Posted by russ on April 04, 2002 at 21:24:23:
In Reply to: What's your choice of feeder fish? Rosies or goldfish?? posted by Zyla1969 on April 04, 2002 at 15:56:16:
: I recently have discovered, thru reading others posts, and researching, that goldfish are pretty bad to use as feeders because of disease and such. So I stopped getting them for everyone, including the turtle and the duck. (Yep, it's pretty much a zoo here, but the duck is just being fostered till he is big enough to go out on his own, but he gets rosies too!! LOL)
: I also was told yesterday, that rosies are much better becuase they come from a sterile environment. (This is what I had switched to after stopping the goldfish) He told me that they are bred and raised under uv lighting, therefore, are in a sterile environment. I haven't researched this yet, and was wondering what you guys had to say, and what is your preference for feeders.
: And what about guppies? I haven't heard anything bad about them "yet"! LOL Everyone gets guppies in my house. I get a big ole bag of guppies and rosies, and go around to all the tanks with the scooper. This is only one day a week. The other days they get a different little something everyday including hicari cichlid gold, fozen what-nots, home-made veggie food, and a whole variety of other stuff.
Zyla1969,
In my humble opinion, goldfish get the bad rap for (mostley)the wrong reasons...diseases. In my shop I am fortunate enough to be able to cycle the feeder comets I get in so I can hold(quaranteen) them for a week before they are sold. A larger concern about these fish used as feeders is their bone structure. They have very large bones when compared to other feeder fish. Not to mention that they are larger than rosys and guppies to begin with. For feeding any type of marine fish, such as Lions, etc., I don't recommend comets. For Piranahs, I don't recommend comets either. Something else that should be considered is matching up the appropriate sized feeder fish with the fish you are feeding. A full-grown Oscar will have no problem with gulping down a three inch comet, but I experience people who dump in two dozen of these fish in their tank so they can watch their tail fins stick out of the other's mouths. Comets are not that bad if feed in moderation and sized accordinly. Their actual nutritional value is still in question because of their bone structure. Large-mouth bass do ok on very boney shad, but it is not their only diet. So it should be with large, predatory aquarium fishes. You vary their diet and that is great. Something else to consider is frozen silersides. They are the marine equivilent to the freshwater minnows or rosies. About your rosy supplier raising them "under" UV lights? That doesn't make any sense. Maybe what he ment was that they employ UV units in the filtration loop. Any fish raised in a pond outside under sunlight is being kept "under" UV lighting! Water must pass extremely close(within 1/4th inch) of the UV lamp for it to be effective in stopping/killing pathogens in the water that passes by/through the unit lamp. I have yet to find or here of any feeder fish supplier that does not also cater to bait shops as far as rosies and other minnow fishes go. These are collected from lakes. Perhaps your supplier keeps them in holding tanks or "runs" that are filtered with UV units? Thats really not a bad setup, but it can be expensive replacing those tubes. I run two 40 watt units and the tubes cost me $42.00 each. They have to be replaced at about six month intervals. Guppies are fine, but did you know that they are more prone to diseases than the comets? Guppies, if handled properly(actually any fish handled properly) would be ok under the perameters I indicated above. The main problem with guppies is that they do not ship well in-mass at all. Goldfish are not as affected by nitrite poisoning as guppies. Goldfish can also take in atmopheric air to some degree in compensating for bad water conditons(over crowding, etc.). Guppies must be acclimated (even in my shop we don't have the time and space to do that)(feeders sell rapidly for a reason. they are expendable and are ment to die(get eaten anyway, not from a disease). But, bottom line is still, vary the diet, like you have been doing, and match the feeder fish size to the fish being fed.
russ,
JC Pets+Supplies, KS.
