Does anyone feed live food to their fish?

[Mike7744]

Does anyone feed live food to their fish?
I just got a small lionfish and can't get him to eat frozen or fresh food. I did feed him 4 ghost shrimp he definitely likes those, but at 99 cents a piece that is a expensive meal. Is anyone breeding shrimp or other live foods for their fish?

 

[KrisReef]

I used to feed gold fish, but they are not supposed to be healthy for saltwater fishes.

I think I would try clams, or mussels. Chop them into bite sized chunks and dangle them in front of the fish on either a skewer or rig a fishing line until the fish gets the hang of feeding time and "dead foods".

Somefolks feed earthworms? Maybe even crickets would work.

WIth live foods, I would put those in and then when the lion is in feeding mode i would deploy the chopped clam chunks, mussels, or frozen silversides. Once they have eaten the "dead" a few times they usually get the idea and look forward to feeding time.

Live goldfish might work to get the feeding response activated before offering the dead on a stick, waving it to stimulate an attack?

 

[ca1ore]

I has success many years ago getting a lion fish to eat using thawed krill poured directly into my vortech pump. Flow got it moving which elicited feeding response.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Does anyone feed live food to their fish?
I just got a small lionfish and can't get him to eat frozen or fresh food. I did feed him 4 ghost shrimp he definitely likes those, but at 99 cents a piece that is a expensive meal. Is anyone breeding shrimp or other live foods for their fish?

Copying the info over to this thread would take a while, but my post in the thread below covers which live feeders to offer (assuming you're not going to shell out for live, quarantined saltwater fish to feed every time), culturing live ghost shrimp (and the brine shrimp they need to be fed), getting lions and other predators eating frozen/prepared foods, which non-live foods are good to offer and some that should be avoided, etc.

2 new lionfish

I went and bought ghost shrimp a krill. The guy said to mix the krill and ghost shrimp together. The seemed to only eat the ghost shrimp. Only had tge lionfish fir a couple of days. I assume no reason to worry? Krill is okay but not all the time. Neither one of my lions likes krill actually...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Slocke]

Feeder guppies are generally the cheapest and safest option followed by mollies. In pinch I will use minnows but they have the thiaminese issue @ISpeakForTheSeas talks of above. Lionfish are fairly easy to train onto dead though.

Setting up and breeding guppies is very cheap and easy though.

 

[jermzisurmom]

I do, my fam and I go scoop up glass shrimp out the river all the time. I have a wild mixed reef

 

[jermzisurmom]

I also have two needle fish...

 

[TeamAquaSD Verified Sponsor]

Does anyone feed live food to their fish?
I just got a small lionfish and can't get him to eat frozen or fresh food. I did feed him 4 ghost shrimp he definitely likes those, but at 99 cents a piece that is a expensive meal. Is anyone breeding shrimp or other live foods for their fish?

I would highly recommend feeding live if and when you had the chance.
Helps the fish have something to hunt and may not be a necessity but I feel like it is beneficial to long term health.

 

[Doctorgori]

Our marine bettas would eat earthworms, but I can’t confirm whether it’s good for them or not: we didn’t notice any issues

Most marines will take California black worms, again not 100% certain how that nutrition profile fits for marines but these are gold for freshwater fish

I’ve fed brine shrimp of all sizes to fish, gut loaded with phyto or equivalent of course

I’ve also purchased so called Feeder livebearers and least killifish from the LFS…mostly just nettings from Florida fish farms: Gambusia, mollies, guppies, killifish, et et