You must know the source of any live food you are feeding to your predators. If you know me, you know I am an advocate of live feeding to many predators. I have my 1st rule of no marine fish or inverts keep in systems with fish unless, you yourself have qt'd them without any chemicals other than general cure, praziquantel, or metronidazole. And I mean any, and what you call meds, are chemicals. I used to breed my own mollies and guppies, but for me it became unsustainable, and I had found sources that were clean and affordable. Then the pandemic, and my sources dried up; and when re-established, I learned the hard way, they were not clean. Today, it is best if not necessary, that you breed your own, or verify your source very well. I established a new source of mollies, then one day I walked into the store, and found them in a bag of methylene blue before they had a chance to transfer them into another bag. They knew I would not take the poisoned fish, and was pulling a switch aroo on me. I have found since then that many sources of mollies and guppies are poisoned with an array of chemicals, and must be avoided. Ghost shrimp on the other hand appears to safe, as inverts can not tolerate these poisons.
We have spoke many times, and if you are honest, you know there are some species, that will just not live long in captivity, if live food is not included in their diet. Some species like the rhino, ribbon eels, anglers, goblins, and other species of lions and scorps; will need the inclusion of live food. Some of these species just will not accept live food, and if they do, it is short livedm or they suffer from nutritional deficiencies that greatly shorten their lives, like within a year to a year and half. While you will find some dishonest people online, I have made many challenges over the years for people to document their success with dead only diets, still no evidence that I am wrong. Just talk to the lfs and other hobbyist in your area to find those keeping these species. I bet your lfs have many lions flowing through, but you are going to be hard pressed finding anyone keeping them as long as 2 years. Volitans are the outlier, ask about the other species we talk about in this forum.
I did lose my rhino recently, 5 years, which is extremely good, but I still have my suspicions, that she was poisoned. Rhinos do live between 10-15 years in the wild and usually do come in as a young adult, so you never know how old they are when they come in, so with all things considered, with such a difficult species, 5 years is pretty good, still sad. Because of the almost impossible task of finding scorps and other ambush predators from a clean source, and find clean food sources, it is becoming more discouraging. I suggest a good amount of research and preparation if you are considering keeping these species. I am not an "internet expert", I am confident of the information I share, but in the end, it is my opinion with the information I have.
We have spoke many times, and if you are honest, you know there are some species, that will just not live long in captivity, if live food is not included in their diet. Some species like the rhino, ribbon eels, anglers, goblins, and other species of lions and scorps; will need the inclusion of live food. Some of these species just will not accept live food, and if they do, it is short livedm or they suffer from nutritional deficiencies that greatly shorten their lives, like within a year to a year and half. While you will find some dishonest people online, I have made many challenges over the years for people to document their success with dead only diets, still no evidence that I am wrong. Just talk to the lfs and other hobbyist in your area to find those keeping these species. I bet your lfs have many lions flowing through, but you are going to be hard pressed finding anyone keeping them as long as 2 years. Volitans are the outlier, ask about the other species we talk about in this forum.
I did lose my rhino recently, 5 years, which is extremely good, but I still have my suspicions, that she was poisoned. Rhinos do live between 10-15 years in the wild and usually do come in as a young adult, so you never know how old they are when they come in, so with all things considered, with such a difficult species, 5 years is pretty good, still sad. Because of the almost impossible task of finding scorps and other ambush predators from a clean source, and find clean food sources, it is becoming more discouraging. I suggest a good amount of research and preparation if you are considering keeping these species. I am not an "internet expert", I am confident of the information I share, but in the end, it is my opinion with the information I have.
