Hikari Bio-gold is top notch IMO for carnivorous fish, but they will also benefit from smushed peas, lima beans, cooked and mushed carrots, zucchini and squash, minced and de-veined romaine, green/red-leaf lettuce, bok choy, collard greens, mustard/turnip greens, as well as live brine shrimp, black , blood or white worms, fresh, frozen or dried shrimp, krill, clams, oysters, mussels (minced of course), live or dead crickets, mealworms, waxworms, butterworms, earthworms, Dubia roaches, and even pinky mice for large aggressive feeders (my Jags and Jacks ate pinky mice).
Frozen-thawed pinky-mice are great, because they can be injected orally through an oral syringe ( I generally use a 2" piece of airline tubing fitted over the end to get it all the way down into the mouse's stomach, or longer depending on the size of the mouse and the fish - adult Peacock Bass can swallow a Jumbo rat whole, I'm sure) with any supplement or nutrients you would like to include in the fishs' diet, especially useful for things they REFUSE to eat - simply make them a "cocktail" in the blender and fill the mouse with it, then freeze the rest. I like to dust insects with Reptivite calcium supplement as well, and artificial and natural sunlight will put that dust to good use while the fish are processing it.
I agree with you about live FISH, but pieces of fish fillets can also be given, and I also breed my own guppies for a safe, pathogen-free way to give them live fish for a treat. The other live foods I mentioned offer no harm from my experience...and the shrimp and krill especially add to the color - this is why Flamingoes are pink in the wild, and white in captivity - the shrimp they eat in the wild gives them the pink coloration. Anything of course can be sterilized by boiling or freezing it, TMK. If you haven't tried some of these foods, I strongly encourage anyone with fish who can be enticed to eat them, try it for a while, you'll love the results.
Last edited:
