Fish food cost / month?

[Rollokola]

Hi there!
Trying my best to avoid any and all mistakes getting into monsters like cichlas, rays and larger catfish.

What concerns me the most about bigger fish in larger amounts is the cost of the food. I've been looking around at bulk sale prices for pellets / frozen food (Tilapia, shrimp, krill etc) and can't seem to wrap my head around it. If I have to feed something like 6-8 cichlas, 3 rays, a silver arowana and eventually, once I build my dream tank, 3 oxydoras niger.. I feel like it will cost more than feeding freaking horses?

What is your monthly fish food budget for fish like these, and what are your tips and tricks for keeping the costs down? Thanks in advance.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Tricks: catch and freeze your own food, net baitfish,grab mayflies and crickets, nab crayfish by flipping rocks, observe waterways for snails.

Trick number 2: breed and raise your own foods, for example the following are easy to breed cheaply (mostly in cheap tubs): crickets,triops,earthworms,scuds,mosquitofish, pond snails,mealworms.

Also keep in mind many fish eat lots of insects, silver aros eat almost entirely insects in the wild, so collect crickets,edible moths,cicadas,locust,grasshoppers,large ants,June bugs,Japanese beetles,mealworms etc

 

[Rollokola]

Tricks: catch and freeze your own food, net baitfish,grab mayflies and crickets, nab crayfish by flipping rocks, observe waterways for snails.

Trick number 2: breed and raise your own foods, for example the following are easy to breed cheaply (mostly in cheap tubs): crickets,triops,earthworms,scuds,mosquitofish, pond snails,mealworms.

Also keep in mind many fish eat lots of insects, silver aros eat almost entirely insects in the wild, so collect crickets,edible moths,cicadas,locust,grasshoppers,large ants,June bugs,Japanese beetles,mealworms etc

Thanks a lot! About catching my own food.. It feels a little "risky" to bring in unknown organisms from nearby lakes/rivers? Is it rather risk-free to use wild food? Wouldn't want to get parasites or disease into the system from something that I put there in the first place, of course.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

Thanks a lot! About catching my own food.. It feels a little "risky" to bring in unknown organisms from nearby lakes/rivers? Is it rather risk-free to use wild food? Wouldn't want to get parasites or disease into the system from something that I put there in the first place, of course.

Freeze everything if your worried,avoid areas that have been sprayed with any chemicals .

Remember the food in the store wasn't born there,and didn't die there, collecting your food yourself means: you know where it comes from and how it's been handled, you avoid the middleman, and the food is at least several weeks or months fresher, and wasn't raised in a sewage pond

 

[MrsE88]

I agree with catching or raising your own food.
I’m raising snails and hopefully soon, crawfish to feed my cichlids, koi, and puffer.
It’s way cheaper to raise food then to buy it. No risk of disease since everything will be born in your closed system.

 

[Deadliestviper7]

I agree with catching or raising your own food.
I’m raising snails and hopefully soon, crawfish to feed my cichlids, koi, and puffer.
It’s way cheaper to raise food then to buy it. No risk of disease since everything will be born in your closed system.

You can also grow mussels in your pond!

 

[TwoHedWlf]

My food cost would be maybe $5/month? That's a tank with 3 big severums, 2 big plecs, a couple synos and a bichir. Even feeding 10 times that much per month I don't think i'd consider significant.

 

[dan518]

Food bill pales into insignificance when compared to the electricity, water bill and tank cost. Well it does here in the UK.

 

[Galantspeedz]

i can only buy my own food

Total ~ $25 a week

Stock
1st tank
1 x Asian arowana
3 x 10" parrots
1 x spotted gar
5 x 6-8" indo tiger
2 x 11" bichir
1 x 4" sun catfish

500g prawns - $8.90
live ghost shrimp - $2
live baby frogs - $4
some other pellets - < $1

2nd tank

7 x 4-7 inch stingray
500g mussels - $5
live ghost shrimp - $2

3rd tank

20 x mixed CA cichilds + 8 x featherfin catfish
1/4 packet hikari - $2.50

 

[tlindsey]

I never calculated up how much I spent on fish foods. I buy a variety of food items which some last for months.