# What type of feeder fish are at your local pet store?



## Betta splendens

Hey, I'm just wondering,

What pet store in what town in what country have what type of feeder fish?

and if you weren't picky on what fish you have, couldn't you spend a lot less money by just raising the feeder fish as aquarium fish?

thnx


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## Puffer Pita

Feeders are regular aquarium fish usually, i.e., guppies, mollies, baby common gold fish, rosy red minnows, etc. Most people who use a lot of feeders (which aren't good for most fish) raise their own. Its cheaper and you know they are healthy. NEVER buy feeders and feed them without quarantining them for at least 2 weeks first. That includes shrimp and snails, too.


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## Betta splendens

I ment like instead of buying the $10 fish you'd buy the feeder fish for like 10 for $1


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## Puffer Pita

Yes, that is what they do. Feeders that I mentioned are sold a couple of dollers per dozen.


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## Gourami Swami

Or, get a 20 long and set up a breeding pair of convicts... You will get around 3oo feeders ever two weeks that you know are healthty!

I actually do feed my fish rosy's and neons though, only every other week.


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## Puffer Pita

Livebearers are best used as feeders. The others have stuff in them that isn't healthy for other fish to eat. 

From Neale Monks, scientist extraordinaire:
_Rosy red minnows and goldfish are very popular with people who like to use feeder fish, but they're actually the worst possible choice. They contain a lot of thiaminase, an enzyme that breaks down vitamin B1. Livebearers don't have thiaminase, and so are safer to use. Incidentally, prawns also have a lot of thiaminase, as do most oily fish, such as anchovies. Mussels and snails don't have thiaminase, making them both (yet again) perfect pufferfish foods. 

Another factor is nutritional balance: predators of all types depend on the gut contents of their prey for essential vitamins. That's why cats eat the guts and livers of birds they catch before they eat the bits that seem nicer to us, the muscles. Livebearers are again ideal because they are herbivorous and easily fattened up with algae wafers and softened greens such as lettuce or frozen peas. 

The fattiness issue is a bit unclear. Yes, it is true that too much fat is bad. Anything from a warm-blooded animal, such as cheese or chicken meat, will contain oils that will harden into fat inside the relatively cool body of a fish. That much is certain. But the fattiness issue with regard to cold blooded animals is more ambiguous to me. Ordinary fish food flake, made from fish meal, is 12.5% oil (at least the pot of Aquarian flake sitting here is). Not many fish are likely to be that fatty. Moreover, the oils in fish are rather different to the ones that cause problems in human arteries. So while I've read the goldfish are too fatty thing repeatedly, I'm far from convinced. 

The main problem with feeders (as I see it) is that many of the people who think it fun to use them don't care to breed and feed their own feeders. This makes those aquarists much less reliable in terms of keeping their predatory fish healthy, because they're dependent on cheap goldfish or whatever. By contrast, someone weaning their predator onto dead foods can much more easily ensure the food given to their pet is clean, nutritious, and varied. _


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## Gourami Swami

I always QT the feeders for a few days and gutload them with flake food and shrimp.


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## Puffer Pita

A few days is insufficient IMO. Minimumum should be 2 weeks, 4 is best. Feeders can be infected/infested with all sorts of nasties that won't show up after only a few days.


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## Phantom_Cichlid

For feeders I use Fancy Guppies, Guppies, Mollies, Plattys, Comets, and Convicts.


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## Gourami Swami

Well then, I take my chances untill these convicts breed.


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## robyn

i friend of the family has a fish eating snake so he keeps a tank of feeders. i suggested buying livebearers and breeding his own feedcers, but he said they take to long to grow big enough


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## Mazzy

The only fish I ever had that ate feeders was a knife fish and I didn't quarentine. I know it's not a good idea but it takes up room that I didn't have and honestly, I don't see it as a huge problem. I'm sure it happnes, probably regularly, but I have personnally never seen a carnivorous fish get an illness/die while being fed feeders. Usually meat eaters are pretty hardy anyway. I also bought my fish from the local bait shop since their tanks looked cleaner than the nasty feeder tanks at fish stores.

My LFS carries goldfish, occasionally rosies (but not enough to count on) and ghost shrimp at a non-feeder price IMO @ 10 for $4 - those I still buy occasionally for my puffer.


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## Betta splendens

The second thing I was talking about, whose message i don't quite think is clear is: 

Instead of buying, of say.....5 mollies at $10.00 each, does anyone instead buy the molly fry (pretend it is sold as feeder fish in the same pet store) at 50 cents each and just raise them as aquarium fish? So basically raising the much cheaper feeder fry as acual auarium fish (not to be eaten).


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## Gourami Swami

LFS's dont sell molly fry at feeder prices, because they can be sold in a few months at a much higher price.


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## T4987

Mine sell livebearer fry for 50-75 cents each not exactly the cheapest feeder but great if you like raising fry.


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## Puffer Pita

Gourami Swami said:


> LFS's dont sell molly fry at feeder prices, because they can be sold in a few months at a much higher price.


Mine does.


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## Cichlid Man

Feeders are illegal in the UK. I asked for 10 goldfish once at my lfs and the owner who served me said I thought you don't keep coldwaters? I said ughhhhhhhhh..........................well I do now lol.


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## robyn

they'r illegal? then surely mice for snake food should be illegal too?


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## Sable

Betta, if your LFS sells mollies for $10 each and you want some, I can get you a few for $2.50 each, lol! Most fish are extremely cheap where I live.

In the way of feeders, my LFS of choice carries:

Rosy reds
Baby comets
Baby goldies
Ghost shrimp

Lots of people do raise feeders. Buying a baby comet goldfish for ten cents and raising it to sixteen inches is a great choice economically: you could sell the sixteen-incher for a LOT of money or at the very least congratulate yourself on saving about $20, once food is accounted for. I myself raised several rosy red minnows, just because I think they're beautiful, in a tank by themselves. I lost one to disease and eventually had to give them away because they got huge.


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## flamingo

LMAO. Well, I can't raise feeders, or buy enough to last any amount of time, so I buy bait fish (minnows or shiners), or just plain out collect them myself. They are all treated for parasites and fungal infection phyophatically (meaning I treat them even though I see no visible signs), and I feed them good quality flake and frozen foods. No sense in buying feeder fsh and starving them of all nutrients before feeding to a predatory fish.

I try getting all possible fish off of feeders (which is actually pretty easy...) otherwise i'd be feeding like 4 shiners per fish a day. I only saw disease once (fungus) after feeding wild shiners, but that was before I started treating and quarantining them. Collecting fish or buying minnows is great for people with large enough fish to eat them, and it's a lot cheaper (4 dozen for like 3 dollars) or free if you can collect them like i'm able to.


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## cowelder

Well I have no fish that eats feeders but I live in a place like Flamingo. My dad fishes alot so I have a 100gal tub of water we keep shiners in. Plus we have two ponds completly stocked full of shiners so I can get them free. I also get lots of Salamanders and Crawfish.

But all out LPS has is feeder goldfish.


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## Guest

Most of my LFS only have guppies and goldfish. I'm with Flaming, collecting is much better. Not now, since its January, but in the warmer months when I go collecting for my tanks i grab some shiners and small butterfish as a treat for my grouper.


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## Lydia

The pet store near me sells ghost shrimp and rosy reds as feeders. I keep ghost shrimp in my dwarf puffer tank to help keep the bottom clean, and many times I have considered setting up a coldwater tank and keeping rosy reds, along with several other coldwater fish, in it. So yes I have considered keeping feeder fish in my aquarium. Rosy reds are actually rather pretty. For that matter, I've considered keeping rosy reds in my pond once I get a bigger pond set up for my koi.


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## Lydia

Sable said:


> I myself raised several rosy red minnows, just because I think they're beautiful, in a tank by themselves. I lost one to disease and eventually had to give them away because they got huge.


Hmmm I'm confused here. As far as I know, rosy reds only grow to 3 inches max, and usually stay around 2 inches. Are you sure yours were rosy reds? Do you have any idea what their scientific name was? I'm just curious because if I do start a coldwater tank, I want to make sure I get the ones that grow to 3 inches max instead of the ones that get huge, lol.


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## Cichlid Man

The only animals in the UK which can be used as feeders are inverts, i.e. ghost shrimp.


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## Guest

i think doing feeder fish is wrong


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## Gourami Swami

Good for you! I wish I had more morals sometimes....


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## Clerk

Roseys, Ghost Shrimp, Sm/LG Comets.


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## StarLab

We sell:

 Comets
 Rosey Reds
 Ghost Shrimp
 Feeder guppies
 Live Bloodworms
 Crickets (for our amphibians and reptiles)

We also have other types of feeders but they are for stuff that is outside the scope of this forum.


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## flamingo

eon17 said:


> i think doing feeder fish is wrong


I find so much wrong with that one sentence but oh well.

I have thousands of frozen feeders in my freezer ATM, helps out a lot during the winter months.


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## Puffer Pita

Wish I could find pinkies somewhere around here but they don't seem to be available. Not lives ones anyway.


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## StarLab

We do, but I fear it might be just a weeee bit of a drive for you to get them.


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## Puffer Pita

Send me some?  I've got a cane toad the size of a dinner plate that would love one!


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## StarLab

They wouldn't exactly be "live" pinkies by the time you got them. 

You'd be signing for an extremely "smelly" package. You might even get slapped by the courier driver who had to sit in the same van with said smell. LOL


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## Puffer Pita

LOL good point


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## mousey

Starlab where did you get live blood worms? I tried to get the lfs to get some and they said they were unable. I did get white worms from a girl in town so have a good supply of them for my tanks. I hooked up with her on the canadian price network.


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## StarLab

We get a steady supply of them from our supplier. (if that makes sense! LOL)

Widely available here...


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## mousey

fooey, I am just south of you in Newmarket, On!
Would love to visit your store one day.


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## StarLab

It's worth the trip!


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## Guest

eon17 said:


> i think doing feeder fish is wrong


What do you think carnivorous fish eat in the wild?


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## thebrick

goldfish
guppies
ghost shrimp
bloodworms
rosy's


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## arctic_wave

Mazzy said:


> The only fish I ever had that ate feeders was a knife fish and I didn't quarentine. I know it's not a good idea but it takes up room that I didn't have and honestly, I don't see it as a huge problem. I'm sure it happnes, probably regularly, but I have personnally never seen a carnivorous fish get an illness/die while being fed feeders. Usually meat eaters are pretty hardy anyway. I also bought my fish from the local bait shop since their tanks looked cleaner than the nasty feeder tanks at fish stores.
> 
> My LFS carries goldfish, occasionally rosies (but not enough to count on) and ghost shrimp at a non-feeder price IMO @ 10 for $4 - those I still buy occasionally for my puffer.


my jack dempsey that i had for about 4 years died from a feeder fish


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