The Feeders That Got Away

[Midwater]

With reference to another thread that got locked, here are a couple of anabas feeders that got away, grew and now think I love them as much as all the other fish.



They are about six inches long, not bad looking fish, and I can put up with them.

I just put a few more anabas feeders in today. Most will get eaten overnight, if not the next. Possibly one or two will be particularly wily.

 

[jjohnwm]

They look like they are enjoying life; are they sedated?

Back in the day, when I was young, dumb and cheap...instead of old, dumb and cheap ...I often had a new fish that needed training or persuading to eat non-living foods, and the easiest food to keep on hand for those newbies was often a bunch of live shiners. If I had any left-overs after the fish was onto dead foods, I usually just distributed them among whatever other predators I had at the time...and I usually had a lot.

In a tank with a decent degree of plants and cover, there was usually that small percentage of individual feeders that lived long enough to become accustomed to their surroundings, find the hidey-holes and escape routes and generally "go native" and make the tank their home. Once they begin to behave normally, rather than displaying that panicky every-which-way escape flight pattern, they can fly under the radar for a long time without attracting the wrong kind of attention...as long as the tank's main inhabitants are not allowed to become too hungry.

Of course, go on vacation for a long weekend or a week, with nobody feeding the fish during your absence...and the predators get a little hungry, and then put a little more effort into hunting, and...poof! The little guys are gone.

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

With reference to another thread that got locked, here are a couple of anabas feeders that got away, grew and now think I love them as much as all the other fish.

View attachment 1542182

They are about six inches long, not bad looking fish, and I can put up with them.

I just put a few more anabas feeders in today. Most will get eaten overnight, if not the next. Possibly one or two will be particularly wily.

View attachment 1542183

View attachment 1542184

What are anabas feeders? How big do they get...those might be the perfect fish I'm looking for.

 

[esoxlucius]

That other thread, which was rightly shut down, started off as a, "what's the most humane way of feeding live" type thing. Well this thread goes a long way to actually answering that.

If the tank is big enough, with plenty of hidey holes, then feeders do indeed have a fighting chance, and can live side by side with the predators they were initially meant for. Maybe not harmoniously because the threat will always be there.

But isn't that better than drugging the poor things and giving them zero chance?

Long live the feeders!

 

[Midwater]

What are anabas feeders? How big do they get...those might be the perfect fish I'm looking for.

Anabas Testudineus a.k.a. Climbing Perch
https://www.seriouslyfish.com/species/anabas-testudineus

Native to Thailand, which is why I use them as feeders, because they are appropriate in terms of distribution, unlike tilapia. I am not sure about their thiaminase content, so I do not use them exclusively.

 

[Zmouvek]

That other thread, which was rightly shut down, started off as a, "what's the most humane way of feeding live" type thing. Well this thread goes a long way to actually answering that.

If the tank is big enough, with plenty of hidey holes, then feeders do indeed have a fighting chance, and can live side by side with the predators they were initially meant for. Maybe not harmoniously because the threat will always be there.

But isn't that better than drugging the poor things and giving them zero chance?

Long live the feeders!

Honestly yeah, my thread got really derailed (The question basically just was "Is sedating live feeders a more ethically sound method of live feeding? Not "Live feeding bad if you do it you go to hell evil animal abuser"), but this honestly works for me, a tank where feeder fish can actually live, I have NO issues with that.

Yeah my thread was a ****show glad it was shut down.
Apparently that is a hot button issue, kinda stepped on a hornet nest.
I've seen some feeder fish that managed to get away in a properly forested tank, and end up growing into some really beautiful fish. Never heard of Anabas? apparently some sort of Gourami? Pretty fish nonetheless!