Jack Dempsey Question

[Mr Incognito]

I just picked up my first Jack Dempsey, hes about 6" long (he may be full grown) and his color is amazing! What an awesome looking fish! My question, is that I used to have Oscars (Tiger and Red) and I would put a couple feeder fish in with them maybe once every week or 2 (since their so stationary just to give them a little more movement). I was wondering if I put very small feeder fish in with the Jack if he would eat them? Ive been feeding him the Tetra Cichlid Crisps and thought that maybe a little treat would be in order every once and a while. I dont want to waste time buying them to have him not be interested and I just have to end up scooping them out anyways lol..

Edit: I was wondering about putting a couple Severums in with him...ive got mixed answers from people at local pet stores and was wondering what your guys advice is? Would they be fine if I got a couple bigger severums and not the little bity ones?

[karazy]

personaly from the experience ive had with feeding pets feeder fish, i would much rather buy my own guppies(since they breed like mad) and breed them inn a seperate tank and use those as feeders because that way u have a way lower chance of your other fish getting a diseas. thats what i nkow about that, but im not sure if you can feed them to dempseys xD

[redpaulhus]

I've got a 10" male JD in my 125g - he eats earthworms (live), crickets (live, gut loaded first), krill (frozen), Formula I cubes (frozen), human-grade seafood (mostly shrimp, scallop, and squid, cut into bite-size portions - uncooked), floating pellets (Hikari and Kensfish brand usually), and occasional veggies (he grabs pieces of the zukes I feed my plecos and sevrums). The frozen foods are of course thawed before feeding. The biggest % of his diet is probably pellets.

I never feed feeder fish to any of my fishes - too many issues
a) with diseases and
b) with nutritional deficiency -- goldfish and minnows contain an enzyme called thiaminase that destroys vitamin B in the body of the fish that eats them.
http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...minase+feeders

I have in the past kept some obligate piscavores, so I setup a colony of convicts and used the small fry as feeders.
I also feed lots of other live foods to my smaller fishes - blackworms, whiteworms, daphnia, and mosquito larvae - but the JD pretty much ignores most of them.

I've got adult severums in with my JD without any problems, but I've also got a 6ft long tank, so they can get some seperation when needed. If your tank isn't good sized, it might be tough to mix the two.