Big fish eat little fish, well...not those little fish.

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eatingleg4peanut

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
May 21, 2010
732
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Maryland
What makes a fish want to voraciously want to chase and eat some fish, but other fish of equal or even smaller size are ignored.

Example: a fish will go bonkers chasing some 1.5-2" Tiger Barbs and gobble them up, yet 3/4-1" Convicts are completely ignored and even swim right in front of the fish's face.
 
It would help if we knew what kind of fish you were talking about. Some large fish like silver arowanas become a little "lazy" when they mature and only go for the easiest target. While some fish such as a big mouth bass stay aggressive and terrirorial and will kill things way to large for them to even eat
 
I think it also depends on if the fish are the same species, I have put baby cichlids in my tank with full grown cichlids 10x their size and they won't even go near them, But if I throw a feeder in their 2-3x the size of the babys the full grown fish tear the feeders right up..
 
I was talking about fish in general (SA/CA Cichlids) as I have seen it in in both my oscar and Jack Dempsey in the past. The specific example above is referring to my jack and green terror last night, they went bonkers to eat the T-barbs which were bigger than the convicts, convicts are not even looked at twice. I know he was hungry because he swam to the top when he saw me and chowed down on some massivore. Its very weird, and kinda cool, to see these little convicts living with these behemoths.

All were added expecting them to be food (I'm not going to discuss live feeders vs prepared foods ethics or heath concerns) but seeing the convict thrive is neat.
 
i disagree. i originally got convicts to breed for feeders and all they do is slowly over run your tanks one at a time. Too fast and smart for most fish to bother i think..

A friend of mine has a small female convict in with a mating dovii pair. It just hides with the last few babies left from their last spawn. tricky little bastards they are.

But then, aside from a couple of fish, most of mine for being "aggressive" CA cichlids dont hardly bother for goldfish either
 
i Dont mind at all, think its pretty cool. Just weird that they are not looked at as food.
 
My two five inch oscars' new obsession is circling my holey rock trying to pick off half inch convicts that were newly released from their parent's care.
 
I woke to find a corpse in my tank this morning. My girlfriends orange mollie was the victim of my Kirby - sure she was an annoying orange typical bloated fat thing but maybe the Kirby took it to far?

I can't say the tank is crowded.


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There is just a Pink Kisser a Mollie the Kirby and my little algae eater

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RIP Mollie
 
Maybe Kirby is it's name? Like pet name...
 
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