Dr. Marini, aggressive food question

[harlequin]

I am well aware that freshwater fish make incredibly bad food sources for any saltwater fish, does this same apply to using brackish water fish as food? I am researching methodry right now of supplying food to extremely young aggressive fish, such as lion fry. Knowing they are still too big for the smallest fry, when they are midstage would using black molly young be bad? I was wondering since black mollies are brackish and easily converted to full salt, if fed healthy foods would they cause the same ill effects that freshwater feeders would cause?

 

[moray345]

Not as bad as other FW fish but i would recommend finely,finely,finely chopped squid
HTH,
Moray345

 

[fmarini]

Harl:
great question... actually the reason why Fw fish make poor food choices for Sw piscavorses is the lack of highly unsaturated fats (HUFAs) and the fish are too fatty. So brackish water fish i suspect may have some benefit, but unless the fish is genetically designed to make HUFAs, then it might be hard to add HUFA via diet, unless you fill the fishes gullet w/ Selcon.
For lionfish fry i would try sw ghost shrimp or Sw minnows (like the kind you can siene from the tidepools). Alternatively FW ghost shrimp might work
frank

 

[harlequin]

I have looked but have never seen or been able to get any small enough. I catch grass shrimp weekly for my adult lions and pregnant ones when I can for the eggs for my wild pipes, but i never see any small enough, same for minnows, I might try a brine net, could get better results, although much more effort in sifting the stuff out of the net.