Prawns and prawn eggs

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Ok, so my story for today starts last night; last night i was muching away at some king size prawns and there were some female ones in the packet that were loaded with eggs, as i finished off all the tasty bits of the prawns a thought occured to me- i feed my fish freezedried krill from time to time and they realy love them(livebearers, neons and plecs enjoy them loads), and i figured that prawns wern't realy that much different from krill, soo....
I scooped up some of the prawn eggs and dumped a small proportion of them in my main tank to see what the fish thought of them. Well the clump of eggs landed right in the middle of the neon tetra shoal and there was a piranha-like feeding frenzy as they ate the eggs. When the remains of the clump reached the bottom my smallest plec(unknown species, 4inchs and been like that for 2 months so i guess its his max size) moved in very quickly and started hoovering up the prawn eggs and within less than a minute there was none left.
When i feed my little plec algae wafers and catfish pelets his tail turns a dark brown color, almost black(his usual color is light chesnut mottled brown), which i think he does when he's happy and enjoying his food so i think he loved the prawn eggs.
Its been some hours now since the fish were fed the prawn eggs and im considering feeding them some of the other prawn leftovers like a de-shelled brain as all the fish appear realy healthy and active and all appeared to love the eggs.

Has anyone else fed their fish prawns or prawn eggs and is it pretty much safe to fed them to them? I think i may have stumbled across a new food for my fish

 

[CFC]

I sometimes feed my large fish whole prawns with the shells, legs, heads and eggs all intact and they love them, although i usually have to do a waterchange the next day as prawny fish poo seems to play havock with the water quallity.
In the wild freshwater shrimps and prawns make up at least 60% of most fishes diets (excluding pure piscavores and herbivors) so it is my opinion that in captivity we should replicate this, the main bulk of what i regularly feed my fish is krill, gamma shrimp, mysis shrimp or small cooked and peeled prawns (depending on the size of the fish), the rest of their diet is then made up of other foodstuffs found in a aquatic enviroment (mussels, cockles, crabs, snails, insect larvae, fish etc) and occasional suplements of pellets&flakes and live foods.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Thanks for the info im looking forward to when i next feed my fish and see what parts of the prawn they like the best, are there any other sea foods you can feed freshwater fish? what about bits of mussle or oyster or crab ? are there related foods to these in particular that you shouldn't feed common fish like mine?

 

[CFC]

Any bits of fresh or frozen sea food are fine to feed to freshwater fish, mussels are especially good for bulking fish up quickly as they are very high in protein. The only thing to watch with these foods is that they start to break down and pollute the water very quickly so only feed what the fish will eat straight away and syphon out any uneaten bits as soon as feeding time is over.

Sea food sticks (formerly known as crab sticks) are another favourite of my fish, i have had them litterally jumping out of the water to get them.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Cheers again for the info, i plucked out a prawn brain from its shell and tied it to a peice of thread and plopped it in the water with the thread tied to the tank hood so the prawn brain doesn't float away and get stuck to the filter and so i can retrieve it once the fish have finished eating it and they are realy going crazy for it- theres 3 mollys and 4 platys all crowded all around it trying to get a bite .
Im thinking about feeding my fish more fresh sea food stuff instead of freezedried foods as they probably offer more nutrition than freezedried foods and this will be very good for my pregnant livebearers- i suspect though i will have to up the amount of vegetable based foods i feed my fish though to avoid them getting constipation from too much high protein foods, no?
Can you feed adult fish entirely off fresh sea foods and vegetable foods healthily without the need for fish flakes to supliment the diet?
What a good diet be 60% mixed fresh sea food, 40% vegetable based foods and 20% fish flakes or is this too little fish flakes, what do you think ?

 

[SirMinion]

Both Cookie & Martha absolutely LOVE prawns (in the shell), but for some reason aren't keen on the eggs, so I remove them and feed them to our Parrot Cichlids and our PSG who go mad for them.

Sometimes I give the eggs to our Violet Gobies too, they're just the right size for a filter feeder.

 

[CFC]

Can you feed adult fish entirely off fresh sea foods and vegetable foods healthily without the need for fish flakes to supliment the diet?
What a good diet be 60% mixed fresh sea food, 40% vegetable based foods and 20% fish flakes or is this too little fish flakes, what do you think

Well the tropical fish flake tree is quite abundant in the Amazon rainforest so i'm not sure

I only use flakes or pellets about once a week at most, the rest of the time its mainly shrimp mixed with a little other frozen food. You should tailor the menu that you give to your fish according to their natural diet, if they are chiefly plant eaters then give a higher percentage of veggie foods, if they are more carnivorous give them a more meaty diet. Having never kept livebearers and knowing very little about their dietry requirements i wouldnt like to say what they should be fed.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Well the tropical fish flake tree is quite abundant in the Amazon rainforest so i'm not sure

Lol

Livebearers eat both meat and veg based foods in their diet so if fish flakes aern't a prob then i suppose this is a good diet