Characodon, food

Illustrator posted: 03.03.2011

In several books I read that Characodon needs vegetable food and young should grow up in aquaria with algae. Sometimes a difference is given between C. audax and C. lateralis (surprising to me, since both are so similar in appearance). I regularly offer filamentuous algae to my C. lateralis, but they do not even look at this. I therefore suspect that Characodon (probably both species) are largely or entirely carnivorous and the literature is incorrect. I wonder if my fish act strange or if this is the general impression.

mandrade posted: 06.03.2011

Hi Paul,

I have a clue for you.
According with my experience reported at the website regarding the only two Characodon species I am familiar with, fry had a clear taste for algae, but adult ones seams to prefer animal matter.

Characodon lateralis - « Reports about the wild populations suggest an algae basis considerable diet component, but teeth configuration can also lead us jump in to conclusion of more omnivorous feeding habits, including eventual prey on water insects and other small invertebrates. Anyway, taking in consideration a long intestine, maybe a natural vegetarian incidence can overcome the potential animal diet.
The vegetarian tendency is quite obvious in captivity, even taking in consideration a positive diet first choice progress to animal meet with age.
Slight boiled spinach, peas or other vegetal supplement as well as industrial flake food to vegetarian species must not be forgotten to a good quality diet.
Nonetheless, you should also alternate, very often, vegetal matter and flakes food with live ( or frozen ) prey, usually brine shrimps and insect small larvae.
Besides firm reluctance regarding a few flake foods, Rainbow Characodon will accept to be nourished under the general feeding suggestions at aquaristics section. This includes several vegetal alternatives, brine shrimps, mosquito larvae, small aquatic invertebrates and other usual live or frozen options. With long term aquarium populations, there are also a few other opportunities like milled raw fish and molluscs and spirulina flakes.
They also accept very well domestic cattle and hunt minced raw meat, but some individuals have a predisposition to suffer from digestive complications and internal diseases due to terrestrial animal protein ingestion ».

Characodon audax - « In captivity they show a clear tendency to a vegetarian diet but it changes a bit along different age stages. For this same reason it is desirable to take into account some vegetal food supplements, such as spinach and peas shelled after a slightly cooking, or other “ green “ alternatives to the usual food industry for the vegetarian species.
The optional supplements consisting of live ( or frozen ) animal prey, besides essential are greatly appreciated.
Apart from some initial reluctance to certain types of processed foods, the Bold Characodon is ideally suited to the broader proposals made in the fish keeping section. It will easily accept, in addition to a varied menu of vegetable options, brine shrimps, mosquito larvae, invertebrates aquatic and other natural foods or frozen fish or raw shellfish and ground as well as foods ( apart a component containing vegetable-based spirulina or other) ».

I am not sure if I had done something wrong with these fish species diet, but apparently they have cope well.

Michael KOeck posted: 23.03.2011

 A difficcult story;
About the length of the gut, there is different information, depending on the author (long: vegetarian, short: carnivorian). Fitzsimmons wrote (1972) about lateralis; sligthly convoluted (well, now we have an indication for the third possibility: omnivorous). He saw this species in big schools feeding from filamentous algae (gut contained green algae, diatoms and 2 worms), but maybe, a dense population (good breeding season?) makes fish be more flexible in feeding. Kunath observed his lateralis feeding from cooked peas, mine did never! They prefered definitely bloodworms, Daphnia, insect larvae aso.
My assumption after all is omnivorous

Greetings, Mike

seriouslyfish posted: 24.03.2011

The morphology of the mouth suggests an omnivorous diet to me too.

Cheers