What do you feed your carnivores?

So far I've been feeding my cuda fish such as white clouds, guppies, and a few mollies here and there. He had 4 fully grown white clouds, and 4 mature neon tetras in his tank 2 weeks ago, but even with 8-10 fry/baby white clouds a day, I came down stairs to find that he ate his 8 other friends I was thinking of maybe getting him on mostly mature guppies within the next month or so since I've been "power feeding" him the past 5-6 weeks, but I was just going to see what everyone else feeds their predators.

Dont know how big your fish is... but I used to feed my midas cichlid live betta's.... they love the long fins... YUM! and he would get full for a couple days after that! takes them awhile to digest meat!
Also jumbo Pellets... i cant afford buying live food all the time.

Arowana - 10 hikari pellets for breakfast.
2 large crickets and a pinch of live bloodworms or 3 MS shrimps for dinner.

Baby Albino birchir - 3 hikari carnivore pellets for breakfast and dinnner.
I'm planning to feed it some kind of fish later. May be a tetra.

I make a homemade food consisting of Krill, market shrimp, clams, mussels,(sometimes salmon meat an roe depending on time of year), beefheart, peas and carrots... makes them grow like weeds.. My bichir digs the Krill shrimp.. I also feed the bettas cause they are basically guppies with big fins (extra meat) and easy as heck to breed also the Bowfins love them... I prefer high protien homemade food... Yes I know beefheart is not natural that is why I use the least amount of this ingredient.. Always go heavy with the Krill your fish will thank you for later...

i feed a similar mix that king feeds. a mix of store pellets, peas, krill, worms, insects i find in the house. and shrimp if were having it for dinner. roe from previous fishing trips if i have it. they wil eat what ever isnt nailed down. mix it up..and they will always take food from you.


I used to supplement my oscars diet with pellet food soaked in a slury of a daily multivitamin , worked wonderfully to treat the minor pitting from hole in the head.

Kingstature wrote:I make a homemade food consisting of Krill, market shrimp, clams, mussels,(sometimes salmon meat an roe depending on time of year), beefheart, peas and carrots... makes them grow like weeds.. My bichir digs the Krill shrimp.. I also feed the bettas cause they are basically guppies with big fins (extra meat) and easy as heck to breed also the Bowfins love them... I prefer high protien homemade food... Yes I know beefheart is not natural that is why I use the least amount of this ingredient.. Always go heavy with the Krill your fish will thank you for later...

I forgot about that as well i also add a bag of massivore and some centrum liquid multivitamin.... secret sauce...

I feed my fish a lot of smelt, market shrimp(thawed), krill (freeze dried and thawed), salmon, trout, talipa, all sorts of pellets, crawfish, night crawlers, small cichlids that I'm tired of, and frozen/thawed pinkie rats for the arowana.

I feed that hikari cichlid gold to my dovii and pikes plus they get a few cubes like 3-4 of mysis shrimp(i think same brand) Then i just tried some plankton but they dont really care for it. My dovii will try to swallow a cube of mysis but will just nip at the plankton. I was also feeding another frozen cube thing it was high in protien i think it was some blended stuff they ran oout at the petstore so i bought the plankton to try it out. The plankton is enriched with vitamin c.

I never fed any beef heart or fish filets or anything. I do occasionally feed guppies or live shrimp, and even more rare i fed the feeder goldfish. But since have strayed away from them. Too many horror stories.(goldfish feeders)

Does that sound pretty balanced?

Hikari massivore pellets, aro sticks, tilapia, shrimp, blood worms, earth worms, guppes/ feeder goldfish for the pickier ones, brine shrimp. Our fish eat better than we do! lol

Hikari Gold with the occasional: Freeze dried Bloodworms/Crickets/Earthworms, frozen brine shrimp.

No live food for me!

Has anyone tried feeding mice? I see that on YouTube alot. Mostly on the bigger fish. I'd like to try that when my bowfin gets bigger. And how about crickets and crayfish.

I've never tried mice and really have no want to try it.. I can't even imagine what that would do to my water?? I pretty much feed Tilapia fillets, market shrimp, earth worms for my rays and aro.. trout food for my tilapia, azoo pellets for my red sevs and a couple different sinking pellets and frozen bloodworms for my Geo's.. Think that covers it..lol

I was thinking as if the fish would just gulp it. I seen some where the fish would take the mouse and tear it up. But if the mouse is small enough and the fish big enough I think it wouldn't do too much to the water. But I am new to the hobby so I could be wayyyyy wrong. Also do you use the regular fishing worms?

Just switched to Trout/Bass pellets. 50 lbs for $40. Can't beat that! 41% protein, etc...

They might now jack up the water if they just swallow it but i know even feeding the raw food i feed there's always stuff floating in the water after i feed.
Yea i just use the fishing earth worms from Walmart, i've used them for a couple years now..

alexmuw wrote:Just switched to Trout/Bass pellets. 50 lbs for $40. Can't beat that! 41% protein, etc...

The only fish of mine that will eat that is my Tilapia and sometimes my gars.. But yea at Pet Pouri they sell it in 3lb bags for a couple bucks and that lasts me awhile and like you said super cheap. I wish all my fish ate it..

hbluehunter wrote:They might now jack up the water if they just swallow it but i know even feeding the raw food i feed there's always stuff floating in the water after i feed.
Yea i just use the fishing earth worms from Walmart, i've used them for a couple years now..

cool. I think my dovii and pike would like that.

I usually feed tmy fishes frozen shrimp, tilapia fillets, and nightcrawlers.