Is it normal for flowerhorn to attack to eat fish's eyes first?

Fanatic_Fish_Lunatic

Exodon
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Jul 24, 2024
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That's the question. Well, yesterday, I saw my flowerhorn attack and eat a smaller channa's eyes first. That channa is a feeder fish. Anyways, is it normal behaviour for flowerhorns or is this normal for most cichlids?
 
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Deadeye

POTM Curator
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Aug 31, 2020
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Regardless of the species, eyes are always an easy target. They are soft and relatively unprotected.
Where I live people would kill for a chance to have a snakehead…and you’re using them as feeders?!
I would discourage from live feeding - it’s a risk for infection or damage to a fish that’s already starting life with a handicap.
 

Fanatic_Fish_Lunatic

Exodon
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Jul 24, 2024
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The cha
I dunno for real, but it's hard to run away when you can't see where you're going :drool:
[/QUOTE
Regardless of the species, eyes are always an easy target. They are soft and relatively unprotected.
Where I live people would kill for a chance to have a snakehead…and you’re using them as feeders?!
I would discourage from live feeding - it’s a risk for infection or damage to a fish that’s already starting life with a handicap.
Don't worry, it's a 2 inches common snakehead and it's bred in farm. So kinda safe and cheap.
 

jjohnwm

Sausage Finger Spam Slayer
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Mar 29, 2019
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They're just fish; nothing extraordinary about them....except for the fact that some people who aren't allowed to keep them have built up a mystique around them strictly because of that. But if they are common and cheaply available...and if someone intends to use live feeders anyway, which is a whole separate topic...why wouldn't they be useful in that role?

Just look at a typical Channa...or, for that matter, an Asian arowana. No spines...elongated, slender, flexible body...these things look like they were designed to slide smoothly and easily down a predator's gullet. :)

Human nature being what it is...the most valuable and coveted element on Earth is and always well be...unobtainium. :)
 
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