Has anyone kept very small crappies?

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Mpls Laker

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Aug 18, 2006
18
0
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eagan, minnesota
I'm looking for feeding options for these very small crappies, and perch i bought yesterday. Has anyone out there sucsessfully raised these fish from a small size?
 
Welcome to MFK!!!

Crappie will eat pretty much anything you throw at them. Mine eat pellets, sticks, krill, plankton, fresh and frozen foods, and live minnows. They don't tolerate nitrites or low DO too well so, good filtration/aeration combined with weekly water changes will be a benefit towards their health and growth. Are yours black or white crappie? I have black crappie and their growth rate is about 1.5 - 2" per month which will slow dramatically once they reach about 8".
 
i had one that was about 2 in. and he ate flakes occasionaly but mostly the scales that got busted off the minnows that my bass ate that would be floating around i would try blood worms or black worms
Oddball, howd you get your crappie onto pellets??
i need to get mine on them
 
Bassman89;476858; said:
i had one that was about 2 in. and he ate flakes occasionaly but mostly the scales that got busted off the minnows that my bass ate that would be floating around i would try blood worms or black worms
Oddball, howd you get your crappie onto pellets??
i need to get mine on them

Whenever I can, I get my fish onto prepared foods with the "watch and learn" technique. In this case, I put the crappies in a tank housing green sunfish that feed on pellet and crumble food. After a few days of the crappie watching the sunfish feed, the crappie started chomping on the crumbles. Now, they hit anything going into the tank.
 
How small are they exactly? If they are big enough, I would start them on guppies, and once they start coming to the front of the tank for food, try some prepared or frozen foods.
 
If they're fry (2" or less), stay away from feeder fish and bulk them up on inverts (BS, gammarus, bloodworms, blackworm, cyclops, daphnia magna, mayfly/dragonfly larvae etc). In the wild they start out feeding predominently on benthic inverts. They become increasingly piscavorous as they mature. Starting them on live fish as fry will make them more cannibalistic as adults.
 
Great to hear. I hope we will get to see some pics of these guys soon!

Chad
 
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