Gupp-tastrophe: My misguided run at feeder fish breeding

[Dancingmad]

My misguided run at feeder fish breeding: Gupp-tastrophe

I decided it was time for a large "predator" type fish. After some research I decided a comet fish / marine beta was the correct choice for my reef. They look pretty sweet - have an 'eel eye' type spot on their tail, they're meticulous hunters, and have a good rep as far as messing with cleaners - except shrimp...my coral banded shrimp got disarmed when he tried to give him Mr. Comet a pinch. They were bffs after that. Suspect they just needed to establish some boundaries and the arm grew back of course.

*Please note pictures of fish are just a day after tank Xfer/upgrade, a very stressful time indeed. Fins are healed up and lookin' great nowadays.

Like many, I try to give my reef critters the opportunity to reproduce their behaviors. I figured, "Hunters gotta hunt! I need to find a sustainable food source for my new buddy that will fill that need to hunt!".

I knew I didn't have the gear to properly breed any saltwater fish, so I started researching easy to breed freshwater fish.

Quickly I found several people object - lots of comments that using freshwater feeders for saltwater fish was a no-no. Something about non-descript liver toxins..? On the other side several folks said "Shoot, just acclimate a freshwater fish to saltwater, feed them saltwater fish food for several weeks and then you can use them as feeders without concern!".

I couldn't find anything relevant to substantiate either argument: studies, books, literally any sort of academic article that would help add some validity could not be discovered by me to prove one way or the other(if anyone has got something please share), so I had to give it a shot.

I decided to acclimate some guppies(3m + 9F) to 1.025 salinity using a drip every day for a week. Success! No fatalities in the acclimation process to salt water.

I then transfer them over to a barebottom, 30G tall equiped w/ a large generic HOB filter rated for 70g, a HOB shimmer, heater, and 6500k led growlight that had been cycling while the acclimation was occuring. I added a ball of chaeto, and what we call here "Texas Holey rock". This is a very dense limestone with awesome caves, ledges, and edges. It ain't Porous, but I like the way it looks + its cheap and comes in giant boulder sizes. Figured these would be perfect hiding spots for fry, and provide for multiple, consistent food sources of varying types and sizes!

Not only did I put the guppies on a "Saltwater food diet" but they also developed a taste for the Chaeto. The bigger guppies would rip a noodle off the clump, 2-3 inches hanging out of their mouth, and cruise around the tank slowing nom nom noming it over a week+. Absolutely ridiculous! Roughly 4 weeks later the tank was riddled with babies of various sizes and I thought maybe they'd been acclimated and food adjusted for long enough.

Snack time!

I dropped an adult and 2 juveniles in my DT. They shoal near the top of the tank...Mr Comet locks in on the adult and starts stalking...CHOMP! The two juveniles bolt - one under an overhang...CHOMP! Freckles the PJ Cardinal got himself a nice snack. The last guppie diiivess to the sandbed - CHOMP! Archimedes the Engineer Goby scores a meal and returns to his cave to chew!

"Alright cool" I think to myself, "I've got a few other fish that'll enjoy the occasional feeder fish! Thank goodness because I don't want to run the risk of overfeeding and I'm starting to get roughly a bazillion guppies in this other tank"

2 weeks later I decide its time for the DT to get a snack. I drop 3 juvenile guppies in the DT. No one is interested what so ever. Days pass....they're growing....

I come home from work: Mr. comet and 3 near adult guppies and now shoaling all over my tank together. Hanging out, eating together, drinking beers, playing cards etc. Imagine Mr. Comet as your ship in a Galaga/R-type style video game and you just picked up the power up that gives you the little satellite ships that float around you and pew pew pew. It was like that. Just slowly Cruisin' around like old buddies.

Totally defeated - no one wanted the snacks I worked so hard to produce for them.

Needless to say my wife strongly objected at the idea of guppies breeding uncontrollably in our DT(and I was getting attached to the trio after a couple weeks in the DT), so I captured them in a homemade trap, tore down the breeding operation and donated all the saltwater guppies to a LFS.

What a total gupp-tastrophe.

Fin.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

LOL That is an awesome story! Sorry it isn't working out as planned, but your telling of it is great!

 

[Waterjockey]

Lol...great story

 

[Lionfish Lair]

LOL!

But you didn't actually change them from a freshwater fish to a saltwater fish. They are still the same on the inside, they're just in a different environment. They are actually a brackish fish and that's why they are able to make the conversion. Only marine fish have marine fats, so they must have a source of marine fat to have a complete diet. It's fatty liver disease that the people are referring to, which can be caused by inappropriate fats being the staple of a diet.

 

[Brew12]

Love it! Thanks for posting that!

 

[USMC4Life]

You got the same fish I go.

 

[brandon429]

--

 

[Lionfish Lair]

What sort of research are you looking for? I can get you a lot of nutrition related data.

 

[Ljaus]

What a awesome story. I had a really good laugh at this, thanks for sharing.

 

[John Carroll]

Awesome story. My Beta is about 6 inches long. I love him, I just wish he stayed out more. He only comes to the front when hungry. Really cool fish though.

 

[Dancingmad]

What sort of research are you looking for? I can get you a lot of nutrition related data.

Nutritional data would be sweet in general. The past several months I've been reading about the great dry VS frozen food debate. So many opinions! As far as fatty liver disease I was curious as to how much of an impact it would make on the fish health over time. As an example(a bad one at that) - I can drink 1 beer a day and probably not experience any relevant short/long term issues associated with that beer a day. If I drink 45 beers a day...prolly have all sorts of issues both short/long term - starting with "Ughhh My head.....Where am I? Am I in a phone booth? I haven't seen a phone booth in 15 years...Wait...Where are my pants?" on day 2.

My Beta is about 6 inches long. I love him, I just wish he stayed out more. He only comes to the front when hungry.

I swear Mr. Comet begs for food. Try creeping up on the tank around your "dusk" lighting schedule. You might be lucky and catch him on the prowl. Mr. Comet really only comes out then.

You got the same fish

Great addition, right? The engineer goby is gettin' outta hand - he is a giant! Friends/family always think hes an eel. A fav for sure!

**This winter I'll be doing another sustainable food source experiment. I was inspired by both a Pico Tank thread striving for "sticky" status and a desire to try a planted tank that isn't a refugium. Ordered some botryocladia and red gracilaria to grow in a 10G tank, cycling right now! Hope to have a bumper crop for sharing w/ my local Houston Reefers!

When I get some time I'll drop a thread on the algae boards, and a picture on the Pico thread (if 10G is small enough to qualify for the "sticky" effort - hope so 'cause those are some awesome lil tanks )

 

[Mistborn]

Could you explain how you acclimated the Guppys?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

You don't need to acclimate them. It's easier to keep them in freshwater until you need them, to be honest.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Nutritional data would be sweet in general. The past several months I've been reading about the great dry VS frozen food debate. So many opinions! As far as fatty liver disease I was curious as to how much of an impact it would make on the fish health over time. As an example(a bad one at that) - I can drink 1 beer a day and probably not experience any relevant short/long term issues associated with that beer a day. If I drink 45 beers a day...prolly have all sorts of issues both short/long term - starting with "Ughhh My head.....Where am I? Am I in a phone booth? I haven't seen a phone booth in 15 years...Wait...Where are my pants?" on day 2.

LOL! The phone booth made me laugh.

I suspect there has been no nutritional analysis ever done on a guppy. That's something I've been looking for, for years and continue to search for. There probably won't be one done either, as it's not a valuable food for the aquaculture industry and that's where a lot of these studies originate.

For me, there's no argument for frozen over dry... neither are perfect. I haven't seen the arguments lately... what is the main points? I've used both products, as variety is the key.

Freeze-dried

• Retains a lot of it's natural nutrients
• A complete array of vitamins/supplements can be added
• It's made have a long shelf-life without affecting the nutritional value.
• It's easy to store properly.
• Downfall, because of it's long shelf life, I don't think people pay attention to how long it's been open and in the end inadvertently are feeding out sub par food.

Frozen

• Retains a lot of it's natural nutrients
• Supplements CAN be added (they are getting better about this)
• It does not have a long shelf life (despite the crazy expiration date stamped on it)
• It's hard to store properly and I've come to not trust prepared frozen foods because of this.
• People use it loooooooooooooooong after it should be tossed. It's a different issue than using old dry food, as dry doesn't have the same rancidity issues.

If you start with a good quality food, store it well and use it within a certain time frame, both can be good. You should never use just one product though.


And you are absolutely correct in that you won't wind up in a phone booth after 2 days of the wrong fat. Fish can pretty much be compared to people in that regard... if you eat to much of the wrong things, it can affect your health. Will it kill ya outright? Naw, not necessarily. There's a 13 year old girl with an eating disorder that has eaten ONLY Ramen Noodles her whole life. ONLY. She's alive, but I think we can all agree it's not ideal and in the future it will probably affect her. There's nothing wrong with feeding your child a Big Mac, but if you do so every day, day in and day out, it will probably affect your child's health. Fatty Liver Disease (FLD) is pretty prevalent in captive predatory fish, so it's something we should keep in mind when selecting our foods. We also have a tendency to overfeed, which is probably a HUGE contributor to FLD. People have a tendency to feed their lion/pred until the fish decides it has enough and won't eat anymore. That's like setting a child loose in candy shop every evening and saying "eat until you drop"....

 

[DanConnor]

If the feeder lives in salt water, and eats marine based food, isn't is going to eventually have the right kind of fat?

 

[Lionfish Lair]

The saltwater won't change anything.

 

[Dancingmad]

Could you explain how you acclimated the Guppys?

A combination of evaporation and drip. I drilled a 1/4" hole in the top of a miracle mud bucket near the top - 1G bucket I'm pretty sure. Ran an airline hose through the hole I drilled in the bucket, and pointed the airline hose to the bottom of the bucket. The other end of the hose on the exterior of the bucket had a valve to adjust the flow. The drip rate was maybe a drop every 3-5 seconds (much slower than what would be used for drip acclimating a critter). I'd fill the bucket w/ my target salinity of salt water and drip as evaporation allowed. I did one 50% water change half way through the week(b/c 10 guppies in a 10G is a bit much..) and dripped to a slightly higher salinity then the water I removed as apart of the water change. Lots and lots of salinity tests during this whole process naturally. Since I'm cycling the 10G right now for macros, here is a picture of how it looked. Sat that joker onto of a HOB filter and let it drip!

Its a whole lot of trouble for some guppies though...I'd just keep them in freshwater and add some sweet lookin' plants .

*Please pardon the mustard colored wall...New house...my Nerd Lair(aka "man cave" by some) needs a paint job.

For me, there's no argument for frozen over dry... neither are perfect. I haven't seen the arguments lately... what is the main points? I've used both products, as variety is the key.

The main point seems ancient -- Dry dirties up the tank/can mess with water quality vs frozen doesn't have enough nutrients/substance to maintain proper health/coloration (completely oversimplifying on both sides - I ain't lookin to ruffle any fish food activist feathers ). I mix it up too - wide variety of frozen, flakes, pellets, freeze dried, nori, etc. Get the best of both worlds! I hate it when frozen food goes bad...Freezer burn is the devil!

If the feeder lives in salt water, and eats marine based food, isn't is going to eventually have the right kind of fat?

Its my understanding *now* the fat content of live feeder fish itself is what can expedite fatty liver disease(regardless of SW/FW, and what you're feeding the feeder fish). I've read predatory fish could suffer from the same issues if fed dry/frozen food w/ high fat/lipid contents. Could be wrong on that part, but the logic seems sound.

In retrospect maybe I should have setup a guppy gym to lower their fat content (visual approximation provided below).

 

[Ocean Lotion]

I had a marine betta in a tank with among other fish a blue ribbon eel that I raised from a foot to 5 1/2' solely on feeder guppies. Would spend a day acclimting the feeders to salt water and put a dozen in the tank at a time. the eel and betta would eat them in a couple days. I suspect that if you only fed juvenile guppies that they would have looked like food and not friends to your betta. Great story.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Its my understanding *now* the fat content of live feeder fish itself is what can expedite fatty liver disease(regardless of SW/FW, and what you're feeding the feeder fish). I've read predatory fish could suffer from the same issues if fed dry/frozen food w/ high fat/lipid contents. Could be wrong on that part, but the logic seems sound.

Yes, exactly.

Freshwater fish can also have fats that marine fish can't break down. Both freshwater and marine fish need fats A, B, and C. With a freshwater fish, if you only feed them A, they have "enzymes" to beak that A down into B and C. So, they get all their requirements from the one. If you feed the marine fish just A, that's all they'll have. They can't break it down any further and end up with too much A (that they'll store in the liver) and deficiencies in B and C.

There's also the issue of thiaminase. It basically "inactivates" or destroys thiamine which is B1. Goldfish and Rosy reds have high values of it and it it said guppies have less, but where I've never seen a nutritional profile on these, that's just hearsay. The rumor was that seafood didn't have thiaminase, but freshwater products did... not true. There's lots of marine products that have thiaminase.

 

[DanConnor]

I'm still not getting the distinction between brackish and saltwater fish. I don't understand why guppies or mollies that lived for generations in saltwater wouldn't have a lipid profile similar to saltwater fish.