Fish death

[CJs Aquatics]

Hey all, would it be a poor practice to remove a dead fish and allow another fish to eat it? I’m assuming so bc of issues such as cross contamination etc. however I thought I would ask the forum… example: guppy dies, feed it to something that will eat it immediately, would it be more of a risk then a reward?

[lefty o]

for me, id ask why did it die? was it old age, was it diseased/sickly. if it wasnt sickly, i myself dont have a problem with other fish eating it, as its kind of how nature works.

[CJs Aquatics]

@lefty o so I’ve never done it, and oftentimes can’t be positive, but for more info, sometimes I have guppies die, nothing crazy like one a week or every 2 weeks out of hundreds in a healthy community tank. So I saw a dead fish which I would usually remove fast, and thought, I wonder if my picky eater puffers would dispose of this for me and figured I would ask the forum. They seem to only eat live foods which is a pain…I’ve seen plecos eat dead fish I didn’t get to fast enough and they have remained healthy and breeding but I figured some opinions would be a good idea first 

[Flumpweesel]

My tank deals with small fish often I never see the bodies. 

I don't enjoy having dead fish in the tank so I remove bodies of I see them they generally have have been nibbled, if I owned something that could eat them quickly that issue would be resolved not sure I would though.

I will add that I lost nearly a whole tank if fish due to a large fish dieing while I was away and spoiled the water very quickly. So fish to water ratio is a factor to consider. 

I have seen Cory throw dead guppies to turtles on some of his fish room tours.

[Schuyler]

My LFS puts dead fish in their snail tank that they use to raise ramshorns for their pea puffers

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 11/15/2022 at 6:30 AM, Schuyler said:

My LFS puts dead fish in their snail tank that they use to raise ramshorns for their pea puffers

Crikey! Talk about efficiency...

[Cinnebuns]

On 11/14/2022 at 11:30 PM, Schuyler said:

My LFS puts dead fish in their snail tank that they use to raise ramshorns for their pea puffers

That's where I put my mystery snail clutches is in the ramshorn cull tank. That's the only thing I feed that tank and there's hundreds lol

[Schuyler]

On 11/15/2022 at 7:02 AM, Cinnebuns said:

That's where I put my mystery snail clutches is in the ramshorn cull tank. That's the only thing I feed that tank and there's hundreds lol

I thought nothing are snail eggs. That's interesting

[Cinnebuns]

On 11/15/2022 at 9:36 AM, Schuyler said:

I thought nothing are snail eggs. That's interesting

I thought so too. I've heard tales of fish that do but I've never seen it. I figured whats the harm in trying to throw them in because I had planned on not feeding that tank anyway. They do mostly eat the eggs themselves and leave leave the casing but when they get desperate enough they eat that too. 

[redfish]

I feed dead ghost shrimp to our turtle.   It’s basically what ghost shrimp are sold for but we are trying to see if the ghost shrimp will populate in a 5 gal.