Reefs.org Forums

[dpieroni]

I have a continuos supply of fresh water live fishes to feed my zebra lionfis(dendrochirus).
Is it a way to enrich this live fresh water in order to fedd my lionfish with fres water fishes and not to be a problem in the long term?
or I need to fedd with salt water food and there is nothing to do to adecuate this fresh water fishes?
Anybody doing this?
thanks
diego

[ltjgreeves]

I had a volitan porcipine niger trigger and a snowflake i live feed evrything freshwater goldfish. I hear people say no its not good they could get sick i did it for 2 years and my fish loved it they were not aggresive tword each other the gold fish would last about an hour before dieing if they lasted before being eaten. The only thing is watch water parameters i never had a problem but i had alot of fitration. It is an assome thing to see the lions hunt the goldfish. when i got him he was about a 6 inch spread when i moved 2 years later he was about 14 inches spread. My exsperince says go for it i found the live feeding cut back on the aggresion. Others will surly say t is a bad idea i am setting up another preditor tank right now and plan on doing the same thing. There are also saltwater feeders i liked to suplement because they would live in the tank untill they got eaten.
Josh Reeves

[seamaiden]

Diego, don't do what this guy says. Good for two years is not "good" at all, especially if you hope to keep the animal thriving (as opposed to just surviving) for anything resembling a natural period of time (decade or better). I personally know of no way to "enrich" freshwater feeder fish. You can, of course, "convert" mollies to saltwater, but this will not make them a complete food for your lionfish by any stretch, nor will it necessarily make them a healthier choice.

Do what you can to get your saltwater predators eating from a feeding stick, there are MANY reasons to do this, just one of which is that whatever parasite can infect the saltwater feeders is the same that can infect your prized fishes. Feeding freshwater animals to salties is a nutritionally unsound practice.

Water parameters are not the issue when determining whether to feed live foods or not, they are important no matter what is being fed.