Various Feeders And My Ratings

[Midwater]

This is my experience only. I am sure other fishkeepers will differ.

1.) Ghost Shrimp
Every fish likes ghost shrimp, carnivores, detrivores, omnivores. Easiest live food to feed. Does not seem to transmit parasites. It might be moderate to high in Thiaminase, but does not seem to be an issue. I am lucky that I can get it delivered by the kilo. However a few large fish can get through a kilo of ghost shrimp quickly, so it can work out expensive.

2.) Tilapia Fry
All the carnivores and many omnivores like it. Either red or black tilapia, I put a thousand or so one inch fry in the predator tank and they look great ... at least for the first day. They swarm together and look nearly as good as the fish they are going to feed. After a day they stop swarming, and each fry is out for itself, as if they know their time is coming. Never had an issue with parasites, and I do treat occasionally with Levamisole. I do understand that parasites is a potential problem. Possibly the best feeder, high in protein, low in Thiaminase.

3.) Meal Worms
Never felt these are so good. Some of them float and go over the overflow. Pinktails like a few, then get bored. The rest sink. Dats ignore them. Carnivorous L numbers will finish them off.

4.) Super Worms
Never felt much of these either. Aros eat a few.

5.) Crickets
All the top dwellers love crickets. Pinktails go mad for them. I can get these delivered too by the kilo, and they are cheap. But they get everywhere. Everywhere.
In the aquarium lid, outside the aquarium, on the floor, in the curtains, in the kitchen. You can never catch all of them, you are just aware of their rasping sounds from some places you cannot really find. And the few that die in the humidity of the aquarium lid smell really bad.

6.) Frogs
Aros love them. Dats love them. Incredible to watch a dat hyperextend its mouth to suck in a froggy. Frogs get everywhere too, and they really smell bad.

7.) Lizards
There are lots of lizards hanging about on the exterior walls at night, waiting for mosquitos. I like them, they certainly keep the mosquito population down. Aros love them too. The best way to get an aro to jump is to put it in the aquarium cover. You cannot really get enough lizards though, to be a sustainable live food.

Mostly I stick to tilapia fry and ghost shrimp.

 

[jjohnwm]

Ghost shrimp by the kilo...sigh...must be nice...

Good thread idea. A couple you have left out, probably due to geographic differences:

First off, my favourite: Earthworms. Anything from the small young ones only a couple inches long at full extension, right up to the those wonderful giant nightcrawlers. Fish love 'em, and their irresistible motion will tempt and tantalize the most reticent feeder sometimes when nothing else will. They can be fed whole, broken into shorter sections, and chopped up for very small fish. They are easy to keep alive and even to breed in quantity when given the correct conditions. When I lived in southern Ontario as a kid, I made money by collecting nightcrawlers off of golf courses at night and selling them to baitshops, so naturally I had a constant supply for my own use as well. Sadly, they are not nearly as common, especially in the jumbo sizes, in the area where I now reside, but I can usually find plenty after a hard rain to provide my fish with a feast.

Next: Mayflies (Fishflies). Again, these are not as abundant now as they were in my youth...but they are no longer as abundant in those locales either, compared to a half-decade or longer ago. They are, as every fly fisherman knows, very seasonal. The initial flying imago form emerges from the skins of aquatic larvae, and within only a few hours molts into a second flying adult phase which again lives just long enough to mate, lay eggs and then die. The flying forms don't eat, don't even have mouthparts or functional digestive systems. Back in the day, they were so unbelievably numerous after a hatch that the city actually used bulldozers to clear their carcasses off the lakeside roadways for the day or two after a hatch; the whole city stunk of fish. And again, fish loved them; it was easy to collect a year's worth of flies in a few hours...often using a shovel!...and then to freeze them for future use. Today...near the water, one can go out and collect them after a hatch in decent numbers, if you know the good spots near water to go. Forget the shovel; you'll just be picking them off the sides of buildings, treetrunks, etc.

Finally...Grasshoppers. I am currently enjoying a wonderful crop of these guys, and for the past few weeks have been snatching up as many as I can use without effort. Carnivores love them, but they are a lot of work compared to the other two. Catching them requires a complete lack of concern for how silly you look chasing them. I kill them before using them, usually while catching them, and then remove the large rear pair of jumping legs to make swallowing easier. The crop will last another few weeks and then quickly vanish until next year. I collect these on my own rural property, where I do not use any chemicals or pesticides; I would never use them if I had to go to agricultural land or city parks, or anywhere else that chemicals are sprayed...which means just about anywhere else...

None of these foods carry much danger of parasites or pathogens transmitted to fish, and they are also...if you'll pardon my hypocrisy..."lower" animals that I can feed guilt-free, even in the live state. I won't use frogs, certainly not lizards (not that we have any of those...), just because...I like 'em too much. I could go outside and collect hundreds of frogs very easily this year if I so desired, but the only ones I actually use are the few that get accidentally weed-whacked or lawn-mowered. We have three species; the most common on the lawn are Wood Frogs which are potentially toxic to predators; the next most common are Boreal Chorus Frogs, which remain tiny and are the ones I will use if injured ones are found; and the least common are the wonderful Grey Tree Frogs, which are (contrary to their name) usually a blindingly brilliant emerald green colour, especially when young. Using those would be akin to catching and using fairies and elves as feeders...they are just too dang cute...

Forgot to mention: Smelt. They are locally available in a frozen state at baitshops. You must be certain that they are not salted; I think it is wise to be at least aware that some danger of bacterial infections continues to exist even after freezing; and, thiaminase would be a concern if you feed only these fish, without supplementation.

 

[esoxlucius]

If I had predator fish I would try and choose species which didn't need live. I don't like the idea, being a fish lover, of feeding live fish!! It just goes against my instincts. (Though many many years ago when I had piranhas I use to put a "show" on for my mates with locally caught live minnows, what an idiot!).

Nowadays my go to live food is the humble worm. All different sizes, easy to collect, plentiful, extremely nutritious......and FREE!!!!! Why the hell people buy worms confuses the hell out of me.

I also had a plentiful supply of juicy crickets from my cricket farm, until just recently. I stripped it down. They were breeding that quickly it became a chore. It's easier just to buy the odd tub now as a treat once in a while.

I've also toyed with the idea of garden snails too, which are as abundant as worms in the UK. My clown loach would probably love them but I believe there are risks with snails, which I'm not prepared to take.