In the wild, bullheads eat what they can, when they can. They are
opportunistic feeders; because of that, what they get is freqently small in
size and portion (fish eggs, insects), though they get their mouths around
other fish when they can.
Of bullheads, John Quinn, in his "Our Natives Fishes," writes:
"Bullheads are one of the easiest native fishes to maintain in aquariums,
their requirements being little more than water of acceptable quality and
lots of food. They will thrive in almost any tank, perhaps a little too
well. When small, they make good tank scavengers and will subsist on all
prepared foods plus all live or meaty fare. The problem is that little
bullheads metamorphose into big bullheads with truly amazing speed, at
which time they will become a real threat to tankmates. This is a fish
that ideally should be collected small in the spring and then released in
early fall before the waters cool below the danger point."
Notice the last line - Quinn must have been writing before the days when
aquarium intoduced pathogens where known as a danger. Releasing _any_ fish
into the wild these days is regarded as an irresponsible practice and is
illegal (at least in most areas).
Good luck
Travis Haas
Hazel Green, WI
At 11:17 AM 6/16/02 -0400, Scott Hedges wrote:
>I appreciated the feedback on my previous water quality question - and want
>to float another non ideoligical question -
>
>Feeding
>
>
>How much, How often, how varried?
>
>
>I keep a bullhead - and don't really understand what the "right" feeding
>pattern is ... mostly what I do is heavily every 5 days (mostly since it is
>convient for me) - there is never any left over food - the only visible
>feedback that I can see is the size of the belly - I don't have any way that
>I can think of to fine tune the feeding - nor do I understand what the
>"base" food requirements are ...
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