Feeding whitebait?

[owen]

I went out and caught a few dozen whitebait today. I've got them quarantined with some white spot cure(last time I got some they gave my goldfish ich)

Any ideas what to feed them? They are going to go into a new pond that hasn't had time to develop natural food sources. I'm going to add water from an established pond to help with that.

[Insect Direct]

feed them goldfish, not to the goldfish

[owen]

They aren't being fed to the goldfish, they are going into a new native pond. The goldfish are too fat and floppy finned to catch anything, but there are old 18cm inanga with the goldfish that would have no problem cannibalising the whitebait.

[owen]

Just to clear things up, I am wondering what to feed whitebait. Not what to feed whitebait to.

[nativelover]

i feed my whitebait a mixed diet of blood worms mosquito larvae and ox heart but if they were in an outside pond i would feed them boatmen and things that can breed.

[Caryl]

Ours lived happily on flake food.

[Stella]

Wrigglers, daphnia etc

They are pretty tiny when they first come in, so restricted to tiny foods, but they EAT.

If in a bare-bottomed tank, whiteworms are good. I say bare-bottomed because they don't have much inclination to graze and delve into stones for lost food.

Bloodworms are not very good for raising fast-growing fish. They tend to just stunt. Although it is a useful food for small recent captives if you don't have anything live.

Just be really careful to keep them in good quality water, and yes, whitespot is often an issue. They are going through MASSIVE physiological changes to be able to deal with freshwater again, so they are susceptible to things.

(Note: whitebait and small galaxiids often come into captivity with what looks like whitespots embedded UNDER the skin, not protruding at all. These are completely different and quite benign parasites that will disappear after a few months)

[preacher]

Outdoor pond, you will probably find you don't need much at all. I found they were quite happy to take crushed up goldfish food when mine were 3cm long.

P.

[owen]

Thanks very much for the replies. I'll start feeding them crushed up flake food. I'll try and culture white worms(haven't done so since the late 80's) they should work well because its a bare-bottomed black pond.

I would of thought that blood worms would be very nutritious? would they still be better than flake food?

[malevolentsparkle]

I would of thought that blood worms would be very nutritious? would they still be better than flake food?

bloodworms are high protein but not much else. processed foods are generally nutritively complete, just not as tasty!

[owen]

I tried giving them ground up goldfish food but they just spat it out. I bought some tropical flake and they're eating that.

I won't bother with the whiteworms because they're outside so should get plenty of live food anyway.

BTW if people want to catch their own whitebait in Auckland, there are plenty trapped beneath the bottom dam at the Chelsea sugar works in Birkenhead.