Guppy Breeding?

[Selkielass]

Do cherry shrimp tolerate warm and deep water better than ghost/glass shrimp?
I haze a nice colony of ghost shrimp in my 10 gallon tank with my betta, but they don't do well in the deeper and warmer water of the 30 hex guppy set up. (Warmer water, more pressure and less light at the bottom)
The fancier shrimp are so much more expensive than the feeder shrimp that I've hesitated on trying to keep them.

[Sonya610]

I have thought about raising Mollies as feeders (thought about it a bunch of times and then kept thinking I would best off not doing it).

I am thinking about it again and quietly pricing used tank setups on craigslist. I heard mollies breed much faster than guppies and grow larger. Like Virginiana said, the idea is to treat the first generation for parasites and then produce healthy feeders as a treat every 2-3 weeks.

Mine are fine on pinkies and trout but the one time they got minnows they went nuts for them.

Would feeding them live fish put them off their other food?
Do people think it is cruel to feed live?
Anyone know the best way to de-worm the fish? Am I only worried about worms or other things too?

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I'm thinking about starting a tank of live bearers and culling some when I've got too many.

What would be the most humane way to euthanize a fish?

[d_virginiana]

What would be the most humane way to euthanize a fish?

Put them in a separate container that is NEVER used for ANYTHING else living, and add a few drops of clove oil. It's the quickest way to euthanize a healthy fish.
Just make sure the container never even touches water that goes to any other reptile/amphibian/fish, as even a small amount can be fatal.

Clove oil can be found in most Asian markets or ordered online, but it's not very common in a lot of regular grocery stores.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

Would that still make them safe to fed off?

[chris-uk]

I'm thinking about starting a tank of live bearers and culling some when I've got too many.

What would be the most humane way to euthanize a fish?

Number 11 scalpel, sever the spine at the base of the skull, then pith the brain (insert the point of the scalpel and wiggle it). Destroys the brain which makes it quick and painless. There's some argument that decapitation allows pain to be felt in the head, so destroying the brain is my preferred method.
I've read about oil of cloves, but I thought you needed to increase the dose gradually to stupify the fish before upping the dose to a fatal level. I wouldn't feed fish euthanised in this way to my snakes, but I have no evidence it would be harmful.

[d_virginiana]

Oh, I thought you just meant to make more space, not to freeze and feed later. No, don't feed anything with clove oil to anything else. It is definitely fatal to other fish and amphibians, even in small doses. I haven't seen any info on how it works for snakes, but I definitely wouldn't risk it.

When all I could get for Houdini were live minnows, I would do what Chris said. Quick and painless

[Sonya610]

Well y'all have successfully discouraged me from raising live fish yet again! My biggest fear is that I would feel guilty everytime I looked at the fish (thinking about how they would be eaten and possibly die a slow death inside the snakes).

Idea has been abandoned. Plus I know it would be a heck of a lot of work.

[chris-uk]

Plus I know it would be a heck of a lot of work.

As a "keeper of water" (you don't so much keep the fish, you keep the water right and the fish take care of themselves) I concur about the work required to raise feeder fish in good conditions.
I don't keep guppies, but the amount of effort it takes to keep my community tank ticking over would discourage me from setting up my spare tank to breed feeders. When all my snakes eat frozen and I can buy a kilo of frozen smelt for £4 (OK, the shipping adds a bit on top of that) I'll take the frozen smelt route.

[Steveo]

The $8.95 I pay for a package of silversides seems like a great deal after ~6 months of raising guppies. The guppies were more work than the snakes. I had a filter and a heater fail on me. If my garters were permanently babies it might have been sustainable but they kept growing and getting hungrier and the guppy output couldn't keep up.

The sale RodentPro had a few weeks ago with rat pinks for 29 cents was an even better deal. $29 for 100 and I should get about 30 weeks out of the bag. $29 in silversides would get me about half that. I'm not including shipping in the calculation because I was placing an order for my constrictors anyway so it only added a couple dollars.