Re: NANFA-- Feeding live food

BR0630_at_aol.com
Fri, 18 Jul 2003 18:07:42 EDT

In a message dated 7/17/03 9:28:18 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
chirstyn_at_cogeco.ca writes:

> I have a ways to go yet before, I think, I'm entirely prepared for this
> endeavour but I'm psyching myself up to it. I've got the basic edicts of
> keeping fish under my belt, I just need to learn a bit more about the lake
> from where I intend to take the fish and more about the fish themselves
> (sunfish is what I want, I think).
>
> Chirstyn
>

Maybe start out by planting your aquarium quite heavily, at least in part of
it, and dropping something like daphnia, gammarus, mayfly nymphs, etc into the
plants. Then you may want to sit and observe for a considerable time just to
see how the sunnies go about finding their food in a somewhat natural way. I
think that the nearer to a realistic "mini" natural environment that we can
create, the more natural behavior we can expect to observe. While observing my
sunfish, I am frequently reminded of the circle of life that is all of
nature. Usually a quick gulp of a water bug, worm or small shiner by a beautiful,
healthy & colorful sunfish doesn't evoke the same emotional maelstrom that
observing a pack of lions feeding on a mortally wounded, but struggling wildebeast
on TV does! By having heavy plantings, lots of wood & rocks in my aquariums,
it's not like dropping in trout chow - they have to hunt for their food much
of the time. Fact is, when I clean one of my aquariums, I will likely find
water insects or insect larvae clinging to the plants, under the rocks and wood
or buried in the sand, not to mention snails on everything. Often, what I
observe is just a quick flash as a sunfish gulps down a gammarus or other water
bug that had randomly swam out of the plants or from under a rock or piece of
wood. Pretty natural.

Bruce Scott
Meridian, Idaho
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