How often
A redtail always acts hungry, so its begging tells you nothing. Small juveniles eat every day or two. As the fish grows, meals get bigger and further apart; a big adult needs far fewer meals than it asks for. Predatory fish get fat easily on high-protein food, and fat causes long-term problems.
Watch the belly. A gently rounded belly after a meal that flattens before the next one is right. A belly that stays round means feed less often.
They are night feeders, so evening feeding suits them.
What to feed
White fish fillet and whole fish, sinking carnivore pellets, earthworms, and for variety prawns and mussels. Keep it varied, or a redtail can fixate on one food and refuse everything else.
Which fish to feed. Build the diet on fish without thiaminase: cod, pollock, flounder, croaker and mullet. Herring, anchovy, smelt, minnows and carp destroy vitamin B1, and so do shrimp and mussels, so keep those as an occasional treat. Soak food in a vitamin supplement with B1. More on the vitamin B1 page.
What to skip
- Feeder fish Goldfish and livebearers bring disease risk and no benefit.
- Mammal and poultry meat Beef heart, chicken and the like contain fats the fish cannot process well.
- Gravel and small objects Redtails swallow things that are not food.