Breeding question for feeder fish

[Jelesey]

Well I have a 250 galon tank with a lot of big fish and it looks like their favorite meal is live fish.
- Asian aro
- stingray
- blue hook
- red hook
- birchir
- spotted gar
- oscar
- knife fish

I also have a 75 galon tank (currently with gold fish feeders) which I would like to use as a breeding tank.

I just noticed that when I buy my gold fish feeders a lot of them die, like 20% within the first few days, it looks like they aren't so healthy. I'm now thinking of starting to breed my own feeder fish for my big fishes, my fishes in my 250 galon tank can eat about 30 gold fish feeders daily. Since I don't think I can breed enough feeders to sustain that. I was thinking of adding MP and SW to there diet, so I think I'll need about 70-100 decent size feeders weekly.

Any advice on what feeders which are decent nutrient-wise and are still easy to breed. My 75 galon tank has a 4 feet (3 rows, 4 layers) trickle filtration system and 2 stones for oxygen. It's also cycled so while I still have some stock of gold fish feeders, I was hoping to start working on breeders. I believe my tank is big enough to be able to support enough breeders to be able to feed my bigger tank, I just don't know how to start.

what's the best setup?
- type of fish
- how many male/females
- things I'll need in and out of the tank
- time it takes for them to produce fry
- time it takes for fry to grow to 1 inch

I would really really really appreciate help on this, I really enjoy feeding my fishes live fish but I don't want to get an unlucky batch of feeders from the store and cause my fishes to get sick.

Note: I'm from the Philippines so I'm not really sure what type of feeders we have here that I can buy and breed

 

[cassd]

I've tried a bunch of different fish as feeders and I found convicts to be the most prolific I would put a divider or even 2 in the tank and run 3 couples or get a 20g or 2 and breed in there and have the 90 for grow out 1 couple will produce 200+ a month

 

[Jelesey]

I don't really want to get another tank, so I'm hoping I could work with the 75 galon tank

 

[smitty03281964]

You know what I did a few years ago. I made a deal with the local pet store. When they put an order in for their feeder delivery. They would order a bag for me. I accepted the bag as is. The dead in the bag included. He charged me a flat rate of 15.00 over his cost. He would call me when they arrived. I never ran out of feeders.

 

[Jelesey]

getting to the store might be a problem though since i'm pretty busy most of the time and following another person's schedule for me would be nearly impossible

 

[FreshyFresh]

Not trying to de-rail the original question, but cold-water fish like goldfish offer little/no nutritional value to the fish in the OP's list.

Not only that, why take the chance of introducing the parasites and disease they might be carrying into your tank?

 

[Jelesey]

I've done a lot of research and it seems that convict cichlids would be the best... i'm not sure but I think tiger convict cichlids are the ones people talk about as the convict cithlids right?

I have a 75 galon tank for them, I was hoping to have atleast 2 breeding pairs and would the survivability of the fry be high even though i don't move them to another tank? since the tank is kinda big for them anyways? or maybe i could put a divider where only the fry could fit through

 

[cassd]

I meant 75g not 90 sorry the thing is with convicts is some times you need to remove the male because he gets to aggressive and will kill the female (happend last week to my 2 year old couple over night) the 75 might be big enough but it will definitely need to be split between couples they will eat their fry once they are ready to breed again that's why your better off to have a smaller tank for parents and larger for fry

 

[cassd]

They like to breed in flower pots if you can provide one in the tank and it us ally takes about a month for a 1 inch

 

[Jelesey]

would i still need to move the parents? how's the probability of the fry to survive one month?