I had the same problem , add some larger dithers like silver dollars to make your dempsey feel secure , thats what I did and mine is not as skittish anymore , also feeders are a bad idea because of diseases , but they also contain a certain vitamin or hormone ( not sure which) that will stunt your fish and shorten their life spans. if you want to use feeders you should try to breed platys seeing as they come from the same region as dempseys , it would be alot better for them. make sure to add a vegetable component to their diet such as leaf / romaine lettuce or spinach seeing as they are omnivores.
jack dempsey eating?
- Thread starter snoskate88
- Start date
I agree w/everything that has been said about not using feeders as a regular diet, just wanted to add that especially as they grow you will want your cichlids on pellets, not flake. Hikari and NLS make very good and nutritious cichlid pellets. As a supplement, frozen foods like bloodoworms, krill, shrimp, etc. are favorites of many cichlids, and they are often enriched with vitamins.
Raising your own feeders does eliminate (or close to) the risk of disease, but as has been said, it is not healthy for your fish to eat a 100% protein diet, and even feeding healthy feeders as a primary diet is known to cause hole-in-the-head with Oscars. Plus, cichlids especially Oscars being super messy eaters to begin with, with feeders it is 10x worse - your water quality will definitely suffer even if you are doing your regular gravel vacs and water changes, which also causes hole-in-the-head.
Further, as you are seeing with your JD, many domestically bred semi-aggro cichlids aren't even really interested in feeders. They'd much rather pellets or frozen bloodworms any day. Given that, and the fact that there are far, far more nutritious foods commerically available, why would you bother to put all the effort into raising feeders? I understand it's cool to watch the predatory behavior, and occasionally feeding feeders is totally fine if they are disease-free, but to me it wouldn't be worth the effort and the risks.
Raising your own feeders does eliminate (or close to) the risk of disease, but as has been said, it is not healthy for your fish to eat a 100% protein diet, and even feeding healthy feeders as a primary diet is known to cause hole-in-the-head with Oscars. Plus, cichlids especially Oscars being super messy eaters to begin with, with feeders it is 10x worse - your water quality will definitely suffer even if you are doing your regular gravel vacs and water changes, which also causes hole-in-the-head.
Further, as you are seeing with your JD, many domestically bred semi-aggro cichlids aren't even really interested in feeders. They'd much rather pellets or frozen bloodworms any day. Given that, and the fact that there are far, far more nutritious foods commerically available, why would you bother to put all the effort into raising feeders? I understand it's cool to watch the predatory behavior, and occasionally feeding feeders is totally fine if they are disease-free, but to me it wouldn't be worth the effort and the risks.
Our fish eat hikari cichlid pellets as well as feeders. Although the flakes go mostly to the oscars they are really for the tinfoil barb. We had dithers (three tinfoil barbs), but they got eaten except for one. What would be better dithers/ is a tinfoil barb a dither?
THe jack dempsey isn't exactly skittish, she actually is one of the more aggressive fish of the three. She'll nip at the black tiger oscar that is slightly larger than her. We added a second cave last night, just rearranging the rocks, and the black tiger oscar was rearranging the gravel rocks in it all morning, but he also started to move the plants around which is normal from what ive read, but just started last night.
All of the fish are used to people coming up to the tank. Its next to the entrance of the room and everyone comes in past them. THey dont especially hide.
We also have a system that is under the gravel, with bubblers on each side of the tank, not sure exactly what it does, but snowskate said it helps things decompose under the gravel
THe jack dempsey isn't exactly skittish, she actually is one of the more aggressive fish of the three. She'll nip at the black tiger oscar that is slightly larger than her. We added a second cave last night, just rearranging the rocks, and the black tiger oscar was rearranging the gravel rocks in it all morning, but he also started to move the plants around which is normal from what ive read, but just started last night.
All of the fish are used to people coming up to the tank. Its next to the entrance of the room and everyone comes in past them. THey dont especially hide.
We also have a system that is under the gravel, with bubblers on each side of the tank, not sure exactly what it does, but snowskate said it helps things decompose under the gravel
I never gave my Jack Dempseys feeders, he was always content with pellets, flakes, and bloodworms. He looked great. I don't see the point in using feeders for them.
crm7290;2506681; said:
Not really, the undergravel filter, which is pretty much not used anymore, uses the gravel as the filter media. The bubbles actually created suction that pulls things throught the gravel. The downside of this filter is exactly what you said, it helps thing decompose under the gravel. You never want things to decompose in your tank. What other filters do you have on this tank and what size is your current tank? Sounds like you need a bigger tank real soon.
I wouldn't worry about dithers right now. Tinfoils are great, but get as big as oscars and really need a very large tank for a school of them.
Also, JD's aren't really fisheaters in the wild, more insects and such.
Feeder fish really have NO POINT......they get fish sick on a regular basis and they aren't even that good for the fish in over all health. Stick with vitamin enhanced foods. I swear by Hikari Foods all of my fish in all of my tanks eat all of there products even my finicky eaters go crazy for my Hikari brand stuff.
Just wanted to let you know that I too enjoy watching a good hunt as much as the Oscars enjoy the hunt.I am currently breeding Platies,and Mollies for mine because they're bigger.I do also have Convicts.I agree that the feeders should be used sparingly, couple times a week, but use mostly pellets. I hear crickets are good for them as well,but if you intend to breed them keep them outside as they tend to stink. If any one disagrees w/me feel free to add your input as I am learning too. 
We actually bought a bag of crickets from the LFS and like the guy told us (Mythus Redtail) we got a couple rougue crickets escape from the tank and hop through the room. found 1 and i found another a day later. We thought we killed them by leavin them in the car when it was very cold, but they must have felt the water and came back to life from the warmth, and bam crickets under the futon.
Our fish really werent the biggest fans of the crickets, actually the crickets were problably the thing they were slowest to ever eat...
Our fish really werent the biggest fans of the crickets, actually the crickets were problably the thing they were slowest to ever eat...
crickets are actually a great alternative to feeder fish, and resemble the preferred diet of the oscars a lot more. The problem with feeder fish is that even if you quarantine, you can still miss some diseases like camallanus and other internal parasite unless you medicate the feeders regardless of whether there are symptoms
