Re: NANFA-- Darter's not eating

DasArm_at_aol.com
Thu, 27 Apr 2000 12:20:23 EDT

In a message dated 4/27/00 11:58:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
mcclurgl_at_washburn.edu writes:

<< Chris makes a good point that one might quckly overlook. Live
Blackworms...man, those little squirmy things induce just about anything
to eat. My darters eat the frozen bloodworms and glassworms after a few
days as they have 'trained' darters with them to learn it from. When I
had darters fresh from the wild with no "trained" ones, I fed live
Blackworms and they couldn't eat enough. Once they were eating they took
the frozen stuff too. Small, whole red wigglers might do the trick
too...the key is in the squiggle...
>>

Luke's right; blackworms are a foolproof food as far as getting your fish to
eat. They seem to be a food that all fish go absolutely nuts over. My fish
tend to get aggressive when I feed blackworms to them. Another about darters,
at least wild-caught darters, is that their feeding response is triggered by
motion; they are predators and not scavengers so they won't anything not
living _and_ moving initially. They can be trained to eat frozen foods, and
from what I've heard they can eventually be coaxed into eating prepared
foods, but they certainly won't do it right away. A lot of native fish
enthusiasts tend to make the mistakeof assuming that native fishes will eat
flake food or the like right away; they won't unless they're scavengers like
minnows or catfish. They need to be trained to even go after the food, let
alone like the taste. A lot of fishes I've had will go to eat food pellets or
flakes that I drop into the water, then immediately spit them out.

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