Feeding Snakehead Native Fish?

[Fish Guy]

I was wondering if anyone has tried feeding their snakeheads native fish that you might catch in your area, like trout etc... I was going to try my 7" Red Snakehead on some native trout from my area, but was just wondering if anyone may have had any luck with it before?

 

[MBOU]

Dare say the natives have a fair share of parasites...

True the snakeheads would be eating big fish in the wild but i dare say being most likely tank bred or at least lnog term captive that their immune system has been somewhat compromised.

If i was ever going to feed live (which tbh i never would as it is unecessary for the most part) then i would find a species easy to keep, quarantine and treat them for parasites and feed them a high quality food to enrich them as much as possible.

 

[Fish Guy]

That is true never thought of the parasites. I have fed some small trout to my Pike cichlids before and they did fine, but perhpas it is a gamble. I'd love to get my snakehead to eat anything but live food but I had two and starved them for 3 weeks, one died and the other refused to eat, so I had no other choice but to go back to feeding them live food. Perhaps as he gets bigger he may start to take beef heart and earth worms.

 

[Fish Guy]

I have a source of healthy trout that I won't have to worry about worms and what not, but I am assuming that there shouldn't be any other problems. No problems with digestion, but I guess a goldfish's anatomy will be similair to a trout's.

 

[MBOU]

if you trust the supplier.. i dont see why it would be a problem


Just to be on safe side, facing worst, if your fish then 100% refuses to eat anything else (seen livefood eaters get addicted) is it an easy to source food for you?

 

[Fish Guy]

I'm not sure what you mean. I have tried my snakehead on earth worms and shrimp, with no luck. I used to feed my larger cichlids chicken and beef heart, but havn't tried it with the snakehead. Actually when the snakehead was 2" it would eat frozen food, but would only eat frozen bloodworms, very odd.

 

[MBOU]

Well if you start feeding it nice livefood and it takes to it and refuses to eat anything else ever again, can you easily get that live food all year round?

Seen other fish like Aros get addicted to livefoods and then waste away when the owners couldnt keep up the supply.

 

[Fish Guy]

The supply isn't generally a problem, between native fish and goldfish I won't have a hard time getting them. But I would love to get him to start eating other foods, like beef and chicken heart, earth worms, etc.. But I tried to break him of the live food thing with no luck. I waited him out for just over 3 weeks, and still nothing.

 

[england]

Try feeding frozen prawns from local supermarkets, took a few weeks when i first got my channa pluero and parachanna obscura but in the end the took then loved then, also silversides from local pet shops worked, maybe you could get stuff from a fish mongers, cheaper and less chance of passing on a nasty bacteria...Also at garden centres you can by dried meal worms, all my snakeheads would go crazy for these

 

[Fish Guy]

I tried the frozen prawns, but no luck. I asked the LFS about the silver sides, but they said that they don't carry them anymore, as with all the others in town. Not sure if there is any such place here that I could get fish from a monger or what not.

 

[england]

Took me over three weeks to get mine to take prawns, It was that or nothing, hehe they took them in the end

 

[Fish Guy]

Perhaps I'll try waiting him out once again.