# Feeding fish human food



## ThePhoenix (Jul 23, 2012)

What foods are safe to feed my cichlids? When I was a kid, I went to a summer camp that had a private lake and we caught fish using pieces of processed cheese. Im not sure how good cheese is for fish so I havent tried yet, but does anyone know anything? I offered my BBC some pieces of deli turkey slices and he loved it.


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

dont do it mammalian meat is hard for fish to digest i had rad somewhere , while deli turkey isnt a mammal i think there is a reason we have fish feed, i have tried the beef heart thing it is A gross and B a good way to muck up a tank

and i doubt cheese is too good for them either 
if you want to feed them something other than pellets,flakes,blood worms,earthworms,nightcrawlers,blackworms,mysis shrimp, and all the other standards you should do what i do 
go to walmart , grab a big ole bag of frozen shrimp/prawns that you or i would eat and bring em home take 1 or 2 out let em sit in a bowl of cold water until they are thawed out , rip em up and feed them slowly to your fish ..

i have also found prawn meat to be more rubberry so shrimp is sometimes a better choice, baby steps dont go hog wild or your gonna muck up your filter and water all over again


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## ThePhoenix (Jul 23, 2012)

The Blackbelt eats bugs too, and Im sure theyre not bad for him.

My windows are all wide open and for some stupid reason usually about once a day a gigantic fly gets in and I use my butterfly net to catch him and throw him the tank. He buzzes around on the surface of the water, no more than a few seconds before he gets swallowed up and a big ripple in the water is all thats left of him!


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## ThePhoenix (Jul 23, 2012)

also, my cichlids dont seem to like shrimp too much. I have left pieces in there overnight and they are still there in the morning. The lobster loves the shrimp, i have to weigh them down with safety pins to prevent them from floating.


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## Ebonbolt (Aug 12, 2011)

Not sure about human food, but nightcrawlers work well for a lot of large cichlids. Of course, getting Nightcrawler might not be so easy, since he's dead. :lol:


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## ThePhoenix (Jul 23, 2012)

You can buy those earthworms in small tubs from certain gas stations and fishing/tackle stores. Thats a good idea, I will try an experiment with them


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

wash em off and hold em above your tank and chop em into bit size pieces with scissors


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## ThePhoenix (Jul 23, 2012)

oh I think the blackbelt can eat them whole  he's a BIG GUY! I just measured him, he is 10 inches long and has a big mouth too


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## macframalama (Apr 17, 2012)

believe it or not some fish are actually skiddish of big ole worms, thats why i chopped em some of them aside from the jags and flowerhorns wont touch em if there like longer than 21 inches some are just beastly big ole pigs but some of them are wimps... i dunno weird right but anyways if he eats em whole one less step


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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

Human food is really bad for most animals - especially deli meat. way too many salts and chemicals, and it can poison them or cause disease. Too much high protein food like prawn is bad for their digestion, and will foul your water. If you're leaving it in overnight, that's really bad. Feed only what they will eat in 5 minutes and remove any uneaten food right away. Better to feed small amounts that they finish off immediately than to risk making your water polluted.

Insects, mealworms, earthworms and bugs are more like their natural diet and are really good for them - i feed my cichlids any creepy-crawlies I find that the cats don't eat first. Best thing to do is read up on what your fish would eat in the wild. Oscars are insectivores, so I give them "treats" of pet store crickets and wild bugs. They get prawn MAYBE 1x/month.

I feed our guys (yellow jacket, port, oscars, FH, trimac, green terror, green texas) a regular diet of a high quality staple cichlid pellet (Hikari Cichlid Gold and massivore food sticks) supplemented with bugs, worms, fresh veggies, frozen bloodworms/blackworms and the occasional frozen prawn.

There's a variety of opinion on feeder fish, but a lot of store feeder goldfish aren't very well kept or healthy and can carry diseases. If you really want to feed live, breed guppies so you know they are healthy. Also, a steady diet of feeders can cause vitamin deficiencies, so you always want to ensure that they are eating some kind of other foods to balance it.


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## Ebonbolt (Aug 12, 2011)

With worms, I'd just give them a nice rinse, and then try and see if I can train the cichlid to hand feed. It's quite fun actually, seeing a 10 inch fish take food from your hand like a puppy 

As for feeder fish, I'd only suggest them if you bred your own. Even places like IPU, which generally have very healthy stock, do not treat feeders. The reason being that most feeders cost a quarter or two each, and adding medicine means that the price of the fish will have to go up, which may result in people going elsewhere for them.


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## Momobobo (Sep 28, 2010)

For meat, it cannot contain any fat at all. Thats why its usually suggest you feed the heart of mammels to fish (Beef heart is very popular). To be honest, most of these foods can be fed to fish but they are not healthy at all and extended feeding of these foods will cause premature death.


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## Fire_eel (Aug 12, 2013)

What about cooked or raw chicken, beef, or pork? If one of these animals drowns in a river or lake you know theyre going to peck at it until the bones are clean


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## Dietmar (Dec 15, 2011)

When I had a large oscar I would feed him whatever I found in the garden for a treat instead of flakes/pellets. 
Worms, insects, snails. He would even eat wasps which I first incapacitated with one of those electronic bug zapper/badminton racket. The snails I would step on first, then feed.


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## Fire_eel (Aug 12, 2013)

wasps? stinger and all?


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## Dietmar (Dec 15, 2011)

yes
But the wasp is immobilized by the electronic bug zapper. Its like getting tasered. 
At the time I had a wasps nest close by so there was an unlimited supply. lol
The bug zapper killed the flies or mosquitoes but would only stun wasps. Even with new batteries.
Similar to this:
Flyswatter Electronic Mosquito Insect Bug Electric Fly Zapper Swatter USA Seller | eBay
But mine was generation one and cost me about 15$


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## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

I'm not sure whats the reason for not using a quality pellet or logs and veg as a treat. All I have is malawi cichlids and plecos, was it cost savings or to mimic a natural diet ? Seems like more work,mess and cost.


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## Longimanus (Apr 21, 2010)

My fish love crickets. I buy baby crickets for my tarantulas, when I have leftovers I dump them in the tank. My angelfish loves them, as does my emperor tetra, even the platys and black skirt will eat them. In fact most fish that I have had go nuts when I dump in some crickets.


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## mikebike (Sep 8, 2010)

I find our tank raised fish will eat almost anything that lands in the tank.

I find there is a bit of a feeding frenzy when I feed the fish.
some foods float some slowly sink some sink right away.

I have some freeze dired actic krill I crush and feed to my guppies and tetras.
the Africans will also go for them.

I met a pond owner who had some large Koi
he told me his secret food
Mainstay/cheep dried dog food @10 for 10KG at that time


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

Vancitycam said:


> I'm not sure whats the reason for not using a quality pellet or logs and veg as a treat. All I have is malawi cichlids and plecos, was it cost savings or to mimic a natural diet ? Seems like more work,mess and cost.


I think it is just a fun thing to do for some people, like cooking food for your own dog rather than buying them.
Beefheart can make fish grow thick and big, which is desirable for some species.
Also I have heard from some people that processed food has lost a lot of its vitamin and protein (due to high heat and such) so some fish keepers gear toward preparing fresh food for their fish.


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## Fire_eel (Aug 12, 2013)

mikebike said:


> I met a pond owner who had some large Koi
> he told me his secret food
> Mainstay/cheep dried dog food @10 for 10KG at that time


My cichlids LOVE dog food pellets too. I mean THEY LOVE IT, and fight over it, its weird it must be the scent of meat or protein or something


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