I was wondering whether people sell live saltwater feeder fish I don’t believe in feeding live but it’s just out of interest
Live saltwater feeder fish
- Thread starter prokeeper
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Welcome aboard
Years ago I fed my Panther Group, Volitan Lionfish, Catsharks live Goldfish feeders. Now that I'm aware of the risk of possibly fish getting infected by parasites and other harmful pathogens I don't feed live fish to my Freshwater predator species. Also aware that slim chance for Freshwater parasites to survive Saltwater.
That last point is a great point. Freshwater parasites can't live in saltwater usually neither can the host. Locally there used to be a couple guys that sold chromis as feeders. $1 each. Not bad but at the same time not great, or imo needed. There is so much frozen food for saltwater it just doesn't make sense.
Yes they were green chromis. I don't know if they bred them or just got really great pricing on them from a distributor. My guess is bred them. These two guys would show up at frag swaps with a 55g garbage can full of them. On the can in marker it said green chromis $1 no choice of fish 5 minimum. They also had lots of hermit crabs, mithrix crabs, a few different shrimp mostly cleaner and peppermint and some high end corals. Crabs were cheap too. Corals and shrimp not so much. Green chromis used to be and maybe still are like $4 at the lfs, I haven't had saltwater in like 10 years so I'm out of the loop.
Also I know people who use convicts as feeders in freshwater.
I rarely need or want to use live feeders anymore, for reasons of both health and personal ethics. But I recently got a new fish that looks like it will need some training to get off live, so I have been using Skiffias (Goodeid livebearers), Rosy Reds (quarantined over many generations in my pond/fishroom, so not concerned about parasites, just nutrition), and Jack Dempsey fry (free from a good friend who has a productive pair).
Any fish you use to feed other fish...is, by definition, a feeder, regardless of species. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
But, as soon as I get this guy onto pellets, the feeder fish thing is over. He'll still get the occasional nightcrawler, but that's about it.
I don’t like doing feeder fish, but if I had to for saltwater I would do mollies. They are cheap and actually survive (and do better in) saltwater. You can get a population and they make a good addition to the tank. They are easy to breed too.