So exciting!!! A question on feeder fish...

[froggsong]

Alright guys, this is soooo cool! My dragon ate a fish!!! I am soooo excited. It was the coolest thing. I thought I would try him with one of my larger baby guppies, and he actually ate it! Went right for it... I have a problem getting him to eat anything but crickets (The only way I could ever get him to eat a worm is by sticking it in his mouth while he's licking his chops after a cricket). Now that I have found something else he will eat (that is WAY easy to raise, I already have a bunch of them for my newt paludarium), I am very excited to feed him something besides crickets all the time. My question is:

How often can I feed him a fish, and what size?

What would be better, guppies or goldfish?

Are there other fish it is safe to try to feed him?

If so, what other types?

If I feed him fish on a regular basis, should I cut down on how often I calcium dust his crickets?

I'd like to be able to go get some fish tonight, so all y'all wake up and give me some advice! LOL

::so excited::
::so excited::
::jumping up and down::
::so excited::
:: oops, I think I peed myself a little::
::so excited::

LMAO

(I was jk about peeing myself, btw )

[froggsong]

Did I mention that I'm so excited???

[JohnEDove]

Feeder Gold Fish are often nutritionally deficient as purchased from the stores but more importantly they contain an enzyme called thiaminase which destroys vitamin B (thiamine). Lack of vit B will cause neurological disorders.
Minnows like Guppies and Fathead Minnows (Rosy Reds) contain trace amounts of thiaminase but not enough to be harmful. If you could get it to eat frozen thawed trout that is good also.

[taipan]

Hi Froggsong.
I agree with johnedove about goldfish. When I did some research for my Tentacled snakes all the articles mentioned not to feed goldfish to them because of the enzyme. Although the info was for snakes it may well apply to lizards as well ( both are reptiles anyway ). I now feed mine with Betta's which would be ( one of ) the snakes natural prey

[JohnEDove]

Dr. Alan Francis of the UK was the first to alert me to this a number of years back in relation to Garter Snakes. Further private testing indicated that a mixed diet including Goldfish could also cause thiamin (vit B) loss in rescue Red Eared Slider Turtles.
I don't work with Beardies and have never tried testing out the effect of thiaminase on any species of lizard but I would not risk Goldfish being a large part of the diet of any reptilian.

(OT)
tiapan,
Please forgive my rudness if it is wrong of me to ask, but what part of the world are you in?

[taipan]

johnedove
No prob's. I am originally from Australia ( Sydney ) now living in Thailand - I help my wife ( Thai) with her orchid nursery.
If it is my avatar I was lucky enough to have seen two coastal Taipans in the wild. It was a nice sunny late morning in Nth Qld & the sun glistened of them. They were both beige coloured & looked absolutely stunning. A friend of a friend has some Inland's in his herp collection & kindly took one out to show me.but would not take a coastal out as they are too agressive

[froggsong]

I can't get him to eat a worm, there is no way he is going to eat a piece of dead fish.

If I buy feeders from the store I will NOT be feeding them until I know they are healthy (and I would likely keep some for breeders so that I know all the fish I have on hand are healthy). I am not irresponsible, I know that they are generally starving and probably carry parasites. Anything you buy from a tank that is so full that they can barely swim is going to be hungry, which means it wont be very nutritious. Also, I know for a fact that they do not feed the feeder fish at my pet store. They let them die or the fish have to eat the dead fish in the tank. Most of the guppies I buy for PETS (also as breeders, and my newt does eat a baby or two from time to time) come out of the feeder tank. They have some very beautiful fancy guppies in there, lyre-tails in fact, they're just babies so people don't notice they can get the 4 dollar fish for 5 cents or so. I have a tank that is basically just for breeding guppies. The reason I said I was going to go buy some fish is that none of the guppies I currently have (that are really the proper size) are guppies I am willing to part with. For some reason, most of the babies that survive my newt are males, and end up being lyre-tails. I'm not going to feed him such a beautiful fish. I was asking about the goldfish because they are so commonly used. The impression that I have gotten (from everything I have read that is reliable) is that goldfish are nutritionally incomplete and should not be fed as the main part of the diet (and I think that ALL of these sources were referring to freshly bought commets. are they more nutritious if the have been fed all the good stuff they need, like I do with the crickets?), but most sources also say not to feed a diet of strictly crickets either, which is what he is currently getting. So, if I feed guppies or other minnows instead of goldfish, can I feed them a little more often than if I were using goldfish? Say, one appropriately sized minnow every two or three days until I can get him to eat a more varied diet? I just really want to feed him other things besides crickets. I am going to order some other invertebrate feeders online as soon as I can afford it. I hear that roaches are great feeders, but I have a terrible fear of roaches and I just can't bring them into my house.

Because I cannot normally get my dragon to eat anything but crickets, this is an exciting development, as crickets aren't all that great for them because of the phosphorus. (See, I do know what I'm talking about :P ) I just haven't been able to find anything on what different types are appropriate and how much I should cut down on calcium supplementation if feeding fish. I also could not find anything on how many and how often to feed him. He is 4.5 inches SVL and 14.5 inches STL. He seemed very eager to eat the fish, which to me indicates that it is something I need to be feeding him.
Can you answer the other questions I asked in the first post as well please?

Just a note, I wrote this last night but forgot to hit the button, so I didn't get to see the other posts until after I posted this this morning.

[JohnEDove]

LOL, Okay, no need to get testy.
Like I said I don't keep Beardies so I called a friend who breeds them to see what she would say.
After the initial, "Feed WHAT?", she suggested the size be equal to the distance between the Dragon's eyes and use them alternately with other prey items. She also suggested that if it is so fond of fish you might try scenting worm types with a little tuna juice and see if he'll go for it.
Just a note, it's feces may be more smelly and loose when it deficates after eating fish.

[Athen]

hey yall i am quite curious on this topic as well. BTW John dove she keeps Chinese Water Dragons which i believe is what she is referring to and not beardies just wanted to let ya know so you arent giving mixed info would hate for confusion to set in and she ends up feeding her CWD something that was actually meant for a beardie that is bad for a CWD although myself i have both a beardie and a CWD and would love to be able to vary their diets in my CWD tank i currently have in his water side about 10 feeder fish and one Betta as for the feeder fish im not sure if they are gold fish or minnows they are silver and small like minnows but i do not know plus it doesnt appear that he eats them i dont know if this is because he isnt up to having to swim after them and catch them or he just doesnt know they are in there. as for a beardie is what is something that is easy to keep that i can supplement his diet with? he is very small about the length of an index finger i have found crickets are quite tough to keep alive lol and he wont eat dead ones until he gets very hungry i tried giving him some alfalfa yesterday that i keep on hand as a treat for my bunny and he loved it, i read something that said alfalfa is a good staple diet for beardies but it said alfalfa plant what i have on hand is alfalfa hay which is still alfalfa would it make any difference? thanks

[froggsong]

John, it isn't a beardie, it is a chinese water dragon. See up there, that's him in my avatar.