Is it Safe to Eat Bottom Feeders?Īs we already mentioned, many popular types of seafood are bottom feeders. Farms like Regal Springs raise their Tilapia in floating pens and feed them a floating plant-based food so they don’t have access to the lake floor. Their food floats on the top of the water, so they come up to the surface to get it-no “bottom feeding” involved.

When they can get it, they opt for a diet of algae and lake plants.įarmed Tilapia, on the other hand, usually eat a carefully balanced plant-based diet, which may be supplemented with fish oils to give them extra Omega-3 fatty acids. In the wild, Tilapia usually eat around the mid-level of the water, although they will go to the bottom for food if they can’t find suitable food anywhere else. One fish that many people label as a bottom feeder is Tilapia-but that’s not strictly true. In the British Isles alone, these fish help clean up a million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year! And while they’re an example of bottom feeders, these fish aren’t eaten for food. In the ocean, deep-sea bottom feeders eat jellyfish and squid, and in doing so, they absorb carbon dioxide-keeping it from going back into the atmosphere. Others are carnivores and eat other bottom feeders. Many bottom feeders get their nutrients from algae and other plant material. And they’re not all detritivores, either.

Many delicious, healthy fish and shellfish get their food from the bottom of their habitats. What is a Bottom Feeder?īut what is a bottom feeder, really? Cod. It conjures up images of ugly, muddy animals and frightening deep-sea creatures that have never seen the light of day. The implication is that these fish are skimming along lake beds, scooping up whatever less-than-palatable things have settled down to the bottom. It’s a word that gets thrown out a lot when someone wants to make a fish sound unpleasant.

Bottom feeder meaning