Feeder Fish Opinions

I’ve been highly interested in getting some small feeder fry for my female convict, but the local shop has been advising me against it saying it’s not healthy for a convict to eat live prey so i’ve stayed away temporarily until finding out some definite truth, online research hasn’t been leading me far, at all, and i’d prefer real life experience anyway if anyone’s open to sharing! I’m currently feeding frozen cichlid blends and blood worms once a week along with pellets daily and she’s very active & bright, with her high activity I wasn’t sure if hunting would be stimulating at all, as I owned a large oscar who loved to hunt anything and everything.

 

The thing with feeders is that they are often kept in subpar conditions and can easily give your fish diseases. If you are up for it you could get another tank with some guppies and let them breed and feed the convict them.

 

I agree your better of breeding your own feeders then buying them. Any livebearers will do, guppies have the smallest fry and mollies the biggest.

 

Hey there! I bought 50 something Rosy red feeders for my pond 2-3 weeks back. 2 died in the 10 seconds it took for me to reach the counter, 28 the next day. I have 8 now. They had at least internal parasites, columnaris, another unidentified bacterial infection, and two types of external parasites.
I would HIGHLY recommend breeding your own feeders, it is so incredibly risky because they carry so many different diseases. Costs a lot to treat all those illnesses as well.

 

All you need to do is start a live bearer tank. Then simply cull out those you don't want. The livebearers won't stop breeding so there is you free feeder fish

 

Awesome thank you all so much!!! I’m most definitely going to be looking into a small breeder tank instead of buying fry, I'm wondering if the health of the fish is why my shop is trying to push me away from the idea of purchasing them individually lol. I greatly appreciate everyone’s input and experience!!

 

I bought these feeder endlers. I really wanted them. Well I bought about say 7 females and 3 males. All ended up dying but one. The reason I bought females was as long as they had their fry I'd be okay.

They had cysts, and developed ich

 

is there any major signs I should look for when picking out breeders? I can spot common issues like fin rot and ich, but is there any behavioral red flags that anyone knows about to be cautious of?

 

That sounds like a rough go!! How were you able to identify the cysts? were they visible?

 

Make sure they are eating normal and not dying mysteriously, with guppies you have to be careful because they can carry internal parasites.