Anybody feed their fish smelt? Is it OK to do? Healthy? I am talking about occasional use, not as a complete diet. Aren't they greasy? Do they mess up the water quality much? Just throw them in frozen?
Feeding smelt?
- Thread starter ChiPerf
- Start date
I have fed my fish smelt, beef heart and shrimp in times past. The beef heart is a pain in the rear to prep and I would`nt recommend it for that reason. The smelt is easy so I would do that if my fish were big enough to eat chunks without too much effort. I like to feed strange things to my fish like worms, grasshoppers, crickets etc. Never had a problem from any of it.
Just don't feed anything you found outside yourself, like worms or insects from your yard because they can carry parasites, disease, or other chemicals that can kill your fish. I once lost a 7" pim frontosa by feeding a 3" earthworm I found in my yard so I learned the lesson hard. I have had no problem feeding frozen shrimps, smelt, and other fish fillet so far. I just tear up the frozen food into bite size pieces and toss them into the tank. With regular WC and cleaning I don't have any problem with cloudiness from frozen food.
I have always almost exclusively kept CA cichlids with a few diversions into rift lake stuff, like Lamp. calvus. I would not feed them foraged food. With CA fish I have never had any problems after more than forty years. That does not mean I would feed even all CA stuff like that. Bartoni is an example of a fish I would not feed such stuff. I guess it depends on what you have.