Can they eat...

Zep,

As far as using frozen food goes, I usually buy it in sheets for my darters. An hour before I want to feed the fish, I get a disposable plastic cup, like from Taco Bell or Starbuck's, and break apart a portion of the sheet to melt in the cup. After I break the sheet, I drop enough frozen food in the cup for one or two feedings. Then I put cool water in the cup just to over the level of the frozen food to help it melt. At this time I also put a napkin or two under the cup to catch any condensation that forms on the cup and drips down onto the counter. Then, I wait for an hour. After I come back to the food in the cup, if it's all melted, I pour-off the extra water in the cup. Then I get a long-handled plastic spoon, like you can get from Culver's with your icecream, and spoon the food into the darters' tanks. I feed them as much as they will eat and then put a lid on the plastic cup and put the extra food in the fridge, to feed to the fish the following day.

Brian

Brian J. Torreano - Owner
BTDarters
American Native Fish for
your aquarium...and more!
Web: http://www.btdarters.com
Phone: (262) 268-7489

I was just recently in a local petstore where one of their employee's is a studen Marine Boilogist at Eastern Kentucky University and he is currently in charge of a native tank of darters set up at the college. I was discussing what to feed darters. As of now, I just feed mine frozen blood worms and they love them. However, I'm sure they would like some variety. So, I was asking him about what to feed. From what I gathered from him, any of the real frozen foods would work. I once saw a variety pack at a petstore in the freezer with like 4 difference kinds in it. I'm going to buy that and see if they will in fact eat all of them. He also told me that they would eat live feeder shrimp.

I did a couple of tests for you. I dropped a couple of shrimp pellets in front of some juvenile blackside, johnny, and orangethroat darters. They ignored them. I went back 5 minutes later, still ignoring them. I wouldn't buy any.

If you can get it, HBH Super Soft Krill is great. It sinks, the freeze dried food doesn't want to sink. It will eventually, I think. I crumbled some HBH up for the juveniles and they got excited and began eating it. All but the most spoiled of my native and tropical fish love it. It's even great fry food when crumbled. (Thanks to farmertodd for recommending it.)

The HBH soft and moist works great on greenside and Rainbow Darters. I have had mine for 2 years now. I usually drop the whole pellets into the current from the powerhead and watch them chase the pellets across the tank. I do this especially with new darters. I assume they think it is alive. After a few weeks the darters will dart along the bottom looking for pellets.
Something else I have noticed with new fish added to the tank is they tend to hang back until the long time residents start to feed. Once the residents start to feed the new fish will come out and feed with them. After a couple of weeks of this, the new fish are eating like they have been in the tank all their lives.

Bill F.

out of curiosity will they eat very small rosies or similar minnows? Any common live foods I can scoop out of a lake while while fishing?