# Enjoyment of keeping Predatory Fish



## Kerohime (Jan 10, 2011)

Just a little play on another thread. 
I personally dislike watching feeders get eaten. Not to mention the huge tanks you have to get for these huge predatory fish. I love watching things like Arowannas swim though, even though most people keep them in tanks too small. 

I'm not against people keeping these fish as long as they can provide the correct tank size and requirements... but stuff like buying alligator gars... I dont see how that would work unless you really did have a swimming pool sized tank. D=


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

What do you mean as feeders? Like goldfish? 

I keep a poly myself and even though I could feed her live fish I usually don't. She does enjoy the chase very much but I usually give worms or other frozen goodies.

If she does get something fishlike I usually go for rosys over goldies myself.

Bob -loves- RTC's like crazy but I will never ever keep a fish like that again. I had a shovel nose for years but never had the space for a larger tank for it. Couldn't find a good replacement owner and the poor thing died when we had a black out. (was super hot in my old apt) :/

But before that happened I was really concerned about what I was going to do with the fish. I really enjoyed keeping it, the larger pred fishies tend to have some really great personalities. I hear a lot of people say that about them.


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## bcarlos (Nov 19, 2009)

I've always been attracted to predatory fish. I agree, with most of these fish comes a certain type of dedication; be it an enormous tank, or the willingness to dedicate an entire tank to one fish. I recently built a 1200 gallon concrete pond for my group of Henlei stingray, and I have a 240 gallon glass tank dedicated solely to my Asian aro and a soon to arrive group of young Tigrinus catfish. 

I cringe when I see people asking about "minimum" tank requirements for a certain species. We will never be able to give this fish what it would have in the wild, but I think it is the responsibility of a good hobbyist to provide the most space, best filtration, etc. that they can if they want to explore keeping many of these predatory fish.


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## bigfishy (Jun 19, 2009)

not all predatory fish are big, you can have small tank with small pred fish



and 99.99% of pred fish can be convert to frozen and pellets


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

I keep them because I like feeding them shrimp lol

On a serious note I agree with big fishy 99.99% can be taken off of live foods. Plus no fish IMO can compare personality wise to a large puffer who is well cared for. I just love my Mbu it's my water dog.


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## TBemba (Jan 11, 2010)

I have a puffer as well and they have personality. It's a pea puffer and they are major predators. I have had him for over 2 years and he will eat flake and pellets but enjoys hunting down Endler fry and ram snails. I have moved him several times to different tanks to control snails. 

He is currently in a 20 gallon and as round as a pea the little pig. He has decimated the snails and has eliminated all the endler fry (unless it's the apistos)


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## ChuckRum (Sep 11, 2010)

lol tables have turned haha.

i actually dont even feed my predatory fish live feeders unless thats all they eat, and even after i convert them onto pellets anyways. Plus, even by feeding pellets, another fish's life was taken in order to make them. I just love watching predatory fish interact and watching eachother, honestly i dont know exactly why i like them so much , but after i got my first one ive been hooked ever since. Also, i think the best looking fish are predadtory ones. for example: Fahaka puffers, arowanas, peacock bass the list goes on


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## ChuckRum (Sep 11, 2010)

Jackson said:


> I keep them because I like feeding them shrimp lol
> 
> On a serious note I agree with big fishy 99.99% can be taken off of live foods. Plus no fish IMO can compare personality wise to a large puffer who is well cared for. I just love my Mbu it's my water dog.


can you keep an mbu or fahaka puffer in a 75 gal?


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## Jackson (Jan 30, 2009)

ChuckRum said:


> can you keep an mbu or fahaka puffer in a 75 gal?


As a grow out tank it's fine but you will need to upgrade quickly both need huge tanks.


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## ChuckRum (Sep 11, 2010)

Jackson said:


> As a grow out tank it's fine but you will need to upgrade quickly both need huge tanks.


ahh so much for that. I dont know what to put in my 75 gal lol. i was thinking of just grabbing like 10 baby exotic peacock bass species and just growing them out for me and selling some later


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