Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After loosing my 2 smooth fronts to deseased gold fish a few months ago. I purchased a yr old wedge head caimen from the hamburg show. Now I have my new pet home I refuse to make the same mistake twice so I was wondering is there a safe "feeder fish" to leave in the tank for between feedings. I was maybe planning of starting a colony of convict fish due to I remember they bred like rabbits but that prob would take a few months to get going.

I picked up an American Alligator at the hamburg show last april, and have had no problems with feeders in my area. It could just have been the pet shop you were using, but i was also keeping different types of danios in with the gator for a while, which he would pick off at his own convenience, the only downside to that is they are kind of expensive to use as feeders, but if you could breed those that would probably be a good fish to keep in there. The other thing about the danios is that they are somewhat quicker than feeders so my gator gets a pretty good work out trying to catch them. Another thing that you might want to try is keeping some crayfish in the tank as well, they dress up the tank a little, and the gator loves them. Just make sure you give the crayfish something to hide under or they vanish pretty fast.

I have for years used guppies for my baby and young turtles and for the adults I use swordtails because they breed easy and are simple to sex. What you do is set up a 10 gallon tank and get 2 males and 5 females and in about 2/3 months you should have a colony of feeders. I tried the guppys with my new dwarf caimen but am unsure if he has eaten any and soon as I have a new batch of sword tails I will try those and post how well it works.