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Thread: Feeding controversy

  1. #16
    Homesteader Paul Sabucchi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by Hart24601 View Post
    Realistically while it's fun to think about, do you have any reason to suspect commercial diets are inadequate besides speculation? While their may be downsides in theory it would seem that there are examples of great fish raised on many types of diets. We look at beefheart and the many recipes people use including turkey and fish substitutions - some add a greater variety of greens and some add vitamins while other don't however many people growing out don't really notice or comment on one formula producing fish that are markedly different. It's not like someone is producing 9" fish consistently while others with the same line only get 6" and the secret is the diet. Most of the homemade food ingredients are decidedly not from discus natural environment but work very well with these fish (proven over generations of fish strains at commercial facilities) and is affordable. I have not heard reports of fish fed black worms (freeze dried, live or frozen) or other food sources being any larger, more colorful or longer lived from homemade food. I think Hans did a growout on his flakes and saw no differences and I believe I have read others growing out discus on commercial foods with no noticeable changes.


    Aside from the expense factor, which could just be because of a smaller market, the above would indicate to me that discus are highly adaptable and I am not sure you will see tangible results from your quest!
    I do see the wisdom in what you say, again I totally respect the efforts of the people that over the last 50 years have allowed discus to go from rare and very difficult to keep to widespread and feasable for everyone (willing to give them what they need). I also aggree that mimicking what is found in the gut of wild fish is not only unpractical but probably also not ideal (particularly during the dry season in the Amazon they survive on very poor diet). As yoy said now there is a bewildering choice of fish foods so we can be picky. By logic I will be inclined to chose the ones with less carbs and with whole fish as a source of nutritionally good proteins. If I start preparing home made food I probably will be inclined to use fresh fish and possibly cricket flour as the main source of animal protein. I think that fishkeeping is constantly evolving and folks are using new and different combinations of equipment, food, etc. At the moment I also have 2 similarly sized mbuna tanks and am in the process of installing an algae scrubber in one. If it helps to mantain better water quality I will fit scrubbers to other tanks and possibly once the discus have grown, not while I am doing 50% + daily wc, maybe even the discus tank. Still have a year to figure things out, main conundrum will be what strain to chose, the breeder has fantastic reds, he won second in the category at France discus in Arvert a few months ago...

  2. #17
    Registered Member LoGeek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by MendoMan View Post
    [ I suppose it is safe for a fish eating fish to eat another fish, even raw! Ciao
    They been doing it since the first fish swam.[/QUOTE]

    What fish ate the first fish?

  3. #18
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    Quote Originally Posted by LoGeek View Post

    What fish ate the first fish?
    The BIG fish....lol

  4. #19
    Registered Member Argentum's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    This is a bump, but I have been away from the forum for a while but since I was mentioned in the OP i will also give my 2 cents here.

    My main two subjects of interest in fish raising is nutrition and fish diseases. I frequently read the developments published in peer reviewed journals to see whats new. There is a lot of progress done in the aquaculture industry that can really benifit the ornemental fish hobbyist only if someone takes the venture to offer it to us.

    I have been manipulating my disucs food mix and playing with additives until I reached what I believe to be a complete mix. It is not only complete because it grows fish but -because thats only one function of the food- servers several purpouses:

    When I was choosing my additives I thought of what do I want it to achieve and I listed the following:

    1- Provide the sufficient nutriens for the fish to grow without any deficiencies
    2- Grow the fish faster!
    3- Stimulate the immunity of the fish
    4- Enhance the gut health
    5- Protect the fish from disease

    So IMO a perfect food will not only make a fish grow and spawn, but also enhance the rate of growth, increase imunity, gut heath and resistance to diseases.
    I believe that I have sucessfully formulated such a mix I have tested it with my fish and they have grown from fry to breeding without falling sick once. I have also sent out samples to farms in thailand and malaysia for their feedback. Most likely I am going to launch it as a product soon.

    On the other hand I believe we do have good commercially available foods in the marked, the best in my openion are Dr. bassleer biofish food (pro version) and Diskus Soft by Dennerle. I have not tessted them personally, however, they are theoretically meeting most of what I prcieve as a "Perfect food".

  5. #20
    Homesteader Paul Sabucchi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    I wish you well in your enterprise, the more choice of foodstuffs the better. There seems to be a trend towards an improvement in the quality of ingredients (I am thinking about Northfin, NLS, tropical softline just to mention a few) with more single species ingredients (rather than generic fish meal) and less fillers like starches and yeasts. It would probably be even better if they used fresh fish rather than fish meal and used a low temperature manifacturing process, but probably starting with already partially dehydrated fish meal makes manifacturing a lot easier, and helps to achieve a higher protein %, maybe insect flour or proteic extract of bacterial origin will find their way more and more into fishfood. Intersting times ahead. Ciao

  6. #21
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    It's easy to write off starches and yeasts as "fillers" but there are some very well researched reasons these ingredients are included in fish feeds. I think a problem bigger than fillers is the way the ingredients are listed on the foods themselves which allows the manufacturers to game the system. Two fish foods can have the exact same ingredients and protein percentages listed, but varying amounts of soy, fish and wheat gluten contribute to the the protein total. That is a bigger problem than fillers. If we hobbyists demand this information, I think the foods will improve even more.

  7. #22
    Registered Member Hart24601's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    Would be interesting and not very hard for a hobby breeder to plumb several systems together for water quality normalization (can still do daily 100% w/c or whatever the person likes), and split a few clutches evenly between tanks for growout and feed each tank different foods at the same time and same quantity and record color and size for a set period say 6 months. Do this for enough clutches and you could do some statistical analysis and see if the food type tested really even matters at all. I personally doubt there would be any significant differences is using a decent beefheart blend or commercial food with discus.

    Now start getting into harder to keep fish like Moorish Idol and I think one would see large changes in survivability let alone growth.

  8. #23
    Registered Member Luke in Phoenix's Avatar
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    Default Re: Feeding controversy

    Hi Paul, What did you end deciding on for your fish food recipe?

    These are ingredients I've researched and use in varying combinations for various reasons when I make discus food. Each batch I make is different with different ingredients.

    Recipe:
    Beef heart
    Fish (saltwater)
    Shrimp
    Egg yolk

    Astaxanthin
    Lecithin
    Garlic
    Paprika
    Spirulina
    Vita Chem vitamins
    Gelatin
    Brewers yeast
    Gluten powder
    Liquid calcium
    Discus trace
    Banana

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