Jacky gets her $200's worth!

[Jacky12]

The fish goddess has smiled upon me. The seller lived nearby & everything fit perfectly into our trailer & inside the Mini Cooper.

I got all this for $200: A nearly new 125 G tank, a disassembled oversized ugly stand. Turns out the seller once kept two smaller tanks underneath. Also: a JUP-01internal filter, a brand new Marineland Penguin 350 HOB filter, a box of 10 refillable filter cartridges, a new 12 foot roll of inch thick foam, 2 very large air pumps, several new air stones of varying sizes, glass 3 part hinged lid, big Hygger heater, 25' python, two North American 6" by 3' LED lights & a box of small parts I can't identify.

This will be home to Pink, the old albino Oscar I adopted yesterday. The wonderful people at Pet Supplies Plus gave me a rain check for the black gravel I want, meaning I will get the 50% off discount when the new inventory arrives soon. The sale ended today.

Pink will live alone. I don't think she'll mind, do you?

 

[Andy Sager]

Depends on how much time you are going to give it. But if you were to mix in new fish with her, I'd do it when you add her to the new tank so that all the fish in the tank will be new so no established territories.

 

[Colin_T]

You need some help girl, you have bad MTS

 

[Jacky12]

You got that one right, Colin! I just awoke at 3:00 AM with visions of yet another tank dancing in my head. Turns out Pink is beautiful, not def not 12” as the rehomer described. She’s 8 inches, old & won't be growing.

I’m considering placing her in a 75 G on the bottom platform where the 125g tank seller who built the ugly oversized stand kept a pair of 55 G tanks.

Pink had been kept in a 90 G with a foot long gar & 4 smaller fish. The tank was overcrowded with big flying saucers & submarines. Pink would have more space as the single occupant of a 75. I need to check the dimensions of a 75.

A pink baby Jack D and a pink baby Oscar would go in the 125. The current plan is to mount the big TV on the wall above the tank. I’m thinking now I could stack a third tank there & the husband can watch football in the tool shed.

 

[Jacky12]

Andy, my current thinking is to leave this old girl by herself. I personally would like to see other fish there, but I’m concerned about aggressive interactions. The previous owner said he had “close calls” when the gar & Pink went for food. Not sure what these close calls were, but none here.

 

[Andy Sager]

Andy, my current thinking is to leave this old girl by herself. I personally would like to see other fish there, but I’m concerned about aggressive interactions. The previous owner said he had “close calls” when the gar & Pink went for food. Not sure what these close calls were, but none here.

When you are dealing with large fish, squabbles are always possible but when it comes to food, you simply add food at different parts of the tank at the same time so that it reduces competition for the food. Also, Gars, depending on the type, can be overly aggressive when it comes to food.
If I were to mix fish with the Oscar, I'd do something less aggressive like a Severum or Firemouths. Larger ones are not competition to the Oscar for food and not easy to be eaten by the Oscar. Once you start with fish like Jack Dempseys, Managuence, Red Devils, etc, when they are large already, that's when you are looking for fights.

It looks like you are seeing the results of keeping Oscars in too small an aquarium.

 

[Jacky12]

Yeah, if I recall correctly, mj Gomez said he fed his dojo loaches sinking pellets and the goldfish in the tank flakes, so similar to what you’re saying. Putting flakes at 1 end & pellets at the other sounds terrific.

Speaking of Oscar food, I stumbled into a raging debate yesterday re offering Oscars feeder fish. I’d imagine their rationale would apply to any fish. It was said the feeders often contain parasites and other bad organisms. They posted disturbing photos of a very sick looking Oscar with awful lesions dotting its body. I skimmed through this, because I found it highly disturbing. Several people said they are convinced their Oscar died from infected goldfish.

The moderator told me to isolate Pink (she is alone anyway) and treat her with 2 medications that had long names unfamiliar to me. He outlined a treatment course of several weeks. Pink is very active, eats well & appears to be in good health. I don’t think I want to treat this asymptomatic fish, but she was fed 12 goldfish a week.

Are infections from feeders rare? All the big & small pet stores around here sell huge tubs of them. But I do know some feeders are diseased. I had a large male OB who wasn’t eating. I tried everything & finally feeders were the only option left. I bought 2 dozen rosy minnows at the local SW shop. Put them in a 10 G tank with a sponge filter for aeration & they began dying within hours of getting home. All except 2 were dead within 3 days. I QT’d that pair for several weeks & added them to a 55 G community tank of small fish. They are actually pretty big now & look great.

 

[Andy Sager]

First off, if the old owner was feeding the fish 12 feeders a week for so many weeks/years, I'd go to where he was getting them and continue the tradition.

A few things to ponder: 1) in nature, fish that are healthy, eat fish that are sick or elderly or just weak and they don't get sick from doing it. So if a fish is getting sick from eating sick goldfish, it might be that the eater is not being kept in a way that makes them the most healthy.
2) Feeder goldfish are not usually kept in the healthiest manner so it's possible the if the fish are not eaten immediately, they can spread whatever disease they may be carrying to fish in the tank.
3) When I was breeding my Oscars, my mentor told me that if I was going to keep that many pairs going, I had better learn to breed goldfish to feed them as well. LOL I did that. In your case, with only a few fish, you might want to consider setting up a tank to breed some easy to keep and breed fish ( i.e. Guppies, Mollies, Platies, etc.) so that you are in control of the health of the fish you are feeding. Nobody says it HAS to be goldfish that you feed. Other options include getting feeders and holding them in a tank to make sure they are heathy before you feed them to your fish.
4) Rosey reds are not the easiest fish to keep but one thing they need is cooler water and lots of oxygen so your set up might have been the problem over the fish being sick.

5) Oscars are highly susceptible to Hexamita ( hole in the head disease) from poor water quality. No matter what the poster stated, the fact that the fish had it ( it sounds like it) means the fish was not being kept properly.

6) I too wouldn't treat the fish just because. If there are no symptoms, there's nothing to treat. I WOULD however add something to the tank that helps the fish replace the body slime it probably lost during the transfer. That will help prevent fungal or bacterial issues.

Lastly, The " bad feeder fish" era was years back and many places now take better care on where they get their fish from. If the store is willing to feed their feeders to their fish, I wouldn't be too concerned.

 

[Jacky12]

I am incapable of feeding live animals. And it is not necessary. Many options. Numerous Oscar owners never use feeders, but the primary motive in the discussion I mentioned seemed different than mine. It was sad seeing a few pretty little goldfish soon to be dead in the man’s tank. They came from the local SW shop. That’s where I got the rosy minnows and kept them as you described, same as what the owner said. This guy had two immaculate reefer tanks. They looked like the SW shop displays. I was impressed because he presents as having a single digit IQ. He repeatedly called his 4’ 90 gallon tank a 125. He insisted the pink Oscar was a foot. He’d make a terrible carpenter because he thinks 6 inches is a foot.

I’ve seen the product you mention added to bagged fish at pet shops. I wish I had known to get some when I was at Pet Supplies Plus yesterday. Is it equally effective when used a few days after the transfer?

 

[Andy Sager]

I am incapable of feeding live animals. And it is not necessary. Many options. Numerous Oscar owners never use feeders, but the primary motive in the discussion I mentioned seemed different than mine. It was sad seeing a few pretty little goldfish soon to be dead in the man’s tank. They came from the local SW shop. That’s where I got the rosy minnows and kept them as you described, same as what the owner said. This guy had two immaculate reefer tanks. They looked like the SW shop displays. I was impressed because he presents as having a single digit IQ. He repeatedly called his 4’ 90 gallon tank a 125. He insisted the pink Oscar was a foot. He’d make a terrible carpenter because he thinks 6 inches is a foot.

I’ve seen the product you mention added to bagged fish at pet shops. I wish I had known to get some when I was at Pet Supplies Plus yesterday. Is it equally effective when used a few days after the transfer?

No, feeding live foods is not NECESSARY but it makes for more food types you need to supply to make up for what the live foods supply to the fish. The movement to dry and pelleted foods has a drawback and that is that they should not be the sole foods given to certain fish. They can be very disruptive to the digestive system. This is why live foods have a place in the diet.

As for the mis-measurments, it might be a " guy thing".

As for the slime, better late than never. Just keep your eyes open for infections.

 

[Jacky12]

I’ve wondered more than once if breeders, large & small, embrace growing feeders to boast the profit margin. Please don’t smack me.

I reread the untalented measurement man’s original post & he said the fish got feeders once a week & large pellets daily & some kind of stick he hand fed daily as well. He did tell me 12 feeders a week & I didn’t realize he went to the LFS weekly & dumped them in at once. & oh, yeah, he told me he was 6 feet tall & we were eye level & I’m 5’2”.

I’m not seeing a slime product. I do see API Stress Coat. Is that what you mean? Ii Will buy it tomorrow.

 

[Andy Sager]

I’ve wondered more than once if breeders, large & small, embrace growing feeders to boast the profit margin. Please don’t smack me.

I reread the untalented measurement man’s original post & he said the fish got feeders once a week & large pellets daily & some kind of stick he hand fed daily as well. He did tell me 12 feeders a week & I didn’t realize he went to the LFS weekly & dumped them in at once. & oh, yeah, he told me he was 6 feet tall & we were eye level & I’m 5’2”.

I’m not seeing a slime product. I do see API Stress Coat. Is that what you mean? Ii Will buy it tomorrow.

Breeding feeders is more for convenience than for profit. In my case, when you breed comet goldfish, ( what "feeders" are), they can lay 1,000 eggs so it takes a lot of space to breed them and raise the fry if you are not using an outdoor pond. As for breeding other feeder fish, look at it this way: which is faster and less time consuming to do, dip a net into a tank in your fish room and get a net full of feeders or go all the way to a pet store to buy some feeders.

All I can say is that my Oscars would eat more than 12 feeders at a single feeding. LOL

Yes, the Stress Coat will work.

Side story: I had one pair of Oscars that when I fed them their feeders not too long after their spawn had been removed, they treated the feeders as their fry and corralled them instead of eating them. I could only assume it was because they hadn't turned gold yet so they didn't think of them as food.

 

[Colin_T]

You can add salt to help the fish rebuild its mucous coating and to reduce bacterial and fungal infections. However, it probably isn't needed especially since the fish went into a new clean tank. There simply won't be many, if any bad bacteria or fungus in the tank because it is newly set up.

The fish can replace its mucous coating in a few hours so it's not really necessary to add anything to help increase mucous production.

--------------------

Goldfish and carp have something in them and if they are regularly used as a feeder for other fishes, the predatory fish can develop health issues. This is not a disease issue you can see but more a dietary problem associated with feeding carp and cyprinid fishes to other fish. I can't think of what it's called but there is plenty of info online about it and it has been in various fish keeping magazines over the years. If the fish are fed a varied diet and get the occasional cyprinid, then it's not a big issue. But if they are fed a lot of goldfish or other cyprinid fishes, they can develop health issues from it.

Goldfish and other fish can carry intestinal worms and Tuberculosis (TB). If another fish eats fish that have these diseases, they can catch those diseases. There's no way of identifying fish with TB until they are about to die, and you can't always tell if fish have intestinal worms. Fish with intestinal worms and or TB regularly come from fish farms (especially the Asian fish farms). If you use marine fish (silversides/ bait fish) for food, there is significantly less likelihood of them having TB or worms. The advantage of marine fish is they are already dead and frozen at the bait shop and you can buy a bag and keep it in your freezer. So no need to go to the shop each week and buy a bag of goldfish.

Columnaris (aka mouth fungus) appears as white lips or a white mouth and is another disease that can be spread to fish from feeder fish. It is a flesh eating bacteria that spreads very quickly and usually kills infected fish within 24-48 hours of noticing the symptoms. Columnaris is common on livebearers (mollies, platies, swordtails, guppies) coming out of Asia, but can come from any shop, breeder or importer. Columnaris doesn't occur in salt water so using marine silversides/ bait fish is a cleaner option.

 

[Andy Sager]

You can add salt to help the fish rebuild its mucous coating and to reduce bacterial and fungal infections. However, it probably isn't needed especially since the fish went into a new clean tank. There simply won't be many, if any bad bacteria or fungus in the tank because it is newly set up.

The fish can replace its mucous coating in a few hours so it's not really necessary to add anything to help increase mucous production.

--------------------

Goldfish and carp have something in them and if they are regularly used as a feeder for other fishes, the predatory fish can develop health issues. This is not a disease issue you can see but more a dietary problem associated with feeding carp and cyprinid fishes to other fish. I can't think of what it's called but there is plenty of info online about it and it has been in various fish keeping magazines over the years. If the fish are fed a varied diet and get the occasional cyprinid, then it's not a big issue. But if they are fed a lot of goldfish or other cyprinid fishes, they can develop health issues from it.

Goldfish and other fish can carry intestinal worms and Tuberculosis (TB). If another fish eats fish that have these diseases, they can catch those diseases. There's no way of identifying fish with TB until they are about to die, and you can't always tell if fish have intestinal worms. Fish with intestinal worms and or TB regularly come from fish farms (especially the Asian fish farms). If you use marine fish (silversides/ bait fish) for food, there is significantly less likelihood of them having TB or worms. The advantage of marine fish is they are already dead and frozen at the bait shop and you can buy a bag and keep it in your freezer. So no need to go to the shop each week and buy a bag of goldfish.

Columnaris (aka mouth fungus) appears as white lips or a white mouth and is another disease that can be spread to fish from feeder fish. It is a flesh eating bacteria that spreads very quickly and usually kills infected fish within 24-48 hours of noticing the symptoms. Columnaris is common on livebearers (mollies, platies, swordtails, guppies) coming out of Asia, but can come from any shop, breeder or importer. Columnaris doesn't occur in salt water so using marine silversides/ bait fish is a cleaner option.

Not to argue here but there is a variety of marine Columnaris ( Flexibacter columnaris) that presents the same as in freshwater fish. It's unfortunately quite common in clownfish ( wild and tank bred) as well as seahorses and other aquarium fish. We had it diagnosed at the rosenstiel school of marine and atmospheric science which is part of the University of Miami in Florida. My connection to the school gave me opportunities to have water tested with gaschromatography as well as disease identifications.

The object of raising your own feeder fish is to prevent getting sick fish and feeding your fish a constant diet of infested fish. In the US, most of our livebearers come from Florida and Goldfish also from other US states. ( It's just not profitable to bring in feeders from Asia.) There are reliable farms here where clean fish are available. It's also easy enough here to treat any fish for intestinal worms or internal parasites as well as external pathogens so " creating" safe feeder fish is not that difficult to do in the US. It may not be the same where you are.

There is a big debate over using salt in freshwater aquaria. It's been going on long before the internet. I think in my 50+ years of fish keeping and breeding, I've been reading and hearing about the salt/no salt debate for 30 of them. LOL Personally, I use it for medicinal purposes but not prophylactically. In the case of netting larger fish, the potential damage to the skin occurs and while salt has been said to help the fish secrete mucus, if the fish is too stressed from the handling and move, it does not always produce a good anti-infection barrier. ( If the fish was caught in a bag, moved in the bag then released from the bag into the tank, there would be no need to replace the body slime. ) By using a product like the stress coat, it does not need the fish to create the slime coat. Also, in Jacky's case, if she's using any of her materials from her other tanks, there will be bacteria in the new tank so infection is possible IMO.

My other line of work is in the fishing tackle industry and I know that it's not always easy to find small bait fish in many bait and tackle shops that haven't been treated with agents to retard degrading. It's safer to use frozen fish sold in pet stores, usually frozen silversides. In this case, if she's trying to avoid feeding fish all together, she needs to add to the diet something that will help with the digestive system so getting some form of chitin and fish oils is going to be necessary to help avoid constipation, another common issue with Oscars that are improperly fed.

Hope this helps.

 

[Jacky12]

You miss my point, Andy, most likely because my animal sentimentalities are not part of fish breeding or other industries. I paid $60 for a 5 pd bucket of axotle pellets while the guy next door grows worms & drives his high end Tesla. It’s cheaper to do feeders than pellets & other foods. The outcome for the fish bred would be the same, but the profit margin would drop.

I understand and respect your position and remain most appreciative of the knowledge you’ve shared.

 

[Andy Sager]

Have to disagree here with the outcome being the same. Fish can be raised on quality foods as well as with not so healthy foods so what goes into the fish determines what kind of results you get. Do you think that natural foods are less healthy than man made pelleted foods?
When breeding fish on a commercial level, it's about creating a healthy product as cheaply as possible because most people don't want to pay for the best quality fish when they can get one that looks almost the same for less even tho it will probably not live as long. Artificial foods are not always inexpensive and fry foods have gotten even outrageous in prices. Hobbyist breeders are notorious for cheaping out on fry foods so they create an inferior product. Crushing up adult flake foods to make them a size a fish fry can eat is not the same as feeding them a good fry food. There are many papers written on studies of the effects of certain foods on the growth rates of different fish fry. For example, with Angelfish ( which were my specialty), it was found that newly hatched brine shrimp was THE BEST food for maximum growth and health of the fry over flakes, Daphnia, Microworms, and a few others listed I can't recall atm. But brine shrimp eggs are expensive compared to the other foods and not always the easiest to hatch out so many hobby breeders don't use them so they use other things that are cheaper and easier but definitely not better. Speaking as a former retailer in the pet trade, this is partially why many stores don't take hobbyist bred fish.
There's an old expression we used in the shop when someone tried to compare our fish to other store's fish. It has to do with say, comparing the prices on the same filter or commercial fish foods, etc between two stores: "A filter is a filter but a fish is not a fish." Meaning that, an Aquaclear 410 filter is the same no matter where you buy it but not every fish is the same in every place you get them.

Not wanting to feed live foods is a choice but for the fish, I'd bet given the choice, they would prefer it.

 

[Jacky12]

Thanks for the clarification, Andy. Much appreciated, as always.

To what age are newly hatched fish considered a fry? The little peacocks I discovered the OB tank were up to 3/4”. Were they still frys? I did purchase First Bites by Hikari. I could not get this powered food to sink even when I manually disturbed the water surface. I noticed the nutritional analysis was almost the same as my flakes: 48% protein, 3% fat, 2% fiber, moisturize 10% etc etc. I crushed the flakes with a mortar & pestle to get a coarser powder, yet much smaller than the flakes. They sank far more readily. Those 5 little guys are getting bigger & prettier everyday. Yay!

 

[Andy Sager]

Thanks for the clarification, Andy. Much appreciated, as always.

To what age are newly hatched fish considered a fry? The little peacocks I discovered the OB tank were up to 3/4”. Were they still frys? I did purchase First Bites by Hikari. I could not get this powered food to sink even when I manually disturbed the water surface. I noticed the nutritional analysis was almost the same as my flakes: 48% protein, 3% fat, 2% fiber, moisturize 10% etc etc. I crushed the flakes with a mortar & pestle to get a coarser powder, yet much smaller than the flakes. They sank far more readily. Those 5 little guys are getting bigger & prettier everyday. Yay!

When are fry no longer fry? That's a good question. LOL It really depends on the fish specie. Some define fry up until they start looking like adult fish. Some consider when the fry has complete scales and fins to be when they are considered Juvenile. The kicker is livebearer fish ( mainly) where the fry are "born' with fins and scales. The new borns are considered fry in the hobby. Then there's the really wide umbrella theory that they are fry for the first few weeks of life then turn into juveniles after that age. So it's almost subjective as to when a fry is no longer a fry.
I've had some conversations about First Bites and truly believe it's better for livebearer fry than anything else. ( People disagree. lol ) It wasn't available when I was breeding all the different species so there ARE other options. As for the crude analysis of the foods, the percentages could be the same but the issue is more WHAT TYPES of proteins and fats are used. The point is that most fish will not get the same value out of vegetable protein as it will from meat protein but the label will just say "protein." So how do you know? There are foods that are specifically labeled for growth and contain ingredients more natural to the fish that help them grow. These are what I would recommend when they are big enough to handle them. As with everything, it helps to use other foods as well so the fish do not get accustomed to just one food type.

 

[Jacky12]

Someone suggested First Bites for the baby peacocks & it's all the fry food the LFS had. i wondered if it was for fresh tiny hatches in a little aquarium hatchery & my guys were too big.


Here's the food the Pink's previous owner hand fed her everyday.


But, yes, you are correct; the fish prefer feeders. It took a while, but i polled all 200+ of mine. 95% yelled out: We want baby goldies! The remaining 5% are suck ups. They said: No! A thousand times no!!! knowing full well they will get choice treats at the next feeding.

EDIT: Pink accepted a food stick from my hand! She grabbed with tremendous force which startled me. This girl has no manners. The previous owned said she bit him a few times. They have teeth! I’m thinking of using the bamboo tweezers people use to feed axies, not sure.

 

[Andy Sager]

Someone suggested First Bites for the baby peacocks & it's all the fry food the LFS had. i wondered if it was for fresh tiny hatches in a little aquarium hatchery & my guys were too big.


Here's the food the Pink's previous owner hand fed her everyday.


But, yes, you are correct; the fish prefer feeders. It took a while, but i polled all 200+ of mine. 95% yelled out: We want baby goldies! The remaining 5% are suck ups. They said: No! A thousand times no!!! knowing full well they will get choice treats at the next feeding.

EDIT: Pink accepted a food stick from my hand! She grabbed with tremendous force which startled me. This girl has no manners. The previous owned said she bit him a few times. They have teeth! I’m thinking of using the bamboo tweezers people use to feed axies, not sure.

Love the poll.
Hand feeding Oscars requires some hardened hands as they don't always take just the food. You can try wearing gloves or suck it up and harden your hands. Oscar teeth feel more like sand paper than say, a Piranha's teeth but the real damage comes when you react and pull your hand away. You need to be careful with using tweezers or pointy objects as they can stab the fish's mouth when it misses the food.
On a side note, besides the one Oscar that liked to cuddle in my hand, I also had one that sucked my thumb. It started when it was small ( about 4") when I tried to hand feed it. It grabbed onto my thumb instead of the mealworm I was holding and it started a trend. LOL I had to stop it tho when he got much larger because when my whole finger fit in his mouth, the back teeth drew blood so no more thumb sucking for him. LOL