Yea, I may be a bit crazy.... (Armatus / Hikari Sticks)

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Candiru
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May 5, 2006
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Ok, so I have been having real isssues getting my Armatus off of feeders. I do not feed them live, rather I freeze them, and he will take them dead. I tried tricking him into silverside and smelt by alternating during feeding. He will bite the smelt/silversides then spit them out. I really believe it has to do with the slime coat. The frozen goldfish retain this, the others do not. I assume it has to do with the cleaning of the other fish. So, here is what I did.

Purchased 500 feeder goldfish. Got my hands on some liquid nitrogen. From reading I have learned that some pretty low temps are required for killing off any bacteria and nasties that the feeders may have. I assume freezing with nitrogen is enough to take care of this. -346°F and -320.44°F. Once the fish are "humanely" dispatched and removed from the nitrogen they are placed in the freezer to chill at normal freezing temps. When defrosted for feeding I stuffed a Hikari Stick into each mouth, and the Armatus loved it.

I know it's too involved, but hey I had some spare time and resources.....

Chris
 
i used to stuff shrimp w pellets also :D

very good idea until u can get him on other foods. dont give up, it takes time...
 
wow

thats more involed then quarintaning the feeders and treating for parasites. It seems.
 
That is probly best way to not let bacteria into ur tank the bacteria just dies like crazy
 
mad ness;3651563; said:
whoa.. so was it the freezing method or fish type that allowed retention of slime coat?
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I think it has to do with the freezing, and the fact that the freezing happens when they are alive.

vamptrev;3651628; said:
i used to stuff shrimp w pellets also :D

very good idea until u can get him on other foods. dont give up, it takes time...
Click to expand...

I wont give up on it. I actualy am still sneaking in silversides, and market bought smelt. I have been freezing them together to try to get some of the "taste" onto the frozen fish.

hybridtheoryd16;3651877; said:
wow

thats more involed then quarintaning the feeders and treating for parasites. It seems.
Click to expand...

Not really. The cold sterilizes the fish in seconds. If I were to keep them alive it takes significantly longer. You factor in the loss of much of the stock plus meds and feeding for 3 weeks+ and this actualy makes sense..... To me at least..........

tamzor;3651882; said:
how much does 500 feeders cost you? and how it actually last a week?
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Around $50. And I run through about 60 a week for my Armatus. He is the only one feeding on them though.

fishy12;3651884; said:
That is probly best way to not let bacteria into ur tank the bacteria just dies like crazy
Click to expand...

Thats the idea. I lost 4 of my Armatus to some type of baterial deal a couple months ago, and resolved not to let anything into the tank again. Thank God my largest and nicest Armatus survived.


Thanks,
Chris
 
Very intresting, maybe I'll copy what you did one day.
 
nice idea, have u tried this thou? worked miracles for me. my orinos refused to accept shrimp for over 4 months but 2 days into attempting this method they have all already had some.

on getting fish off live, quoting off oddball

"I got all of my preds off of live as follows;

1. always introduce minnows at the same corner of the tank for each feeding.
2. After a few days, the fish will anticipate the feeding by congregating at the "feeding corner".
3. Drop one minnow. Then, one stick/pellet. The preds should by now snap at anything from the "feeding corner".
4. Add more sticks/pellets to their feeding schedule until they're on full stick/pellet diets.

This process took less than a week to convert all of my preds. I haven't fed out minnows in months. "

also about the temp, i'm rusty on my science but doesn't bacteria denature only in high temperatures?
 
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