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Live food - what it can do to your aquarium

© Winston Vaughan Schoenfeld

This week I received an e-mail that prompted this editorial. A young aqaurist ran into some problems with his cichlid aquarium. Basically, he got an ick infestation (commonly known as white spot) which eventually led to the death of the fish in his aquarium. He did not understand why this happened. I asked him the usual questions: Did you recently buy new fish for the aquarium? No. Did you put sime plants or other wild vegitation into the aquarium? No. Have you allowed your aquarium pH, temperature, or chemical levels to get out of hand? No.

After he had passed the usual series of questions that I ask, I was stumped. Then next day it hit me. Maybe he was feeding with live food. Immediately I e-mailed him back, and sure enough, he was feeding the cichlids feeder fish. Some of you at this point may know exactly what I was getting at. Here lies the main point of this editorial - feeder fish are the same as other fish that they sell in the fish store, and as such they can often come with parasites and diseases. Moreover, feeder fish are to be eaten, not sold for an aquarium, so often the aquarium that the store keeps its feeder fish in is overstocked. This means biological disorder which results in the existence of bacterial infections.

Now that I have probably scared half of you out there such that you will never purchase feeder fish again, let me take a step back. There is no reason that you cannot feed you fish with live food. The secret is to try and reduce the chances you will be introducing bacteria and parasites into your aquarium. The first way is to realize that you should never put anything from the wild directly into your aquarium. This includes plants, fish, snails, whatever. If you insist on putting something in your aquarium from the wild, make sure that you watch it for a few weeks in a separate aquarium to make sure that it is healthy. It is even better to treat the wild fish with medication to make sure that it does not contain any parasites.

Now, if you are one of those that want to purchase the feeder fish from the store, then rest assured, you can do it safely. The "moderately safe" way it to examine the feeder fish and make sure that they have no signs of infection or parasites. The "largely safe" way it to put feeder fish in a medication aquarium for a week before introducing them into your aquiarum as food. The "completely safe" way it to raise your own feeder fish. (But this can be quite dangerous if you have a soft heart. You end up with another aquarium of fish rather than one dedicated to feeder fish.)

The copyright of the article Live food - what it can do to your aquarium in Aquariums is owned by Douglas DuHamel. Permission to republish Live food - what it can do to your aquarium in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.