# Feeder guppies.



## Mettle (Dec 29, 2003)

Okay. So at work we have some lil' red bellies. It's where I got my guy. We've only got three left in the tank. We also have this leaf fish that only eats live food, so we have him in a tank with some large feeder guppies and they pump out all the good he needs... Incidentally, I've put some of these babies in with the piranha. Now for the most part they've been tiny. Like almost newborns. But there's been a couple that are a bit bigger. I'm talking 1/8th of an inch, maximum. And these piranha are around the 1" mark themselves.

ANYWAY... My boss today sees that there's a few of the feeder guppies in there after I discovered someone had transported one of the african dwarf frogs from its tank to the piranha tank. (Lucky for the frog there's lots of brush and the piranha didn't even nip him once. I'm almost positive a customer did it.







) So he starts going off about how the guppies in there are 'far too large' to be feeders and they're going to affect the swim bladder of the piranhas? I just nodded, but didn't own up to putting the guppies in there because he seemed so irrate. (He has real issues with people who like aggressive fish, people who feed live fish, etc. To that I say:







. To each their own! Not all of us can be gaga for discus.)

SO... He doesn't know anything about piranha. Not from what I've gathered from my brief convos with him, anyway. (He thought 'black piranha' covered all fish in the sera group.







) I'm still curious though about his claims. I mean, feeder guppies for piranha don't seem that bad to me. Not to mention it's not the only food they're getting. They also get bloodworm, krill and some tiny cichlid pellets. (I've stepped up their feeding to some more nutritious stuff.) He was also saying they're 'grossly overfed'. They get fed once a day on one of the above mentioned foods and sometimes get a small bunch of guppy fry. I know you'd have to see pics to tell for sure... But they're looking quite similar to my piranha (see pics of him by clicking here) and were tons skinnier than that before I started working there about a month ago.

My boss just pisses me off a little... So I'm looking for any info I can arm myself with in this argument. I just want to prove to him he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to this stuff, but I'm not 100% sure myself, so I don't want to go in unarmed in terms of my info.

Thanks for any help.


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## myles (Feb 27, 2005)

well if the question is will large feeder guppys be bad for the swim bladder? i would say no, they shoudl be just fine, ther one of the better fish to use for live feeders, the only downside is they dotn get too big so once ur fish is bigger they wont bother usualy. the only downside is the whol parasite/desease carrying thing, but if their healthy guppys they shoudl be fine no matter what size. not liek the piranhas are goin to eat them whol or enyhting haha. yeha ur boss sounds like a fool. tell him to stick to discus haha


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