I recently aquired some guppies with the idea of breeding them so that I can feed the newly born offspring to my goldifish, gouramies, bettas and tigers. Do the goldfish like them? I thought it would be an exciting way for them to eat for a change, as I cannot purchase li ve food in my town. tips or ideas? ang

I personally wouldn't feed live fish to goldfish - they're not really cut out to be predators in that way. There is also the risk that if the guppies become infected with a disease you will pass it on to your goldfish and lose them. Many fishkeepers don't give feeder fish even to real predators like oscars or piranhas for that very reason; they use frozen or freeze-dried live foods instead which have been sterilised and are therefore safe.

Can you really not get freeze-dried or frozen foods like daphnia, brine shrimp, bloodworms, tubifex etc? Most fish stores sell these and the fish absolutely adore them.

One other option if you really do want to feed live food is to give your goldies earthworms from your garden. Keep the worms 24 hours first to allow them to excrete before you feed them to the fish.... sorry to gross you out! They will enjoy these very much, but keep an eye to make sure no worms escape into the gravel as they will die under there and become a hidden source of pollution in the tank.

HEHE, Of course I can get frozen and freeze dried, I feed predominately frozen foods, omnivour types, blood worms and brine shrimp. I thought it would be nice for them to have something ALIVE, more natural for a change. I would have thought the garden would have more nasties than home raised fishes, who knew. Guess that is why it is good to ask somebody who knows more about goldies than me. ang

Some people feed live daphnia to their goldfish and those apparently are a big hit, so you're absolutely right in that your fish would probably enjoy having something to hunt down and devour... although I'm not actually sure that they'd eat fry.

I'd say give it a go if you really want to experiment and just don't feed any that look diseased, but the trouble with fry is they're too small to tell how healthy they are!

Earthworms are generally fine, unless your garden has been contaminated with agricultural run-off or similar.

I've also heard of people raising fruit-flies and feeding those live (presumably floating on the water!) so you might try that.