Odd Feeding Beliefs

[richiestang_78]

I came across an article in a book about feeding fish, one topic was feeding live food to carnivores and they discussed that some fish can be trained to eat dead food instead of live if your beliefs are agianst the practice of feeding live foods. I mean its nature, the fish arent in oceans, lakes and rivesr holding hands and dancing; they're continuously killing eachother, thats the life cycle. I was just dumbfounded by the statement, what do you all think?

 

[sir_dudeguy]

I agree with you, but some people i guess just cant stand seeing their fish actually kill the feeder fish. So they will buy frozen feeders already dead, so they dont have to witness it. There might be some other benefit, but i dont know.

 

[brant]

Well as for feeding live foods I don't think it is so much that the practice is personaly upseting but rather that it is a risk each feeder fish you introduce to your tank has the chance of being deseased or could be carying parisites. If you want to feed live fish or snails or anything it is best to breed your own and give ample time to quarantine to be sure of no nastys.

 

[richiestang_78]

I understand that but the article was about the eithcal view of it not the potential risk of infection.

 

[brant]

Well in my opionion there are no ethics in nature and if your are trying to give an honest shot at imitating nature in your tank then you realy have no chioce but to feed live foods I personaly breed my own MTS to feed small ones to my clown loaches,featherfin catfish and black ghost knife. I am also considering trying to keep and breed blackworms. But as for feeder fish I don't know if I will go that far not for the ethics of it but that I don't have fish large enoughf yet to do so.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

yeah, good point about the feeders might have parasites. i completely forgot about that. And where was this article that you read? seems kinda weird. I would have no problem at all feeding my fish feeder fish (i do it with my turtles!!!) but i dont have fish right now that are bigger than the feeders lol. I do breed my own brine shrimp and feed them tho.

 

[richiestang_78]

Some fish book from the early 80's.

 

[sir_dudeguy]

outdated if ya ask me lol. Most of the stuff has changed a bunch do to new equipment and everything, but i dont know about food how much thats changed

 

[richiestang_78]

exactly thats why I brought it up. Guess the book was printed while peace loving treehugging hippies were still around lol

 

[newfound77951]

There are still a lot of peace loving treehugging hippies around...I know many people who think I am an evil person when I feed my friend's excess baby guppies to my fish. But my friend's tank would be overrun with guppies if some of them didn't end up as food! They are cute little guys but there are only so many fish I can take care of.

 

[richiestang_78]

Well thats nature for you, natural selection at work.

 

[severum mama]

As a peace loving treehugging hippie, I can tell you that my fish love live brine shrimp! They went crazy for blackworms too, but those things are so disgusting that they'll just have to do without. I don't feed feeders because of the risk of disease, but also because I don't want to watch them get eaten. If I were overrun with baby guppies I might change my mind, but I don't presently have any livebearers.

 

[richiestang_78]

See personally I like watching that kind of stuff. I use to live on Discovery channel when they should animals and fish killing each other. I think its very fascinating and shows you nature at its rawest.

 

[severum mama]

Sure, but let's face it... putting feeders in a glass box with no chance of escape doesn't exactly replicate nature. Furthermore, the feeders aren't even species that many of these fish are likely to ever run across in nature. Doesn't seem much more natural to me than giving them commercially prepared food. JMO.

 

[richiestang_78]

Yeha but keeping fish in a glass box altogheter isnt natural. I think giving fish live foods puts them more to there natural enviroment, maybe not the same fish as they would eat but its the closest thing to it.