What Vitamin Supplements do You Use?

[RD.]

Patrick, if you are feeding NLS there is no real added benefit in adding Vitachem to any of your food.

For those that feed frozen/live exclusively, pre-soaking in a liquid vitamin supplement every 2-3 days would probably be good enough to keep your fish from suffering from any vitamin deficiencies. Ditto if you feed a premium pellet 3 times a week, or mix some pellets into your frozen food.

Vitamins really begin to play a key role in fish that are under stress, such as illness, breeding, aggression from tank mates, poor water conditions such as low 02 levels, etc-etc. When it comes to vitamins it really boils down to what is bioavailable to the fish, something that we really don't know that much about when it comes to many of the ornamental species kept in the hobby. So we tend to extrapolate much of the data that has been formed with commercial species. IMHO some the data published by the NRC back in the early 90's is outdated, and unfortunately some manufacturers still rely on that data to support the vitamin supplementation levels in their products. While a breeding pair of CA cichlids may require 500 mg/kg of Vitamin C for optimum health, an adult L190 panaque pleco that rules the tank may require only a fraction of that amount. My philosophy with most species is when it comes to vitamins & trace minerals, better safe than sorry, keeping in the back of my mind that one doesn't want to oversupplement either. (hypervitaminosis)

http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5738E/x5738e07.htm

Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K differ from the water-soluble vitamins in their accumulative action. Little evidence has been recorded for hypervitaminosis with the water-soluble vitamins since these compounds are rapidly metabolized and excreted when intake exceeds liver or tissue storage capacity, but hypervitaminosis is a common occurrence in fish and other animals when large quantities of any one of the fat-soluble vitamins are ingested. Toxicity symptoms involving vitamins A and D are indistinguishable from deficiency symptoms for the same vitamins. On the other hand, symptoms of excess vitamins E and K intake are more discrete. Fish rations may often be enriched with fish oils to increase caloric density of the ration resulting in excessive intake of the fat-soluble vitamins.

2.1.3 The syndrome of deficiency or excess

Hypovitaminosis A is characterized by poor growth, poor vision, keratinization of epithelial tissue, xerophthalmia, night blindness, haemorrhage in the anterior chamber of the eye, haemorrhage of the base of the fins, and abnormal bone formation. Nerve degeneration has been reported in pigs, chickens, rats, rabbits, and ducks, but only occasionally observed in fish after long periods of deficiency. Hypervitaminosis A has been described in fish and in other animals and involved enlargement of liver and spleen, abnormal growth, skin lesions, epithelial keratinization, hyperplasia. of head cartilage, and abnormal bone formation resulting in ankylosis and fusion of vertebrae. Hypervitaminosis A is reflected in very high liver oil vitamin A content and elevated serum alkaline phosphatase. Removal of excess vitamin A from the diet promotes rapid recovery.

2.2.3 Syndrome of deficiency or excess

Hypovitaminosis D for fish has not been described. Rickets and abnormal bone formation described in detail for animals has not been observed in fish fed low vitamin D diets. However little work has been done under carefully controlled conditions with young growing fish and only alteration in alkaline phosphatase activity has been reported on different vitamin D diet intake. Hypervitaminosis D, however, has been reported. Brook trout fed large doses of vitamin D showed impaired growth, lethargy, and dark colouration. High intake of vitamin D mobilizes phosphorus and calcium from the bone and tissues and may result in fragile bones, poor growth, and poor appetite related to the nausea described in man afflicted with hyper-vitaminosis D. Arterial and kidney lesions due to excessive intake of vitamin D reported for rats and dogs have not been described histologically for fish nor has hypercalcaemia been described. This area needs to be explored because of the potential for hypervitaminosis D in fish fed diets containing various fish viscera which might contain large amounts of the vitamin D. Tuna liver oil may contain, for example, 100 to 1 000 times as much active vitamin D as cod liver oil.

Just a few examples of why one doesn't want to get too carried away when it comes to supplementing their fishes diet, unless that diet is lacking in adequate levels to begin with.


HTH

 

[Mythic Figment]

Patrick, if you are feeding NLS there is no real added benefit in adding Vitachem to any of your food.

For those that feed frozen/live exclusively, pre-soaking in a liquid vitamin supplement every 2-3 days would probably be good enough to keep your fish from suffering from any vitamin deficiencies. Ditto if you feed a premium pellet 3 times a week, or mix some pellets into your frozen food.

Vitamins really begin to play a key role in fish that are under stress, such as illness, breeding, aggression from tank mates, poor water conditions such as low 02 levels, etc-etc. When it comes to vitamins it really boils down to what is bioavailable to the fish, something that we really don't know that much about when it comes to many of the ornamental species kept in the hobby. So we tend to extrapolate much of the data that has been formed with commercial species. IMHO some the data published by the NRC back in the early 90's is outdated, and unfortunately some manufacturers still rely on that data to support the vitamin supplementation levels in their products. While a breeding pair of CA cichlids may require 500 mg/kg of Vitamin C for optimum health, an adult L190 panaque pleco that rules the tank may require only a fraction of that amount. My philosophy with most species is when it comes to vitamins & trace minerals, better safe than sorry, keeping in the back of my mind that one doesn't want to oversupplement either. (hypervitaminosis)

http://www.fao.org/docrep/X5738E/x5738e07.htm











Just a few examples of why one doesn't want to get too carried away when it comes to supplementing their fishes diet, unless that diet is lacking in adequate levels to begin with.


HTH

Wow. Thanks for the info RD!


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