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View Full Version : Live salt foods.



caferacermike
Fri, 31st Aug 2007, 07:12 PM
Can anyone explain to me why there are not any live salt water minnow type fish commonly available to buy as feeders? Today I watched my newest blue ribbon eel, ol blackie, eat my favorite scooter blenny. They had been tank mates for over a month now. I had planned to head off to buy my weekly ration of 70-100 ghost shrimps but he beat me to it. Ghost shrimp are not nutritional in any way so I gut load them before feeding them to the tank. I've been told to not feed guppies or any other freshwater fish as it can mess up our salt fish by not providing a complete nutrient and or mineral load as they would in a salt environment. I'm tired of buying scrawny little shrimps for real money knowing it's not doing as well as a small fish would. My eels have eaten every crab I ever put in the tank and have now eaten all of my smaller fish. This includes 2 blue spot jawfish at this point. I'm not complaining about my beautiful eels eating my fish, on the contrary I couldn't be any prouder of having 2 healthy and fat blue ribbon eels that allow me to watch them eat. I am complaining of the lack of quality foods to feed them.

JimD
Fri, 31st Aug 2007, 07:58 PM
Eels are mostly opportunistic feeders, they dont necessarily need to be fed live food. My suggestion would be to see if you can tempt him with some silversides dangled from a length of non corrosive wire or something similar and see if he'll go for it, I bet he will... This article may help...


Feed all kinds of live fish and meaty foods. Use a poker if necessary at first to place the food right in front of their mouth. Don't worry if it doesn't eat for a while at first, they can go for several weeks without food (and often do).

Headless_donkey
Fri, 31st Aug 2007, 08:40 PM
We raise salt water guppies in the sump for the predators.

apedroza
Fri, 31st Aug 2007, 08:45 PM
Hey Mike mollies can actually be found in some brackish water. They are easy to breed and can produce enough babies to feed your eels. You can also try catching small mackeral or silverside next time your at the coast. Sorry about your other fish, but I bet it's cool watching those eels chomping down!!!!