I have a hypothetical question........

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sg1

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 23, 2007
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Phoenix AZ
Those of us with large fish, dovii's, jags, Oscars have all fed them bugs. What if you fed your fish say like a black widow spider or a scorpion, would the insects venom hurt your fish? Or is is just like any other insect for a fish?
 
I would assume so.We have the dreaded cane toad causing problems with our native fish here.They are very toxic while they are tadpoles and not being native to our country, our native fish have no defense against there toxins and therefor die so I would assume it would be the same for most poisonous creatures.I would advise against it at least.
 
I wasnt really thinking about doing it, just something I wondered about. Thought maybe I could get some clarity from those who know more about this stuff than I do:)
 
I heard feeding Pufferfish to Oscars is awesome.

Lol, i remember that one. Never seen the need to feed feeders to anything other then true piscovores (which is why i dont keep them)

As for the poison in spiders and scorpions etc, it actually enters the blood steam, and then causes anything from nural damage, to hemorrhaging of the blood.

Theres a chance that the stomach acids/walls of some animals will have developed to withstand this... but i cant imagine that of fish.

Although, saying that, Oscars come from the amazon, they love spiders, and i'm pretty sure a taranatula could fit in that gob...

Would be interesting to see if fish have delevoped evolutionary tactics to avoid being poisened by the likes of spiders, toads and frogs.

My tuppence.
Craggy
 
I have a bee hive some where close to my house. The bees are always drinking out of my pond, my koi have developed a taste for them, they probably eat 20 or so a day.
 
I actually fed a live scorpion to my male dovii, but I cut the scorpion's tail off first. We caught the scorpion in the house one night. Scorpions in GA are small and not very dangerous.
 
fish in the wild, i would imagine could handle it. i dont exactly see an oscar, or a 3 foot pacu in the river, passing up a spider that may fall, or is close to waters edge.

in a tank, most of their natural defenses to things like that are more than likely generations gone IMO
 
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