I know I have come into this alittle too late but after reading it all. I figured atleast add acouple of things if you did'nt mind. 1st, good looking fahaka and tank. 2nd feeding him alittle bit of this and that, live crayfish, frozen krill, raw market shrimp, raw mussel on a half shell, and pellets (most will not eat them but nothing wrong adding it to their diet, imo) is much better then only feeding the pellet food alone. 3rd, remember a very large fahaka has a mighty bite and can take a huge vital chuck out of a fish, even the Dovii would not beable to do anything if his head is laid wide open or another major part of it's body. But just sayin it could happen.
Fahaka ?s
- Thread starter MyFishEatYourFish
- Start date
those are definitely some good points. it just seems to me that people are taking the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach. and ive always got better results out of feeding my other fish small amounts everyday or several times a day, so i want to know why this isn't the correct way to feed fahakas. and you and i could go two days between meals, it just wouldnt be a very enjoyable quality of life. so i want to be able to mimmick his wild feeding habits to keep him as happy as possible, its just that nobody seems to know for sure how they eat in the wild.mshill90;5033643; said:
and i don't think that it would impact his health feeding everyday, as long as the food i feed him is healthy. i would imagine that the idea that feeding them everyday has stemmed from all the illinformed people that only feed goldfish. which is a lot of people, unfortunately.
I feed my fahaka about every other day but some days I will feed him about 2 day in a row if they smaller meals. This helps mine from getting over weight, help him be more active (because when they get well fed they tend to get lazy), and I think it also helps them from getting bored of one of the food items. But they all can be different from each other though.
Puffers - actually fish in general, especially hunter predators - do not eat constantly in the wild. They have to work for their food, spending much time and energy in the search for edibles. Then they spend time lazing and digesting, then restart the search. There are no or very few feedback loops on fish appetites - they will continue eating even while excreting largely to completely undigested food. Lacking the ribs and bony framework most fish have, there is even less restriction on the amount of food ingested than there is for other fish. Daily or more frequent feeding of predators in captivity is perhaps the major cause of tank pollution and liver and kidney problems (all shortening life) in captive fish. Other than feeding completely unsuitable foods, it is very hard to starve a fish, but it all too easy to kill them with kindness. Young puffers especially will eat until they are unable to swim, look almost puffed up, and are rolled around by the current - very bad practice. Just as with people, "a lean horse for a long race" does apply. Your fish will be healthier and live out their full span if they are not overfed.
im not too worried about the fish in there. theyre just there to add some life to the tank and give my fahaka someone to bully when hes bored.FADE2BLACK_1973;5038741; said:
thats a very good point how if you constantly feed, the food doesn't get fully digested before excreted. i'll cut down to like a pellet or two a day and twice a week big feedings. hes just so hard to say no toPufferpunk;5040032; said:
thanks alot for all the input guys, i really appreciate it.
hes really starting to develop good coloration and ive notice his stripes are much more red than any pictures ive seen. one thing i read suggested that meant its a female, is this true?
my female has almost no red stripes at all. actually since putting here on black gravel she has turned a very dark color with almost no red at all and a yellow underbelly.
