Live Fish food

[RAJOD]

Anyone use live food for their puffers and triggers?

Live feeder shrimp.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Live-Feeder-Shrimp-for-Saltwater-Tanks-50-or-110-pieces-/280862156512

If I were in Florida I could just buy those cheap fishing live shrimp and toss in my tank.

 

[syrinx]

Yes I have fed a lot of live foods. The problem with marine foods, is they can bring in pathogens, and fresh water foods lack the essential vitamins and oils for proper nutrition. Once you get past foods that can be cultured, live food is more difficult.

 

[RAJOD]

are you saying those feeder shrimp will bring in pathogens?

What if they are tank raised?

 

[griseum]

Ive been raising Mollies, different Killifish species and different marine/Euryhalline shrimps, as well as, pods of all sizes, and some phyto for these little ones. I prefer to receive all of the fish in full freshwater, then acclimate them to Saline, then put them through a QT process, then allow them in to various MacroAlgae tanks, LR tanks. Same with Lysmata sp. Shrimps, especially "peppermint" which seem to be relatively cheap, as low as 3.99 around here. Tough to get them to spawn though. Everything listed above spawns regularly. All sorts of great live foods constantly available throughout my system.

As syrinx stated previously, I wouldn't expect this to fulfill my fishs' dietary needs completely. PE Mysis seems to always be irresistable, and if not, I'd check your fish for internal problems.

Im not exactly possitive about Mollies and fat content, at the moment. I know they are far better than freshwater feeder fish. Not sure if a steady diet is a good idea or if it will lead to fatty liver issues and/or thiaminase. Etc.

 

[RAJOD]

I'm confused. Are those feed shrimp freshwater? Why would you want freshwater fish vs marine shrimp and fish?

 

[MrTuskfish]

I wouldn't put anything from a bait tank into my tanks. I'm around marinas quite often. Bird droppings, arms soaked in gas/oil, anything little kids can toss in, etc., etc. all are commonly dipped into bait tanks.

 

[MrTuskfish]

I'm confused. Are those feed shrimp freshwater? Why would you want freshwater fish vs marine shrimp and fish?

FWIW: PE mysis, IMO, the best all around commercial carnivore food is harvested in FW lakes. Most spirulina, by far the most popular veggie in foods made for herbivores, is also a FW product. The fish meal, used for both FW & SW fish foods is largely (I think) menhaden, a SW fish. One more: countless FW fish are bred & raised using brine shrimp, a SW species.

I'm not sure what, if anything, this means. I just don't think there is much difference between SW & FW origin when it comes to most fish foods. However, feeding a FW feeder fish , long term, to any SW fish is really a problem. FW fish, largely carp family species, are incredibly fatty and heave use has shown to led to fatty deposits and liver problems. I think all FW fish are fatty (and wussy, sorry, B.A.S.S.). compare the wiggly gut of a large mouth bass, musky, or walleye to the rock hard gut of a SW bonefish, mackerel, tuna, etc of the same size. .

 

[griseum]

No way. NEVER anything from a bait shop.
When a LFS does receive freshwater shrimp, the euryhaline type (tolerates fresh and salt water), I do get them in FW and acclimate them to full salt as fast as possible, and yes Mollies could be considered FW but in the wild the prefer a little salt toward adulthood.

Check out some Sally Jo's and GARF's videos for SW Mollies on youtube. GARF used them extensively.

I dont use the fish themselves as food, they are intended to breed, then the Killifish larvae, baby mollies, shrimp eggs, marine feeder shrimp, Reefs2Go and ReefGen pods, all in multiple refugia, are the intended food items.

 

[RAJOD]

Why can't you put in salt water shrimp that can live in the tank with the other fish?

I do that now but its a bit expensive. A cleaner shrimp might be 30.00 and might last 1 day to weeks. But if I put in 20 live shrimp that are a 1.00 per they could live for a long time and serve as a food source when the puffer and trigger want to hunt some.

They would not eat them all fast. It took my puffer 10 days to eat a solo sea urchin.

So not talking about putting dirty grimy stuff in the tank but clean marine shrimp of some type.

Putting a live fresh water species in a marine tank would not allow it to live very long.

NAS charges for their shrimp by the Dozen. They charge $2.40 per dozen with no sales tax. I have no idea how this compares with other bait stands as I have no idea how many (on average) shrimp there are in a quart.

Pretty cheap for 12 live shrimp.

You can get a quart of them for like 16.00. There are around 80 shrimp per quart.

So not one of you have tried to use live salt water bait shrimp? Just put a dozen in the tank and would live just like any other invert and would serve as a natural food source for a puffer or trigger.

 

[griseum]

Its not a great idea to get shrimp from a bait shop for several reasons.
In simple terms, they are dirty! They are known to harbor parasites. They have not been handled like orna, ental fish or shrimp for that matter. They are often not in a suitably filtered tank for very long periods of time. At the bait stores there is often a lot of cross contamination between tanks. This may be contamination with more/other parasites, or toxins, chemicals and who knows what. As stated above/earlier in the thread.

What is NAS by the way?
And the Freshwater shrimp called ghost/glass/grass shrimp are usually the Euryhalline species that can be converted and then put in your SW aquarium. But as with any puffer and trigger tank, there shouldnt be any inverts, unless you want them to die.

 

[RAJOD]

there shouldnt be any inverts, unless you want them to die.

I do want them to die. They are food for fish.