Has anyone used this is their discus mix? If so, how much do you use per lb of food mix? Have you seen beneficial results from the use of it? I have some on order and plan to add it to my next batch.
Printable View
Has anyone used this is their discus mix? If so, how much do you use per lb of food mix? Have you seen beneficial results from the use of it? I have some on order and plan to add it to my next batch.
I have never heard of anyone using that Pamela.
I recently made a recipe by the well respected Chad Hughes and my fish love it. It is simple, and has basic, beneficial ingredients. No point in trying things that are not tested as your fish could be at risk.
Here is the link. Look at thread 148
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...Recipes/page10
A friend shared this with me a while back but have not tried it myself...
Pumpkin seeds are a good source of proteins,vitamin K,essential fatty acids,potassium and magnesium.....it is also a very good source of the mineral mangannese,phosphor,iron,copper and zinc......it's constituent cucurbitin has shown some activity against intestinal parasites,mainly with anthelmintic action.......five ground seeds per 100 grams of fresh food mixture represent an excellent natural solution for eliminating tapeworms(cestodes and trematodes)pinworms(oxiurids) and roundworms(capillaria,ascarids) from the intestines of discus within 24 hours of treatment.
Trophy discus by Dick Au......page 51
An article of Pumkin Power from discusnews.com (Dutch Discus Forum)
here's the link.
http://www.discusnews.com/article/cat-02/pumpkin.shtml
their forum
http://forum.discusnews.com/
I had read something like this myself somewhere which is why I ordered it. If no one here has tried it, I'll volunteer to be the first and post results. I should have it in on Tuesday and plan to make some mix with it. I have a mix that's working well and just didn't want to throw them off their food by adding something that affected their affinity for my mix adversely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Second Hand Pat
It seemed like a holistic approach to me which I like in place of meds if it works.
Pamela, that would be great and look forward to your results. I would suggest that since Dick Au mentioned it in his book I wouldn't expect any issues with it.
I get small pumpkin seeds from the health shop and grind them up in a granite morter and add 1 gram per 100g of beef heart for the reason Pat stated above. I see it as a natural remedy that has benfits and cost near nothing (100g of seeds was $3) to add and also has the possible elimination of need for meds.
I don't know if it works too well if they are too heavily infested but can see the benifit from having it in their regular food. I have only seen 1 of my discus just after QT with a sign of internal parasite and treated in hospital tank. Since adding to my beef heart I have had nil looses in the last 8 months since I add the ground pumpkin seeds.
Thanks for the feedback timmy. :)
I can confirm the deworming effect of pumpkin seeds, at least in some anymals; where I grew up we used to feed them to the pigs when harvesting the pumpkins. the concentration was not 1% of the food weight. it was more of a 50/50 food mix, administered a couple of times as a preventive / treatment measure and the effects on infested animals where immediate - you would see the worms if present before next day. I've never seen / heard of any ill effects of pumpkin seeds on pigs but this was not a scientific environment. Also, I've never seen any kind of worms in pigs that received the "treatment" when we sacrificed them (we used to use the intestines as casings so they were processed / observed quite meticulously).
On the other hand, we used to feed the pigs moderate amounts of apricot seeds as well (again, seasonally) and they would have the same effect with no obvious ill effect seen (about 5% of food by weight). Remind you apricot seeds have quite a concentration of cyanide, to the point where one could put himself in the hospital if eating a couple of handfuls.
The question I have is if and in what concentration they would work on fish and if there are any side effects at the effective concentration.
I have about 3-5% (by volume) of pumpkin seeds in the mix I made and the fish eat it over anything else I give them, in fact they go crazy when fed the mix, unlike when fed anything else.
I believe this might help but it has to be combined with very good water quality, a thing which I still have not mastered, mostly due my messed up work schedule and lack of dedication.
Results:
I mixed 2 large tbsp of pumpkin powder with my discus mix (a small ziplock bag full). They eat it just as well if not better than they eat my regular mix. The first few days of feeding this, I saw the white segmented feces associated with tapeworms. After about two weeks of feeding this and nothing else, I did a 5 day round of treatment with Prazi just to make sure. I did not see any sign of tapeworms while giving the Prazi treatment, so my conclusion is the pumpkin seed powder works. I ordered it from http://www.nuts.com if anyone is interested.