Candirus
- Thread starter Druu
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Poly- I knew that about the blood feeding, just misstated it. I never thought about market tilapia mainly because the conditions they live in are worse than most lake natives. Would you use the tilapia until it was killed, or would you have a tank of maybe 3 feeder tilapia and use a different one each week?
Neo- you already have too many rare fish. Admission to the list requires that you give one rare fish to each of the members above you on the list.
Neo- you already have too many rare fish. Admission to the list requires that you give one rare fish to each of the members above you on the list.
Druu;1437524; said:Poly- I knew that about the blood feeding, just misstated it. I never thought about market tilapia mainly because the conditions they live in are worse than most lake natives. Would you use the tilapia until it was killed, or would you have a tank of maybe 3 feeder tilapia and use a different one each week?
Neo- you already have too many rare fish. Admission to the list requires that you give one rare fish to each of the members above you on the list.
Good point
Druu;1437524; said:Poly- I knew that about the blood feeding, just misstated it. I never thought about market tilapia mainly because the conditions they live in are worse than most lake natives. Would you use the tilapia until it was killed, or would you have a tank of maybe 3 feeder tilapia and use a different one each week?
Neo- you already have too many rare fish. Admission to the list requires that you give one rare fish to each of the members above you on the list.
Feeding a candiru is very unlike feeding of a "normal" predatory fish and the same rules you would think apply do not. These fish being Bloodfeeders only really require a live fish. The condition of that fish is irrelevant as long as it's heart is beating. There are very few Blood borne illnesses in fish and in my study I have never ran across any in a Market Tilapia.
When feeding these fish you introduce an item only for as long as it takes the fish to feed. Due to the nature of this particular type of feeding you also need to also quickly do a water change of 40 to 50% right after feeding. This rapidly reduces the ability of any pathogen to become established from a prey fish. The only disease I have encountered with these fish is something very specific to them (it was present on importation) and as yet remains unidentified. Ich is an issue if you lax on keeping up proper water changes and keeping the temp adequate (Same as any other tropical fish) . These fish are very touchy about water quality but not really susceptible to parasitic, Bacterial, or fungal issues.
You could if you wish rotate a group of large Tilapia as feed. I when keeping a large group kept around some 5 that I would rotate during feedings not allowing more than two Candiru to feed at a time on one prey fish. Feedings where staggered so that only two would be interested in feeding. Complicated and difficult to establish this but worth it with keeping groups of these fish.
I was watching a documentary on the discovery channel yesterday about fishes in the amazon and the went into a guy's penis those are some nasty fish. I dont like parasitic beings. Good luck they seem really exotic.
Druu;1443127; said:
No they never do and it has never occurred.
The time that you would Kept a Tilapia in the tank with the Candiru is not very long. These fish usually are finished feeding in a minute or so and rarely much longer than that.
Polypterus;1445831; said:
Thanks. It's a concern I came up with when thinking about using native sunfish. A skinny candiru can look a bit like a pale worm.
bigspizz;1446504; said:
Candiru (Vandellia) are rather social and spend large amounts of time swimming in loose schools. They do fine in small or large groups.
Stocking levels with these fish has much more to do with feeding and availability of food. Trust me when I say this: Feeding 25 bloodfeeding fish is very very expensive. it really is best to not overdo the number you keep and also keep it practical.
I used sunfish for a short bit with them and never ran across an issue. Sunfish I should note are really just not hefty enough for candiru. They tend to always kill them after one feeding.
Size of the Candiru also makes a difference in the feed item.. Smaller ones are in general less destructive and have a wider range of feed species available to them. Larger ones are tricky to feed. Most that are imported are mature adults (I'm trying to bring in smaller) and let me tell you....These are not Toothpick fish.... On average they are around 5 to 6 inches.
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