Theres many other safer live things you can feel other than feeders, like ghost shrimp, they're not that easy to catch either so you'll be letting your ray use it's "hunting skills" and you can gutload them before you feed them. The thing is, you'd be doing your fish a bigger favor by giving it high quality food such as pellets, or fresh fillets, shrimp, worms than feeders. Just a thing to keep in mind, all it takes is one bad feeder, unless you're planning to breed your own which is a pretty big waste of food. Then you have to deal with the thiamins, therefore way too many things to worry about feeding feeders.
questons about my freshwater ray
- Thread starter rachelray
- Start date
Id never use feeders, not somthing id risk. It seems things are very different in the UK fish hobby
goldfish should never be fed as food. they contain high levels of thiaminase , which is an enzyme which breaks down vitamin b1. which is essential for the nervous system of the ray. that is before all the risks of disease.
rays in the wild are bottom feeders hence the evolutionary adaption of mouth shape and tooth structure.
And are very much scavenger/opportunistic predator!
if they where designed to catch fish they would look like streamlined sharks!
In the aquarium they can catch fish because they are contained in a small place and can pin them against the glass.
Look at the mouths and teeth of port jackson sharks( a bottom feeder) that are designed to eat molluscs. Very similar to potamotrygon.
so saying not feeding live fish is taking the natural instinct away from a predator is nonsense! You could argure that not feeding small live crayfish/prawns etc is depriving the ray of natural instinct, but that is not an arguement worth risking the rays health for.
Get them onto pellets and see how much healthier your rays look. look at two of the most succesful private breeders on here. aquaman and t1karman both feed pellets. Within a week of getting my rays to take pellets they look like different fish. So as unanatural as they may be go for the pellets.
rays in the wild are bottom feeders hence the evolutionary adaption of mouth shape and tooth structure.
And are very much scavenger/opportunistic predator!
if they where designed to catch fish they would look like streamlined sharks!
In the aquarium they can catch fish because they are contained in a small place and can pin them against the glass.
Look at the mouths and teeth of port jackson sharks( a bottom feeder) that are designed to eat molluscs. Very similar to potamotrygon.
so saying not feeding live fish is taking the natural instinct away from a predator is nonsense! You could argure that not feeding small live crayfish/prawns etc is depriving the ray of natural instinct, but that is not an arguement worth risking the rays health for.
Get them onto pellets and see how much healthier your rays look. look at two of the most succesful private breeders on here. aquaman and t1karman both feed pellets. Within a week of getting my rays to take pellets they look like different fish. So as unanatural as they may be go for the pellets.
Bogwoodbruce;3423854; said:
not really much different B. the noobs just don't quite understand yet
morello;3424531; said:
massivore, cichlid gold, sicking cichlid gold, basically Hikari products are the way to go IMO. There are other good ones but i stick to those.
but the same rules apply....
I don't feed smelts to my fish because they contain thiaminase. Even some brands of silversides are really smelts. I only use San Fransisco silversides to be sure. I also feed my rays shrimp (mostly). They also really like earthworms. My smaller rays started off with blackworms then moved to frozen bloodworms, mysis and cut up market shrimp. They also really like silversides.
ill avoid the why they are bad and the more indepth why they are bad... we have a search feature you can use it.... and sam buckle summed it up nice...
now if you want to feed something live to stimulate your ray go get some crayfish... gut load them on some pellets for a few days then drop them in the tank....
i agree with everything zoodiver said and vamptrev...
now if you want to feed something live to stimulate your ray go get some crayfish... gut load them on some pellets for a few days then drop them in the tank....
i agree with everything zoodiver said and vamptrev...
