I've never fed my fish live feeders before, as he's always been okay with pellets and I've been scared that he would contract parasites from a bad source. Recently, however, I've been wanting to get earthworms or mealworms to get him a little more variety in his diet. I've heard you shouldn't dig up worms from your garden, and that buying feeders from petsmart/petco is a recipe for disaster, so I'm curious where people get good quality live feeders? Also note that I don't want a bag of a thousand mealworms, I just want a couple that I can feed over a few weeks.
Where do I find good feeders?
- Thread starter Red Wolf Keeper
- Start date
Would you consider frozen? They're nutritionally the same as live, offer just as much variety, and a blister pack of bloodworms (or even human-grade mussels or whitefish) will last you a long time even with a large predator like a red wolf.
As for mealworms, you can ask a reptile store for a small number (as well as crickets, dubia roaches etc.) and, again, freeze them to feed over time.
As for mealworms, you can ask a reptile store for a small number (as well as crickets, dubia roaches etc.) and, again, freeze them to feed over time.
Yeah, I think I have some frozen shrimp I might try-- thanks for the tip about reptile stores.
The easiest place to find "good feeders" is in the frozen-food section of your local aquarium store...or grocery store. Frozen silversides, large krill, etc. from the fish store, and frozen cocktail shrimp, prawns, mussels, tilapia, etc. from the grocery store. No beef, chicken, etc., regardless of what you may have heard online.
If you just absolutely need to see your fish eating live prey, earthworms from a bait shop or crickets from a reptile shop are likely your safest and easiest route.
If you just absolutely need to see your fish eating live prey, earthworms from a bait shop or crickets from a reptile shop are likely your safest and easiest route.
I have a tank livebearers and no predators. They breed prolifically and I add them to Cichlid tanks as desired. Since they're all bred & raised in house, I'm confident they are clean. That said, it takes up a tank that could otherwise house more Cichlids. This isn't practical for everyone.
You've also received a lot of other great guidance above.
You've also received a lot of other great guidance above.
Gave the big man the first shrimp of his life today! He absolutely annihilated that thing! Thanks for all the good advice, I think my next stop is a reptile store for a meal worm or cricket.
rainbow meal worms sells good feeder bugs roaches/crickets /super worms can last months at room temps fed only tiny amounts of what you want to gut load em with(i do that for my tarantulas) they are located in compton ca. if your local you can just walk right in and buy. wit fishy feeders its easier/safer to just keep a colony of mollies to raise as feeders.(easy to acclimate them to be born and raised into marine conditions) i did that for my frog fish and predator marine tanks. years ago
I only feed frozen krill to my fish besides pallets. If you used variety in context of getting all nutrients then pallets are variety, more than we can feed otherwise. If you meant it emotional sense of fish, I am pretty sure that doesn't matter but in that case I would stick to frozen silverside, krill as suggested above.
Feeding live is annoying.
This is MFK so i'm going to tell you to set up a tank for livebearers. Swordtails and Mollies get to a decent size so you could do like a threesome and get some babies. Guppies and Endlers are smaller and easy. Platy and Varaitus are medium sized?
I know next to nothing about Ricefish but I think they stay small?
I don't suggest mealworms cause too much chitin, superworms are super fatty, dubia roaches are easy to breed and gutload but you gotta stick with the young ones or ones who have just molted?
I have no clue how worms are raised, but they sure as hell ain't spending money on weird drugs to keep them alive. You can just buy bait worms from like wal-mart and gutload them? If you know a plot of land is mostly pollution free you can just go grab some worms after it rains.
Crickets don't breed well, they're loud, they're not a good ratio of insides to exoskeleton, and you WILL eventually end up with at least one somewhere in your house that you can't find annoying you constantly.
Set up a livebearer tank, feed off any you don't like. You'll get clean live food and your own line of ???
This is MFK so i'm going to tell you to set up a tank for livebearers. Swordtails and Mollies get to a decent size so you could do like a threesome and get some babies. Guppies and Endlers are smaller and easy. Platy and Varaitus are medium sized?
I know next to nothing about Ricefish but I think they stay small?
I don't suggest mealworms cause too much chitin, superworms are super fatty, dubia roaches are easy to breed and gutload but you gotta stick with the young ones or ones who have just molted?
I have no clue how worms are raised, but they sure as hell ain't spending money on weird drugs to keep them alive. You can just buy bait worms from like wal-mart and gutload them? If you know a plot of land is mostly pollution free you can just go grab some worms after it rains.
Crickets don't breed well, they're loud, they're not a good ratio of insides to exoskeleton, and you WILL eventually end up with at least one somewhere in your house that you can't find annoying you constantly.
Set up a livebearer tank, feed off any you don't like. You'll get clean live food and your own line of ???
