So theoretically if I feed the worms veggies and crickets pellets then a motaguense could live off just them?
Cichlid diets
- Thread starter Americancichlids
- Start date
I feed my oscar meal worms, which are about the easiest thing ever to culture. I keep them in a tupperware container with oat bran and a half of a potato, under the tank hood, the light keeps them warm so they grow fast. I throw in scraps from veggies when I cook, like squash ends, green beans, and broccoli stems. When the out bran is exhausted, I strain the worms and beetles out of the media with a sieve, and I have only done that once (two days ago) after 6 months of feeding.
Overall crickets are a piss poor source of nutrients, lacking in many of the essential vitamins & minerals. Both of the foods mentioned in this discussion are fine as supplements, but should never be considered as a sole means of supplying nutrients to ones fish - even if they are gut loaded prior to feeding. Not all the nutrients will have the same bioavailability to a fish once they have been processed by a cricket or worm.
Nutrient levels found in the average cricket purchased at your LFS.....
http://bigcricketfarms.com/images/Big_Cricket_Farms_Frozen_Crickets_Bulk.pdf
To understand what nutrients a typical finfish requires:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5738e/x5738e08.htm
As far as nightcrawlers.....
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/worm/worm.html
"Earthworms as Food or Feed Supplements
Approximate analysis of earthwoms was completed by Dr. Carl Cater in the Oilseed Products Laboratory at Texas A&M. He reported that on the samples tested moisture (volatile) averaged 80.44%. A further analysis of freeze-dried earthworms indicated the following components: oil 6.8-7.1%, nitrogen 10.6 - 11.0%, protein 66.2 - 68.6% and ash 9.3 - 9.7%. This would indicate that on whole, live earthworms are less than 14% protein. Therefore its use as food or a feed supplement would probably be limited. It should be noted that the freeze-dried product (after water is removed) compares favorably with defatted soy flour from the standpoint of amino acid availability. Further research may lead to the use of earthworms as a food supplement but this use is at best only a potential market."
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00240919
Abstract
"Whole frozen earthworms (Eisenia foetida) were evaluated as a partial replacement for commercial pellets for rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss. Earthworms were ‘blanched’ and treated with concentrated sodium chloride (10%). Fish were submitted to four treatments: control fish were fed with a commercial diet and three groups of fish were fed with diets partially supplemented with earthworms. All fish showed the same appetite for the earthworm-supplemented diets as for the control diet during the course of the experiment (8 weeks). No significant differences (p > 0.05) were detected in the mean final body weights of all groups of fish. A significant decrease was found in the whole-carcass lipid content of fish fed diets containing 25%, 50% and 75% frozen earthworms. The results on growth rate and feed utilization efficiency of fish fed diets containing high levels of whole frozen worms suggested an adverse effect of worm incorporation, probably due to dietary energy/protein imbalance."
Those foods are fine. Its just buying live feeder fish is bad. The staple should always be a quality pellet with adding a little other foods here and there. But for some a veggie diet is better like say a syn. My syn mostly eats algae wafers. Speaking of that I am excited my new salvini, t. aureus, and t. meeki are eating algae wafers too.
Salvini are amazing fish! The one I had was so cool! I have a firemouth right now I got him from a friend who got out of the hobby. I'm debating whether to keep him because all the fish in my 55 are young but he is with a carpintis two convicts (also got them from friend) and a flowerhorn. And my 75 is just for my Motaguense. They can probably all fit if I move one convict and flowerhorn, my carp is a female. Anyway idk why I went on about that^ but anyways I think cichlids eat a lot more vegitation than we think. I noticed my carpintis eating some of the alage on the driftwood.
My year old 11" Oscar is healthy wealthy and wise and I feed him a mix of hikari pellets and live food. Crickets, nightcrawlers, ants, spiders, moths (he loves them) and flies. When he was 2-4" long I fed him nothing but tadpoles from my pond and he loved it. As long as you keep the diet mixed with the pellets and don't go too long on one thing, your fish shouldn't get too dependent on anything.
Honesty, I think people tend to get a little too paranoid when it comes to live food and as a result stick to only pellets and look down on live food.
Honesty, I think people tend to get a little too paranoid when it comes to live food and as a result stick to only pellets and look down on live food.
There is no issue in feeding live, one should simply do so in a well informed manner. I posted the following years ago in another discussion, some good info for anyone feeding insects to their fish.
http://nagonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NAG-FS003-97-Insects-JONI-FEB-24-2002-MODIFIED.pdf
http://nagonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NAG-FS003-97-Insects-JONI-FEB-24-2002-MODIFIED.pdf
