Originally Posted by sharkbait9
If you were to actually break it down aquatic husbandry is a science, ecology, biology and so on. Where science is concerned “we have enough evidence to believe this is correct”. Science is and never was one hundred percent right, when it comes to life of any one given creature, let alone anyone organism.
Science can make the statement that “X fish” eats “X” type foods, lives in “X” conditions. To say as fact that “X” fish only eats “X” food would be a big injustice. No one living creature will just eat or live by what’s written on paper.
Just look at the eastern coast waters. Lion fish are being introduced to waters that were not meant to support lionfish and other creatures, but due to the ignorance of keepers that did not self educate found out that a “X” fish got to big and they felt no other choice but to illegally release them into the wild. Science has said lionfish can not survive in water of this magnitude, but they are.
Now the problem lionfish (use lion fish as the example) have been released and have paired up and are mating in waters that, again were not lionfish friendly. Science was and is wrong, and scientist will say they are not infallible, science is fallible.
Adaptation is a work of pure wonder and mystery. Given certain circumstances in the animal kingdom, they only have two choices live or die trying.
Any way. You self educate and thru science you do process of elimination. If 3 out of 4 statements say pellets and shrimp, then it’s a good idea to lean toward the three statements, not fully excepting that “X” fish won’t adapt to other readily available foods.
I’ll use my mandarin for this example. Its stated that mandarin fish eat micro fauna. Its never been stated that they ONLY EAT micro fauna. Again if it was stated as ONLY then my fish proved science wrong, my mandarin eats daphnia and cyclop. Why, I have no idea but I will make a guess that due to the fact that it’s a readily available food source that’s in the water column a lot. So my mandarin adapted to the foods available in the waters of which it resides.
Don’t put to much stress on your self about it. You read up the fish, its eating pellets then don’t give your self a stroke over it.
Before adding anything to the tank read and get the answers that stack up against the other answers, majority rules kind of deal.
Yes, some things, such as feeding are not absolute with these fish. Please research as much as you can. As far as water quality, tank size, adaptability, those kinds of things, certain fish have certain requirements. There is always the exception to any rule though. You will always find a story about a person that had excellent results with a fish in an environment that most would consider unacceptable. Please stick to the info that is within the norm for the type of fish you want to house. More often than not the majority is correct.