Baby Oscar only eats pellets

[RD.]

I guess that you didn't read that link that I posted in my last comment? lol
Beef is not an ideal food for discus, or Oscars.......

 

[jaws7777]

This thread should be a sticky......How to not feed your fish.

 

[ehh]

What does adding terrestrial based plant matter do for a fish, that by nature is designed to eat aquatic plant matter as a side dish?

Aquatic based plant matter, such as spirulina, kelp, etc is the way to go. Terrestrial based plant matter, especially uncooked, contains anti-nutritional matter, such as tannins, protease inhibitors, saponins, cyanogens, and phytic acid, which when consumed in excess can have a very negative effect on the growth & overall health of fish.


The heat from processing will reduce most of this anti-nutritional matter, but even then most fish can only digest & assimilate so much terrestrial based plant matter. All of this has been well documented in commercial aquaculture for many years.

whats you take on paradigm fish food. their main ingredient is pea powder. I'm guessing its heated to some extent to get the flour consistency.

 

[RD.]

Personally I would not feed my fish any food that had any form of terrestrial based flour as the main ingredient. Pea, soybean, corn, wheat, whatever, pretty much all the same in my book. Paradigm is a farce in my opinion. Terrestrial based flour as a main ingredient, 17% crude fiber, and a bunch of nonsense to market it. The following is a partial response that I made to the manufacturer a couple months back on another forum, after he posted the following to me.

In response to the misinformation on high fiber contents in our foods:

Herbivores and to some degree Omnivores need fiber to help pass the food through their long digestive tracts. Yes the fiber gets passed into the aquarium. Fiber doesn't clog filters or have a negative impact on water quality. It is removed through partial water changes.

My response ..........

But I think you missed the most obvious point, that being that most manufacturers don't use wheat flour as the main ingredient in their food, unlike your use of pea flour, which in the formula posted previously did in fact list pea flour as the main ingredient of the food. I honestly don't care what type of flour it is, I personally don't want to see flour as the main ingredient in anything that I feed my fish - but maybe that's just me?


With regards to fiber .....

All plant ingredients contain a certain amount of fiber in the form of cellulose, hemicellulose, lignin along with other complex carbohydrates, that are generally indigestible to fish. Fiber adds physical bulk to the feeds, and a certain amount of fiber in food permits better binding and possibly with some diets helps move food through the alimentary canal. It has been noted (De Silva and Anderson (1995) that it was not desirable to have a fiber content above 8-12% in diets designed for any species of fish, as the increase in fiber content would consequently result in the decrease of the quality of an unusable nutrient in the diet.

When fiber content is excessive, it results in lower digestibility of nutrients, and an increase in fecal matter. Therefore fiber content should be limited in order to improve overall digestibility of the food. If food moves too quickly through the digestive tract, nutrients may not be fully absorbed. Most commercial feed formulations designed for tropical species of fish contain 3-5% fiber content.

The following quote is from an article by Frank A. Chapman, associate professor and Extension aquaculture specialist, Program in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences; and Richard Miles, professor, Department of Animal Sciences, University of Florida.

https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa159


“Typical values for crude protein in fish production feeds normally range from 36% to 42%, for lipid 6% to 15%, and for crude fiber 3% to 5%. Feeds with high protein and lipid content coupled with low fiber are generally considered to be of higher quality than those with a high fiber content. Fish have no specific requirement for fiber, and feeds with high fiber content (higher than 8%) are of low feeding value simply because of the diluting effect of fiber in the diet.”


Or you can believe some guy who makes a food called Paradigm .........

 

[RD.]

And as described in the following link, this is why you never want to feed terrestrial based plant matter in a raw state.

ENDOGENOUS ANTI-NUTRITIONAL FACTORS PRESENT IN PLANT FEEDSTUFFS

http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0700e/T0700E06.htm

 

[ehh]

Ok thanks. It's what I've been using for about 6 months but I'm getting annoyed with consistancy of it. Thought I'd ask your opinion of it after reading your initial post, the post I quoted. And before i decided to order another bag of it lol

 

[32Bit_Fish]

I'm currently keeping my 2.5" Oscar with my three 7" discus in a 75G. Hopefully they will get along well until I can sell my discus.

 

[Gill Blue]

most aquarium fish have an issue with high levels of body fat because of too much food too often combined with a lack of exercise. it shortens their lifespan for the same reasons it does so for many animals, including humans. there's no real need to add beef to that problem.

 

[32Bit_Fish]

I guess I have ditch two bags of my ground beef seafood mix then. Originally I thought the beef helps the fish grow faster.

 

[Gill Blue]

you've got it, go ahead and use it, sparingly. otherwise you're just wasting the animal's lives that went into making it, the energy used to make and transport it, and the energy and materials used in producing the packaging.
it's just like your dietary requirements. a cheeseburger every now and then isn't that big of an issue, eat them all the time and it takes a toll on you and the rest of the environment.