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Food for Mudminnows?


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#1 Guest_redfinpickerel_*

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Posted 02 August 2008 - 11:21 AM

I am going to get a pair of central mudminnows and i am wondering what i should feed them in a 10 gallon tank

#2 Guest_butch_*

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Posted 02 August 2008 - 11:53 AM

Mudminnows loves black worms but will eat live foods such as grass shrimp, chopped worms, red rosy minnows, guppies and frozen bloodworms. They will eat prepared foods like pellets and flakes but not readily.

#3 Guest_schambers_*

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Posted 02 August 2008 - 03:54 PM

I recently got some mudminnows myself, and they are pretty easy to feed. In addition to the foods Butch mentioned, mine love small worms. Red wigglers don't have to be chopped, the fish will attack them and bite pieces off. Nightcrawlers are probably best chopped. Mine go after frozen Mysis shrimp, too. The ones I have are too small for Rosy Reds. They will ignore fish too big to eat.

#4 Guest_sumthinsfishy_*

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Posted 04 August 2008 - 07:59 PM

Small pieces of shrimp too. I have seen mine attacking snails. They eat basically anything that moves and is small enough. They quickly adapt to small pellets, but mine always spat flakes out.

#5 Guest_Zephead4747_*

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Posted 14 August 2008 - 01:23 AM

will they eat shrimp pellets?

#6 Guest_wdon71_*

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Posted 14 August 2008 - 07:02 AM

Mine have really taken to frozen blood worms, shrimp, beef heart, chopped earthworm and small guppies. I've seen them pick up and carry bigger snail shells and redecorating the tank, but haven't actually witnessed them eating any of the snails. I tried small cichlid pellets a few times but they ignored them, but I've been thinking about trying again. What type of pellets have others had success with?

#7 Guest_choupique_*

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Posted 15 August 2008 - 08:26 AM

Hikari floating carnivore pellets, or whatever they call them now, I think floating food sticks - the one with the Arrowana on the package. These and Tetra bits, color bits, I cannot keep up with the name changes but the little red pellets that resemble baco bits.

Both these are the best prepared foods I have found to get most fish onto prepared foods. If you are feeding earthworms, you can wipe some of the worm slime on the pellets to get the fish interested in eating them, it might do the trick. Haveing some dace in with them that show them they can eat the pellets can work too.

#8 Guest_Zephead4747_*

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Posted 15 August 2008 - 09:02 PM

Will they eat shrimp pellets?

#9 Guest_schambers_*

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Posted 16 August 2008 - 02:08 PM

They might, give it a try if you already have some. They are not picky eaters. Mine are spoiled, but they'll sometimes eat commercial fish food.

#10 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 09 January 2009 - 06:42 PM

go to a nearby stream with a good sized, study, fine mesh net and find places in the stream where lots of leaves have collected. take the net and scoop up the leaves, and get a good bit of sand/mud/gravel in the net too. dump it on clear spot on shore and pick thru it with a stick. have tweezers ready or use your finger to pick out any of the creepy crawlies in there (probably going to be mostly scuds and various insect larvae) and put these invertebrates in a cup full of water.

take them home and drop them in one by one near a mudminnow.

the mudminnows go nose down on the invert. and their bodies take on an S curve shape and they wait for movement, then they hammer it.

my mudminnows really like scuds and stonefly nymphs. anything that is small enough, and moves around on the bottom is fair game for mudminnows.

#11 Guest_mikez_*

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Posted 10 January 2009 - 11:18 AM

go to a nearby stream with a good sized, study, fine mesh net and find places in the stream where lots of leaves have collected. take the net and scoop up the leaves, and get a good bit of sand/mud/gravel in the net too. dump it on clear spot on shore and pick thru it with a stick. have tweezers ready or use your finger to pick out any of the creepy crawlies in there (probably going to be mostly scuds and various insect larvae) and put these invertebrates in a cup full of water.

take them home and drop them in one by one near a mudminnow.

the mudminnows go nose down on the invert. and their bodies take on an S curve shape and they wait for movement, then they hammer it.

my mudminnows really like scuds and stonefly nymphs. anything that is small enough, and moves around on the bottom is fair game for mudminnows.



Excellent advice!
A more efficient way to harvest the scuds is to put the wads of leaves and plants in a regular aquarium net and suspend it over a bucket of clean water. As the weeds start to dry, the scuds go downward and will pass through the net and fall into the bucket.

Mine eat any and all live food they can catch and swallow but scuds seem to be their favorite. They get really excited when the see one.
Mine also eat any frozen meaty foods as well but have never taken any pellets.
Last season I fattened up and conditioned a pair for breeding by feeding lots of chopped night crawlers. Seems the worms are full of whatever they need to get nice and fat and sassy.

#12 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 10 January 2009 - 12:40 PM

A more efficient way to harvest the scuds is to put the wads of leaves and plants in a regular aquarium net and suspend it over a bucket of clean water. As the weeds start to dry, the scuds go downward and will pass through the net and fall into the bucket.


i'll have to give that a try!

#13 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 10 January 2009 - 10:08 PM

another good food for mudminnows are regular ole worms that you pick up on your driveway at night after a good rain.

i just dropped a 6" worm that i just got off my driveway in front of my 3" mudminnow, and he just attacked the thing. he grabbed the tail and started shaking it violently, just like a pike or shark or something. he'd swallow it a little bit at a time, head shaking it to death during the whole process. the worm was wiggling like crazy during the whole thing. it was very violent very awesome. i'll video it next time.

this picture shows the bulge in his stomach afterwards :happy:
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Edited by dsaavedra, 10 January 2009 - 10:29 PM.


#14 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 13 January 2009 - 08:32 PM

these are two videos of my mudminnow suckin' down 5" earth worms.

in the second video, my pumpkinseed comes in and ends up stealing about 2/3 of the worm away from the mudminnow, which was impressive, i didn't know he could eat that much.

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