The Hidden Risks of homemade Fish food

[brewmaster15]

Thought I would try and get a dialogue going here on Homemade fish food mixes and their risks. It really not something that is ever brought up. Usually homemade fish food is put up on a pedestal, afterall you control whats in it, and there are a ton of garbage ingredients added to commercially manufactured foods. If you make it yourself you can add all the good nutrition you want. Then there is also the superstar status of beefheart based foods , especially in the Discus hobby. You would almost think you needed to feed beef heart to grow big fish..Obviously that is nonsense, but the beliefs do persist. Alls you really need is a good quality protein and fat source, some carbs and lots of good husbandry. So whats the risks? It sounds like homemade foods are perfect.

The first risk that comes to mind is how nutritionally balanced is it? Just like in any other organism there are certain nutritional components that a fish needs to have to grow and develop properly. There are ratios of proteins to minerals, vitamins, and certain fats. When we make homemade mixes, we are usually just guessing or worse, go by what we would find nutritionally balanced in our own diets. Luckily if the mix contains some quality proteins , fats etc, its usually okay in general terms for growth and development of aquarium fish like Discus. Adding a fiber source helps as well in digestion. So as far as risks go its not a very serious one. Home made mixes are incredibly diverse on the ingredient base and most seem to provide whats needs.

To make a homemade mix though you need good ingredients and here is where it gets tricky. Are you sourcing your ingredients fresh or frozen, or dried or canned? All of these affect the nutrients. Are they organic or possibly contaminated with pesticides or hormones? A fish is relatively small to us...what is considered safe levels for humans as occasional meals , may have a negative effect on growing fish, especially if it bio-accumulates.

The real risk though is parasite and disease transmission. Most homemade fishfood mixes use raw meats and raw fish and seafoods..There is a pretty long list of parasites, worms, liver flukes, protozoans, and pathogenic bacteria present in these ingredients. Its why cooking meat well is recommended for people. An example of this how Sushi related parasite infections have risen dramatically with the spread of "sushi" as a meal for Humans.

https://new.nsf.gov/news/sushi-paras...3-fold-past-40

A new study led by University of Washington researchers finds dramatic increases in the abundance of a worm that can be transmitted to humans who eat raw or undercooked seafood. The worm's 283-fold increase since the 1970s could have implications for the health of humans and marine mammals, which can inadvertently eat the worm.
Thousands of papers have looked at the abundance of this parasitic worm, known as Anisakis, or "the herring worm," in particular places and at particular times. But this is the first study to combine the results of those papers to investigate how the global abundance of the worm has changed through time. The findings were published in the journal Global Change Biology
.

Bacterias..
https://www.verywellhealth.com/disea...-sushi-1958814


Obviously feeding your fish ingredients that could carry diseases is risky. Yet we do it all the time.


There are similar risks associated with raw or rare Beef, pork, chicken and turkey products.


Hopefully you see I am NOT posting this to knock homemade fishfoods, but just to raise awareness of risks. I have made hundreds and hundreds of pounds of it myself in the past and raised many fish on it with relatively few problems. However, its just possible that when you are doing everything right in fish raising and you get an unexpected problem in a fish or fishes in a tank that something in the diet is the culprit. I have known hobbyists that did in fact end up with a tank of sick fish that was attributed to a homemade mix. We had a thread here awhile back that showed Discus with huge veil tails that were fed a diet of raw beefheart...the speculation was bovine hormones. There is no way of course to tell but it was interesting all the same. (See...https://forum.simplydiscus.com/showt...k_may+hormones and https://forum.simplydiscus.com/showt...ht=#post441874 ) I knew one breeder that traced his tape worm issues back to his choice of raw fish for his beefheart mix.



Now is the part where everyone that feeds raw foods in their mixes or likes sushi comes out to defend them.. Don't shoot the messenger here... just presenting information for Discussion. I would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this topic.

[Second Hand Pat]

That is crazy what happened with the tails of these discus Al. The few times I have make a mix I only used beef heart once. I did discover that a fillet knife worked really well for removal of the fat parts of the beef heart. The mixes I did after that were seafood based.
Pat

[Willie]

The article combines multiple factors which stem from unrelated sources.

1) Fish Parasites - USDA requires that all fish intended for raw consumption be frozen at -70F for a minimum of 48 hours. As the article states, proper freezing will kill such parasites. Contrary to popular perception, sushi/sashimi is not fresh, it's made from frozen fish for food safety.
2) Contamination - Unscrupulous sellers will sell diseased fish, so don't buy fish from uninspected sources.
3) Poor hygiene - Fish gets contaminated by improper handling prior to preparation.

Beef heart comes from cows slaughtered under USDA inspection. When I've bought beef heart from the local grocery store, it came in large boxes frozen hard. The risk of contamination is with the fish keeper, not the fish. Areas, cutting boards, knives, spatulas, food processors, etc. contaminated by blood should be cleaned with Clorox, not just rinsed. Chicken is an equally good protein source but Salmonella contamination is serious. Turkey has essentially no fat, but also has Salmonella issues.

After multiple preparations, I eventually simplified my mix to 100% beef heart. Adding additional ingredients greatly increase the chance of contaminating your kitchen or prep area. As for benefits of additional ingredients - like you said - what are they?

[brewmaster15]

The article combines multiple factors which stem from unrelated sources.

1) Fish Parasites - USDA requires that all fish intended for raw consumption be frozen at -70F for a minimum of 48 hours. As the article states, proper freezing will kill such parasites. Contrary to popular perception, sushi/sashimi is not fresh, it's made from frozen fish for food safety.
2) Contamination - Unscrupulous sellers will sell diseased fish, so don't buy fish from uninspected sources.
3) Poor hygiene - Fish gets contaminated by improper handling prior to preparation.

Beef heart comes from cows slaughtered under USDA inspection. When I've bought beef heart from the local grocery store, it came in large boxes frozen hard. The risk of contamination is with the fish keeper, not the fish. Areas, cutting boards, knives, spatulas, food processors, etc. contaminated by blood should be cleaned with Clorox, not just rinsed. Chicken is an equally good protein source but Salmonella contamination is serious. Turkey has essentially no fat, but also has Salmonella issues.

After multiple preparations, I eventually simplified my mix to 100% beef heart. Adding additional ingredients greatly increase the chance of contaminating your kitchen or prep area. As for benefits of additional ingredients - like you said - what are they?

Willie I knew I could count on you.

The sushi example was probably not the best as I wasn't aware of that USDA requirement.. though I doubt people are using sushi grade fish in their mixes. I'm not a fan of raw seafood. Incidentally, I did check that requirement and it does exist. it does appear there are exemptions.

Interesting article here..

https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-p...mi-food-safety

Exempted from the FDA's freezing requirements are, as Herron mentions, large species of tuna—deemed safe based on the frequency with which they are eaten in raw form and the infrequency of related, documented parasitic infection—as well as aquacultured fish, like salmon, given verification that the feed it's raised on is parasite-free. To meet FDA guidelines, every other type of fish must be frozen to those temperatures, even if the table does not indicate that it carries a parasite risk, because it "may have a parasite hazard that has not been identified if these fish are not customarily consumed raw or undercooked."

[seanyuki]

from what I have read ....Parasites become a concern when consumers eat raw or lightly preserved fish such as sashimi, sushi, ceviche, and gravlax. When preparing these products, use commercially frozen fish. Alternatively, freeze the fish to an internal temperature of -4°F for at least 7 days to kill any parasites that may be present. Home freezers are usually between 0°F and 10°F and may not be cold enough to kill the parasites.


https://www.seafoodhealthfacts.org/s...20be%20present.

[jeep]

I mainly feed homemade mixes. I may refer to it as BH mix but more accurately it would be a shrimp mix because wild shrimp is the main ingredient. When I trim the BH I'm very meticulous and remove any fat or veins that are visible to my eye. Basically, I get about 1lb BH meat for every 3lbs I buy, which of course triples the cost. Since BH has risen from $1.50 to nearly $4lb in the past 2 years, I'll be rethinking future mixes, lol...

I've been dehydrating the veggies recently. I started doing this because there was a lot of liquid in the mix that came from parboiling the veggies, and using dehydrated spinach, kale and other greens absorbs almost all of the liquid in the mix, making it less soluble. The hard part is determining exactly how much dehydrated greens to use because 1 pound of raw spinach produces just a few grams of powder so they can be on veggie overload pretty easily, lol...

The only thing that touches my counter is the actual BH and I sterilize every surface with food 35% peroxide so hopefully that takes care of the bacteria potential.

[brewmaster15]

This one is kind of troubling..

https://www.cdc.gov/vibrio/vibrio-oysters.html

We are seeing an uptick in vibrio in shell fish as the oceans warm... oysters out here along the northeast coastline are big business. In CT we even have oyster festivals.

Vibro bacteria are common in raw fish and shellfish..more so in shellfish and they cause alot of food poisoning.. the particular one Vibrio vulnificus is the stuff of nightmares though.
Alot of people do add raw shellfish to their fishfood mixes. As filter feeders these take up alot of not so healthy junk.

[jimmyjoe]

So is the solution just freeze-dried ingredients and just beef heart that has been freeze-dried?

[brewmaster15]

So is the solution just freeze-dried ingredients and just beef heart that has been freeze-dried?

I wouldn't say that Jim. I think there are alot of ways to safely feed your fish. For instance, I have known Discus Keepers that cooked their beefheart mixes.. I tried that awhile.. it just added alot of time on it and they didn't like my mixes as much cooked..I will say it was less messy in the tank.Much like Willie who settled on just beefheart, I have settled on freeze dried blackworms and quality pellets.I am happy with the choice...but thats all it is ...a choice.

I think its important though that people make informed choices which can only be made after reading discussions like this, reading research and science etc. The point of threads like these are to give everyone food for thought. To discuss pros and cons, share experiences etc. Homemade food mixes are not inherently bad and a ton of Discus have been raised on them for decades.


To carry this discssion further.. if you add fish to your mixes. Do you choose salt water fish or fresh and why?

[Vanman]

When I added fish to my BH mix I always used salt water fish. The hope was that if they had any parasites they would not infect fresh water fish.

[Willie]

I used to add pollack to my beef heart, primarily because it was the cheapest fish in the supermarket. (The pollack came packaged and hard frozen.) Once when I had some extra pollack left over, I fed that to the discus. That's when I found that my discus preferred beef to fish. From that point forward, I went to 100% beef heart.

[brewmaster15]

I used to add pollack to my beef heart, primarily because it was the cheapest fish in the supermarket. (The pollack came packaged and hard frozen.) Once when I had some extra pollack left over, I fed that to the discus. That's when I found that my discus preferred beef to fish. From that point forward, I went to 100% beef heart.

Well.. if you put a plate of pollack in front of me and a plate of Beef heart and I had to pick... Im with the discus.

[Willie]

Well.. if you put a plate of pollack in front of me and a plate of Beef heart and I had to pick... Im with the discus.

I thought the fish was going to be the attractant, but it turns out they prefer the beef. Both are equally nutritious so I saw no point making a bigger mess by mixing two proteins. Beef heart holds together just fine, so I never had to mess with agar, gelatin, etc.