it is always good to provide some variety even though I primarily feed frozen.

 

[hybridazn]

i feed my porc. puffer live ghost shrimp. i always gut pack with formula two flake to make sure he gets his nutrients. like roman said, i enjoy watching him chase after the shrimp in the tank. of course having a lfs that stocks them on a regular basis always helps

 

[namxas]

there's no REAL problem if you can find a suitably nutritious live feeder that has the proper fatty acid content and a "reasonable" level of Thiaminase in their flesh (carp are the WORST, as the content is super high).

the thing is, unless you gut load with various products, your fish is getting the same food day after day, which from a nutritional standpoint isn't so great. additionally, what happens if for whatever reason, you lose access to live food? another thing i've seen is fish getting tired of a particular food, and refusing it for awhile.

IME, it's a lot simpler to go to the local fish market or grocery store and get a variety of seafood that is fresher and in the long run a LOT cheaper than live or frozen food from the LFS. additionally, i have noticed much better growth and coloration in our fish since we began focusing on nutrition.

there's no right or wrong way to do this provided the fish's nutritional needs are met, however, we're currently keeping about 15 specimens of lions/scorps/stingfish/waspfish and that regimen has worked out very well for us.

 

[Stuart60611]

I feed NLS pellets and a home made mixture of seafood purchased at a local fish store. However, I have spent some time trying to see if there was an easily bred live food to offer as a treat to my fish b/c I would love to see them hunt their food once in a while. So far, I have had no luck finding anything that would be suitable nutritionally while at the same time easily bred and maintained. The closest thing I have found is saltwater mollies.