Feeding Fry to Other Fish

[NikkiRae]

I have some Mollies and Limia Perugia's. They have a ton of baby's every month and there  would be no way to keep them all. Is it wrong to feed them to my other fish? I have given one to my betta in the past, and it gave him enrichment and a snack. Is this bad for my other fish? I feel bad for the little guys but its the circle of life. Big fish eat little fish. 

[Guppysnail]

If you are comfortable doing this it’s fine.  It is the circle of life. 
Our clubs auctioneer has had a piranha for many years.  He buys the unsellable fish. I take fish born with handicaps to him rather than euthanasia. 

[gardenman]

It's a fish-eat-fish world out there, so there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I have a small school of Celestial Pearl Danios (four females and three males) and they spawn every morning with the females laying twelve to twenty-five eggs each. If I collected each egg and raised the fry that would be fifty to a hundred fry per day. I just let the adult CPDs and the snails eat the eggs. An occasional fry will survive and become free swimming, but then the adults hunt it down before it gets too big. We think nothing of feeding live brine shrimp by the thousands, and they're every bit as alive as your fry. 

Most of the fish stores of my youth kept predators (arowanas, a snakehead, or a cayman) to consume any unwanted, leftover stock or fish that died. They couldn't afford to keep a tank running for one or two leftover fish that weren't selling, so those fish would go to feed the big guys.

[jwcarlson]

I used to feed guppies to my oscars to keep the numbers in check many years ago.  I've actually thought about getting a bigger, predatory fish for just that purpose... to be able to recycle some fry or culls.  But those fish come with their own issues and maintenance.  

It's perfectly OK to feed your extra fish to other fish.  Another option would be giving them away, but that's also problematic.

[johnnyxxl]

I used to have a tank with guppies and the guppies ate a bunch of the young fry

[TJ _isme]

The mollies probably eat some of their babies so the fry are already getting eaten, plus it’s natural for big fish to eat small fish, so I see no problem with feeding fry to big fish.

[Tony s]

I have one currently with platys 

 

really thin it’s fine. Only controversial if the whole point of having the large fish is that it eats other fish. There was one guy on YouTube that had a gulper catfish just so he could video the feeding time. 
 

the other thing I’d watch for. If getting food from petsmart/co, I’d be extremely cautious. Those can be some of the most diseased fish around. You’d almost need a quarantine for your food. 
 

and there are alternatives now. Several good pellets available for most large fish eating fish

[lefty o]

its one way to help keep numbers in check. happens all the time in many community tanks all on its own.

[AllFishNoBrakes]

It really comes down to what you’re personally comfortable with. Personally, I see no issue with it. 
 

One of my earliest lessons in breeding fish was just because you can produce them doesn’t mean you can sell them. Sometimes you can’t even give them away for free. Kribs were too easy, and I quickly became overran with fish and fry. The parents kept spawning while I was still trying to get rid of the first batch, so any additional spawns they made were fed to their brothers and sisters in a different tank. 
 

I did that out of necessity, and I believe that it’s a perfectly healthy food for the other fish. Fish eat fish in nature. 
 

Complete personal preference, and personally I don’t see any issue with it. 

[Tony s]

On 4/18/2024 at 12:05 PM, AllFishNoBrakes said:

One of my earliest lessons in breeding fish was just because you can produce them doesn’t mean you can sell them

yes, this. I wish more people would get that lesson. It gets even worse with peacocks and haps. where the males have all the color. then what do you do with the other 50% plus of what you breed. I mostly like what people have been saying. being experienced keepers. but, hoo boy, put that out on the interwebs.🤣

Edited April 18 by Tony s

[NikkiRae]

On 4/18/2024 at 7:12 AM, jwcarlson said:

I used to feed guppies to my oscars to keep the numbers in check many years ago.  I've actually thought about getting a bigger, predatory fish for just that purpose... to be able to recycle some fry or culls.  But those fish come with their own issues and maintenance.  

It's perfectly OK to feed your extra fish to other fish.  Another option would be giving them away, but that's also problematic.

I live in a very small town in MN, there are no takers. If I ask someone if they want a fish, they ask how long its been in the freezer or if its pickled LOL 😅

[NikkiRae]

I have only had the live bearers for 3 months and in that time I have given a few away, let the adult live bearers eat them, gave some to other fish, euthanized some and fed them to the compost for the garden (which I guess means I eat them through the veggies I grow), but I don't like being the undertaker in that respect. Id rather let another fish do it. I will never get another live bearer because of these shenanigans making me question my moral compass. It's funny that it feels bad when you really think about the logic. I have no problem putting a minnow on a hook, catching a bigger fish with the sacrificed minnow, and then eating the bigger fish for dinner. Between 3 females, they are having 60+ babies a month that I know of. I am sure there are more that get eaten before I even notice. THEY ARE PROLIFIC! 

[jwcarlson]

On 4/18/2024 at 4:50 PM, NikkiRae said:

I live in a very small town in MN, there are no takers. If I ask someone if they want a fish, they ask how long its been in the freezer or if its pickled LOL 😅

We use salted minnows to fish for walleye when we go to Canada for fly-in fishing trips.  Used to make our own, but Canada changed some laws and I don't think you can bring them over the border anymore.  Maybe you could make salted guppies?

[Tony s]

On 4/18/2024 at 6:03 PM, NikkiRae said:

I will never get another live bearer because of these shenanigans making me question my moral compass

yeah, i tried so hard to do population control with my platys. even separated them into male and female tanks. but the females kept having fry. so now they're all back together in 1 tank. 20g tank. all ages all sizes. it's been stable for 2 years now. around 30. I don't even worry about it anymore. I let my platys live their platy lives in peace. well, I say peace. but there is a female betta in there. but out of the cup. she thinks she's a platy. schools with them and everything. not sure this would work on guppies. but you could let it go and find out

[NikkiRae]

On 4/18/2024 at 5:19 PM, jwcarlson said:

We use salted minnows to fish for walleye when we go to Canada for fly-in fishing trips.  Used to make our own, but Canada changed some laws and I don't think you can bring them over the border anymore.  Maybe you could make salted guppies?

I get to net them on the re

I get net fish on the reservation during spawning because I'm 1/2 Ojibwe (I don't look like it). I would actually be embhassased of this pic because I look weird with bleached hair just cheesy smiling but it's a very happy time time of the year every year.