[StickMan]

Ok, heres the deal. I live on the east coast where there is plenty of saltwater stuff available and very little fresh. I was wondering about feeding my p a finger mullet. I picked them up at a bait shop frozen, and I'm thawing one out as we speak. The closest petstore with feeders is an hour away and my supply of bait shrimp is gone for the winter(all the bait shops close). What do you guys think about finger mullets? I know they're probably going to be a mess, but i'm in a bind right now and he wouldnt eat the squid i tried. It's been about 4 days since he's eaten and he's usually a pretty regular eater.

One other peice of info you guys might be interested is a list i found of fish containing thiaminase. Thiaminase if you all remember is that stuff that breaks down thiamin, an enzyme critical to muscle development in most animals. This is the main reason everyone says don't use comets or rosies. Check out the list here:

Info about Thiaminase

Check the list, lots of fish contain thiaminase, and its not good for your fish. This link is about turtles but its the same idea. I think i'll just use wild caught minnows from around here that i can get for free instead of driving an hour to the petstore for diseased comets from the lfs. Hope this info can help someone.

 

[Judazzz]

That's a good link

People should read that carefully before racing off to the LFS for yet another bag of feeders

 

[C.D.]

wow. . . so since most petstores only sell rosies and guppies and goldfish as feeders, that would mean feeders are never good to use. but that means that i am stuck with feeding my guys frozen shrimp . . . forever!!!?!!!

 

[shoe997bed263]

great info.

 

[Judazzz]

but that means that i am stuck with feeding my guys frozen shrimp . . . forever!!!?!!!

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Nothing wrong with a completely non-live diet for your piranha's. My Reds haven't seen a feeder fish since more than a year ago, and they look great.
It's diversity that matters, and there are plenty of alternatives to shrimp (which is a very good staple, btw!) available: fish fillet, smelt, krill, mussels, squid, earth worms, pellets, once or twice a month (at most!) some chicken, beef or beef heart.

 

[StickMan]

Well, he did'nt go after that finger mullet at all. It just sat there at the bottom for about an hour and i took it out. In light of the info on that page that I linked, I wasn't too crazy about feeding goldfish anymore. Especially since the last few batches of goldfish I got were terribly diseased with all sorts of crap. I decided to try minnows as feeders.

Minnows are easy to get around here in the summer for super cheap. I live on an island on the east coast so this kind of thing is readily available. In the winter I guess the minnows burrow or something but you can still get some about 15 minutes from here. I picked some up today, they're the biggest minnows i've ever seen. The guy called them bull minnows. The smallest amount i could buy was a pint of them for 3 dollars. That was about 30 of them. Its way too many for the 10 gallon feeder tank I have, but oh well, their population should thin pretty quickly.

Anyways, I fed him one today, its the biggest feeder he's ever had, and i've never seen him take as big of a bite out of something as he did on this thing. He ate half of it in one bite. He's only a 6.5 inch spilo and the minnow was like 4.5 inches. After about an hour i pulled the other half of the minnow out. The minnows seem to do really well in the fresh water, they're so tough that the bait shop I bought them at gave them to me in a plastic bag with no water. I had some other stuff to do out on the mainland so it was about 45 minutes before I got home and put them back into water and there was only 1 dead one. I'm pretty sure that one was dead when he put it in there too!

With all this talk about thiaminase, and the problems i've seen with diseased goldfish, I'm gonna stick with these things and bait shrimp for a while. Bacteria and parasites that grow on cold water saltwater minnows probably won't live long after moving to a warm fresh water environment. The minnows i got look really healthy except the one that was dead when i got them and another one that looks like he's got a little lip fungus or something. Even if he only eats the back half of these things its a great deal, plus I'm pretty sure theres no thiaminase in saltwater bull minnows. Maybe I can even get the minnows to eat chiclid pellets to make them more nutritious.

Executive summary: Finger mullets bad(and stinky!), saltwater bullhead minnows good

Anyone have any objections to bull head minnows? I know some people in here are anti-feeder, but with no thiaminase and less chance of a disease, they've gotta be better than rosy reds and comets.