PlanetCatfish.com

Hi,i've had this discussion with loads of people for a long time, what do you think or do? Feed live fish or not? Personally i don't think there is need to feed live fish.

If you dont feed them, they wont be alive for long.

I'd only ever feed my terrapin a fish if one ever dies on me, otherwise...no.

I fed my Angels on live Guppy fry for a while because it was recomended by a friend , then decided to stop cause I did not see it was fair to do it and not necessary, the results were fat Angels that wont chase food, they're still alive and doing well.

I wouldn't feed live fish as food again..

It depends whether you are doing it for the benefit of the fish (the one being fed that is!), or for your own entertainment.

Case in point, a young gentleman asked me the other day what were the cheapest fish for sale and immediately I could see where the conversation was heading. So I asked him what he wanted to feed, he said an Oscar. When I suggested that oscars don't need that sort of live food and that prepared foods would be better, he replied "Oh I just want to see him chase them around and rip them up"

A different example is a customer with a large tank of pims (limas, pictus & ornnatus) wanted to know what tetras would most likely be their natural diet so that he could have a large school of them to suppliment the prepared & frozen food. On one hand this could also be seen as entertainment, in that the person's enjoyment of their fish came from observing a contrived natural occurance.
On the other hand, the desired predatory behaviour would almost certainly occur at night when no one is watching, so the 'thrill' of it would be lost. In theory the school of tetras would be decimated over time, with the weakest being picked off, but in reality one wonders if the pims would simply gorge themselves at the first opportunity.
Unfortunately I never found out what happened, or even if the person went ahead with his plan, but it does raise the question of what is ethical and where to draw the line between best intentions and blatant disregard.

Fish eat fish in the wild. I've never heard of a veagan piranah. Although mine used to eat mice. Its all about prefferance.

Some people are hard wired with sympathy and empathy even twards ants. Me I'm sadistic I think its fun to watch but I draw the line with guini pigs. I'll spare the faint of heart details.

I don't have a problem feeding live fish.

I don't see the difference with that, and using dried fish food, which comprises of mainly dead fish.

These (usually marine) fish die in their thousands by suffocation to make our fish food.

It's more humane for a fish to be swallowed whole in half a second, than to die over a period of hours, being unable to breathe.

I fed my whipray for a very short time when he was just introduced and stopped as soon as it started feeding on dead.

Stig, there is an actual poll feature on the forum.

Did you try to use it?

jd_7655 wrote:Fish eat fish in the wild. I've never heard of a veagan piranah. Although mine used to eat mice. Its all about prefferance.

I was under the impression most piranha species, including Pacu, ate seeds and fruit.


I see no advantage in feeding live fish to another fish.

depends entirely on the fish you keep.

beauty is entirely in the eye of the beholder, but I kinda like piscivores, although currently I don't have many. (1 Pike Cichlid, 1 Polypterus, 3 Axolotls, 3 fish-eating snakes, a few Tanganyikan piscivore catfishes)

fish like bigger Pimelodids, Chaca chaca, Pike Characins (Boulengerella, Ctenolucius), Pike Cichlids (Crenicichla) and ancient looking fish like Polypterus are quite beautiful IMO.
same goes for the marine Scorpion-, Lion- and Stonefish, all of wich are perfectly suitable to keep in a marine tank.

I have NO problem with feeding live fishes to fish like that; some (like the Chaca) are even impossible to keep without feeding live fishes.

It all comes down on how you treat the feeders; if you keep a tank with a fast breeding species (live bearers or a pair of Convicts wich spawn at a regular base) and treat them well, good clean water, good food etc; you have a healthy and eithically bunch of feederfishes.

I take the same view on meat: if the pig, sheep or chicken has a fairly normal life, I have NO problem with eating such an animal; likewise I think if you treat your feeders well, I have NO problem with feeding them to a larger carnivorous fish.

As you might guess Im NOT a vegitarian, not even close

I'm under the impression that it is actually against the law in the UK to feed live vertebrates (fish) to animals. I came across this when looking at info with regards to feeding terrapins. It's also against the law to feed tadpoles to animals.. Can anybody back me up on this?

Yeah i tried to use the poll feature but couldn't get it to work.

i feed my oscar gold fish ever day and he loves thems, swallows them whole.

arc200uk wrote:I'm under the impression that it is actually against the law in the UK to feed live vertebrates (fish) to animals. I came across this when looking at info with regards to feeding terrapins. It's also against the law to feed tadpoles to animals.. Can anybody back me up on this?

All Amphibians are protected by law in the UK, so using tadpoles as food is illegal here. I'll check what the legal situation is regarding the deliberate use of live vertebrates as food. There are certainly some fish where this is sometimes necessary for short time until they can be weaned onto taking dead food. The very few that are obligate live fish feeders are probably better off left where they are. Although I personally don't have major issues with the feeding of culls etc. to predators which will capture and kill them quickly and efficiently, it can be logistically difficult to secure a reliable and disease-free source.

I usually tell people that it is illegal, so as not to enourage the kind of degenerates who might get a kick out of it.

All Amphibians are protected by law in the UK, so using tadpoles as food is illegal here.

Under what legislation?

racoll wrote:Under what legislation?

Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981
which prohibits the â??intentionalâ?? killing, injuring or taking, the possession and the trade in wild animals listed on Schedule 5.
All UK native amphibians and reptiles are listed in Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, with varying degrees of protection.
Captive-bred tadpoles would not be covered by this legislation, however this does not include tadpoles from garden ponds.....

Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981
which prohibits the â??intentionalâ?? killing, injuring or taking, the possession and the trade in wild animals listed on Schedule 5.
All UK native amphibians and reptiles are listed in Schedule 5 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, with varying degrees of protection.

Actually, the following species are only protected by section 9(5) of that act:

Triturus vulgaris, Triturus helveticus, Rana temporaria and Bufo bufo.

Section 9(5) of the Wildlife & Countryside Act, covers only the sale (and associated activities) of these creatures.

They are not protected under section 9(1) which covers the "killing, injuring or taking" part.

it depends on what kind of fish u have like i have a spotted gar and all i can feed him is live food.

jd_7655 wrote:I've never heard of a veagan piranah.

<em>Metynnis</em>???

Jools

This poll opens a much bigger can o' worms than it appears. I had a juruense catfish that woukd eat nothing but live fish when he was relly small. The LFS had got him as a "box filler" in a shipment from south america and knowing the size he could potentially attain meant that I had him for the princely some of FA (Absolutely Free). I put him in one of my large south american tanks with various tetras and cichlid and doradids and I'll be honest with you I had no idea what he ate for the first 4 months, but he kept growng so all was good. Anyway to cut a long story short, he was eating baby guppies and became dependant on live food. When he got big enough guppys, tetras and anything small enough to fit in his mouth started disappearing so he had to have a home of his own. It took me another 6 months to ween him off live food and onto prawn,worms crickets etc. but it worked (The madest thing was he learned to eat 'dead food' by hanging out with some pictus cats) he eventually swapped. The point I am trying to make is virtually any fish can be converted to 'dead foods' with patience (and some help from tank mates) so I don't believe it is absolutely necessary. However I am not against feeding live food as at least in the right conditions the live food has a fighting chance, not just left to suffocate on the deck of a ship, I feed some of my predatory cats live fish ocasionally, how would you like to eat canned spam every day?
Ther are massive fish farms breeding 'feeder fish' not to mention the many aquirists breeding guppies, tetras, convicts etc. How many fish farms are breeding chacas, juruense, tigrinis and other predatory cats they you may have trouble feeding 'dead food'. When you obtain these fish you get with them a responsibility to look after them to the best of your ability and so if the fish will only eat live food then so be it.
Conditioning of fish for breeding (any fish) often requires live food (usually water fleas, mosqito larvea etc.) so any attempt to breed these percivorous fish may require live food (fish), with the states of deforrestation, pollution and many other of mans hobbies captive breeding is going to be a must in the future.
What do you do with your tests samples when testing for amonia, nitrite and nitrates when youve finnished with them? down the sink? have a look whats in those little bottles of reagent, nasty stuff, millions of fish keepers pouring it into the natural water cycle every day. A bit worse than feeding live fish I think.
Anyone that gets pleasure from feeding live fish.
You are not well in the head.
A note to all the "it happens in the wild, it's natural" crew.
go to the amazon, look at it, it is vast.
Now look at youre aquarium.
Your fish are really not in the wild, believe me.
We really should not be keeping some of these fish in our homes, it really is a shame that one day it will probably be the only place that you will see them.
"the wild" is disapearring.
I am not a hippy.
I am not an eco warrior.
I own a company that maintains power stations, I have worked in power stations that used to be in the middle of the jungle, a few years later and they are a long way from the rain forrest, I am as guilty if not more guilty than the next person for the destruction of the planet.
Those of you who are sensible enough to have taken this in without laughing go to http://www.mongabay.com. any one else go back to watching the TV.
The can o' worms is open and being tipped in the fish tank lets hope there are no chemicals in it.

If I have more fry then I can handle then I do sometimes feed a few to my larger fish, or if I have apicky eater like my new baby rock bass I will slip him a couple baby mollys. Never store bought feeders though. If a fish dies and I know it wasen't disease I will feed it to my turtle, oscars or bullhead.