Hello to you guys and experts. I want to ask if its ok to feed these house cockroaches to my arowana since i ran out of pellets for him. I dont know if this is bad or not but ive been feeding him this for the past week since i have no money for fish pellets yet.
Its not long til i get my allowance for new pellets. Although i fear that might happen and might make him sick because of them being roaches in my house.
Its not long til i get my allowance for new pellets. Although i fear that might happen and might make him sick because of them being roaches in my house.
I would never, ever consider feeding "wild-caught" roaches (or crickets) collected indoors. You have no idea if or when there may have been poisons sprayed or poison baits put out in the past. Roaches are such a common worldwide pest that there's an excellent chance that building has some insecticide hidden away somewhere, something that was used specifically to kill the roaches.
Roaches develop tolerances to various poisons, making them harder and harder to kill without coming up with new poisons, but they can still carry traces of the no-longer-effective insecticides in their bodies...traces which will quickly accumulate in a predator eating multiple roaches.
The roaches themselves, if raised specifically for the purpose, would be terrific as long as your fish doesn't get spoiled and picky as mentioned by
RD.
Your fish won't starve in a few days; or perhaps you could find some insects in a nearby natural area that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides?
I was assuming that if one can’t afford pellets, they probably can’t afford pesticides/insecticides. I could be wrong, as
jjohnwm suggested, you better be quite certain those roaches haven’t ingested poison. Good point.
Pesticides could have been in use by a previous owner or tenant, by the management of an apartment building, by a nearby neighbour, etc. And just because the OP, who sounds like a youngster on an allowance, couldn't afford pellets...doesn't mean his parents can't afford poison.
Never underestimate the degree to which we humans have screwed up this world. Finding a location that has not been sprayed, oversprayed, polluted, poisoned, etc. is not an easy task. I collect live food in the middle of my land, never any closer than a couple hundred yards from another property, where I never use any kind of pesticides nor even commercial fertilizers, and even so I avoid insects that might have flown in from a distance. I just don't trust 'em.
I don’t believe that the average homeowner in the Philippines spends $$ on insecticides/pesticides. Might be one of the safest countries to feed household insects to fish. In many parts of SE Asia blood worms for fish food, are collected in ditches etc.
