1st homemade food..

[mlw]

I use oatmeal in my mix. I mix NLS pellets, oatmeal, vitamins, spirulina and paprika in my magic bullet and it turns it into a fine, flour like powder, then mix that with my seafood paste and it binds it quite nicely. My water doesn't cloud.

[ericatdallas]

I was wondering if adding carrots to the mix would add any value to it? I know carrots are great for us, but what about fish?

well, I'm not sure who can answer that with any certainty, but if I were to evaluate it, these are my steps to make a decision...

1) Just from looking at the nutritional analysis, it has a lot of Vitamin A (by substantial margin over other vitamins/minerals). It's next closest is vitamin C. So I guess one has to ask what other trace minerals it has that could benefit discus that aren't available elsewhere and how much theny need of it...

2) Next, does the amount of vitamin A fill a deficiency I can't get anywhere else?

3) Do carrots have some physical property that makes me want to add it (binding)

4) The vitamins (trace and otherwise), are they in a digestible form for the discus?

5) Are there alternatives that can provide me with what carrots do and other stuff?

Again, I don't know for sure, but answering those questions are what I would start with.

IMHO, I think I would choose not to add carrots.



... actually, in theory, if I really think about it, I probably should answer those questions with ALL the ingredients I use even if it's popular consensus for some of them. BH has always been debateable, but what about spinach? peas? etc... Not sure I'm qualified to make a proper assessment even if I did do the analysis above.

[jlcoop277]

That's a very good breakdown. It could def be used for every ingredient.
Wouldn't carrots add some type of color enhancement?

[ericatdallas]

Dunno... I thought about that, but carotene gives carrots their color. Carotene is important for photosynthesis. So my first initial thought is that discus wouldn't use it for anything... but <shrug> I could be surprised.

Even assuming it did enhance color, then it comes down to what kind of discus you have. I mean, an orange enhancement might be undesirable in a blue discus... just a thought

[Wes]

Just frozen beef heart and a cheese grater beef heart.JPG imo. It doesn't mess my water up as fast. Some good flake, pellets and freeze dried or live black worms. It make my fish smile at me.

[jlcoop277]

Right I wouldn't want that anyway, I was mostly womdering.

The good news is the new batch everyone is loving took all of about 30 seconds for them to
Start eating it.
Finale ingredients are
Turkey
Shrimp
FD blackworms
NLS discus pellets
Tetra flakes
FD bloodworms
Seaweed
Multi vitamin

[ericatdallas]

I like seaweed over spinach. Good choice IMO

I would do all seaweed and spirulina if it weren't so expensive (I'm targeting lowest cost without sacrificing much quality). Although I have a nagging doubt ever ince I posted my carrot steps above whether spinach is "Best". I'll have to dig into it.

Trying to get this stuff bulk is getting harder too (more health nuts and more aquarists intrerested in it -- I think is the reason). I also don't know what I would do with pounds of the stuff.

I did a quick journal search in the aquaculture journals and haven't found terrestrial spinach used in feeds, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work, just no one has done proper research on it (or I just didn't see it).