catching your own fish food

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bbluewater

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 15, 2011
83
1
8
Southeast
Is it ok to be giving wild caught baitfish to my fish? I feel it's better than goldfish. I just don't want to bring a disease into my tank
 
As long as were you are catching them in a clean water lake, river or pond ( no chemicals ) then it should be fine, and a lot better then store bought "parasitic" feeders.
But i would not recommend feeding them to your fish since minnows have no nutrients what so ever. Say you were going to catch trout, tilapia, bass, etc
Then it should be fine for your fish as long as you don't feed it live since it will raise aggression in your fish.
Some other good products to feed your fish are.
Pellets ( hikari and NLS )
Blood worms
silver sides
etc
By the way what are you feeding the fish to?
P.s if the fish are stocked in the place you are fishing then there might be a problem because they could contain parasites.
 
Thanks alot man
That's funny you said aggression. I learned the hard way yesterday when my rtc ate my silver aro. I started with live because thats all my wild caugtht pbass would eat and the others would pick them off too.
I'm feeding a rtc, tsn, pbass and the pacu will sometimes eat them
 
I would be very careful about your fish self caught minnows, even if you catch your fish in a "clean" place, you always run the risk of parasites. In addition just because source looks clean doesn't mean it necessarily is. Also depending on where you live there may be laws about the transportation of live native fish.
 
I would be very careful about your fish self caught minnows, even if you catch your fish in a "clean" place, you always run the risk of parasites. In addition just because source looks clean doesn't mean it necessarily is. Also depending on where you live there may be laws about the transportation of live native fish.

+1

and to add to what Itsadeepbluesea said, make sure you have a quarantine period for those feeders if you really don't want your fish to get sick. If you want your feeders to be more nutitional you could always gut load them with commercial prepared foods.
 
+1

and to add to what Itsadeepbluesea said, make sure you have a quarantine period for those feeders if you really don't want your fish to get sick. If you want your feeders to be more nutitional you could always gut load them with commercial prepared foods.

Luckily enough, my fish are hearty as a dinosaur (well, except for giant meteors, freezes or whatever LOL...) and I still quarantine my feeders. If I net them or if I buy them, they always go in a hospital tank. I cycle the stock too. I have goldfish feeders, bluegill fry, minnow, snails, crayfish, you name it. I just net what I can and feed away. As needed I buy/catch more and add them to the hospital tank. Zero problems.
 
We caught a bunch of trout this summer and what we didn't eat we stuck in the freezer. Every now and then we chop one up and feed it to the catfish. They love it! We also would go bluegill fishing and use those, also chopped up and definned, to feed our bigger monsters.
 
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