Best Fish Foods

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projectile said:
whoa! the first fish food thread without a fight in over 4 pages, great!
me, I have snakeheads atm and feeding is mainly hikari carni sticks and weekly once chicken and misc worms( the tank is outside in the balcony, I leave the tank lights on after dark for a few hours an assortment of flying insects fly in for the snakeheads to enjoy a buffet!), NLS is just not available or very old when found.

also for my Malawians & Tangs ( different tanks) they get a aquaculture feed sinking pellets ( very high in protein, surface skimming is a must with this food) the growth is unmatched compared to any aquarium product I have tried till now, very stinky food though!
its like feed , feed , WC , Feed , Feed ,WC . when i don't want super growth I go with maintenance foods like hikari.( just to save up on WC)

cost of it like a kilo for about 2 USD! :headbang2
Click to expand...

This is def the coolest diet I've read about so far! Love the insects at night feeding, totally dopealisious! And the cost, WOW!


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JwHiser13 said:
This is def the coolest diet I've read about so far! Love the insects at night feeding, totally dopealisious! And the cost, WOW!


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Click to expand...

Infact this idea was researched for a sustainable farming project that i undertook at my friend's farm.

Small farm which primarily grow veggies (2 acres)
Borewell Was used here for irrigation, what we came up with between drinking beer and swatting insects in the evenings was to make a few concrete tanks which hold fish. And a small light to attract insects at night.
Water is made to overflow and go into irrigation channels everyday for An hour.
Since insects are 90%+ protien the growth of fish as well as plants is fantastic
Fish get protien and water change daily and plants get nitrogen.

We grew tilapia for the expt , now planning on doing a bit of unattended breeding of ornamental cichlids.

Since there's no waterbody nearby risk of any accidental introductions is ruled out.

Purple coloured lights attract more insects also during the mayfly ( ants with wings ) season , mega growth spurt is noticed.

Hope this gives atleast some of you some ideas for growouts, as a bonus the coloration is awesome too.:)

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projectile said:
Infact this idea was researched for a sustainable farming project that i undertook at my friend's farm.

Small farm which primarily grow veggies (2 acres)
Borewell Was used here for irrigation, what we came up with between drinking beer and swatting insects in the evenings was to make a few concrete tanks which hold fish. And a small light to attract insects at night.
Water is made to overflow and go into irrigation channels everyday for An hour.
Since insects are 90%+ protien the growth of fish as well as plants is fantastic
Fish get protien and water change daily and plants get nitrogen.

We grew tilapia for the expt , now planning on doing a bit of unattended breeding of ornamental cichlids.

Since there's no waterbody nearby risk of any accidental introductions is ruled out.

Purple coloured lights attract more insects also during the mayfly ( ants with wings ) season , mega growth spurt is noticed.

Hope this gives atleast some of you some ideas for growouts, as a bonus the coloration is awesome too.:)

Sent from my GT-I9100G using MonsterAquariaNetwork App
Click to expand...

Is there a site that shows the data collected? Was there a control group to compare the study's results with to give a base of growth and color? Sounds really cool!


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I will Chk if my friend has any notes ! actually my friend is studying horticulture and took this up as a proof of concept for his project which revolves mainly around avoidance of chemicals in agriculture to the extent possible and also augmenting a small farmers income / food source.

also very minimum amount of groundnut cake was added only when insect quantity reduced. We had 30 tilapia to start with ended up with 20 12" inch fish in about 6 months.( few died , predators took some )
Breeding also Was observed as the pairs were not grilled.;)

tank is 10 x 15 x 6 with 3 ft above ground

we have gone OT here, sorry for that.
If i get documented data or get to be part of phase 2 of this project , will make a thread about it.

Trouble is the farm is very far from my house.

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projectile said:
I will Chk if my friend has any notes ! actually my friend is studying horticulture and took this up as a proof of concept for his project which revolves mainly around avoidance of chemicals in agriculture to the extent possible and also augmenting a small farmers income / food source.

also very minimum amount of groundnut cake was added only when insect quantity reduced. We had 30 tilapia to start with ended up with 20 12" inch fish in about 6 months.( few died , predators took some )
Breeding also Was observed as the pairs were not grilled.;)

tank is 10 x 15 x 6 with 3 ft above ground

we have gone OT here, sorry for that.
If i get documented data or get to be part of phase 2 of this project , will make a thread about it.

Trouble is the farm is very far from my house.

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Click to expand...

Awesome, hope to see!


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Hope this gives atleast some of you some ideas for growouts, as a bonus the coloration is awesome too
Click to expand...


Not to rain on anyones parade but there is a couple of problems with your experiment that I thought should be mentioned before anyone runs out and starts mass feeding insects to their fish, especially young growouts. For a starter, tilapia will show decent growth when fed sh. sandwiches, which is why they are used on commercial farms in 3rd world countries where the funds for commercial aquaculture feed is very limited. Not all fish will appreciate a groundnut cake. :)

Secondly, the insects that are easily found in North America do not typically consist of 90% protein. Even on a dry matter basis (moisture removed) the more commonly found insects that are fed in captivity average 40-70$ crude protein. As far as crude protein goes that's still impressive, but the main problem of most insects fed in captivity is that they are very poor sources of calcium. Over time this can result in an unbalanced calcium-phosphorus ratio, which can result in serious health issues.

For those interested please refer to Table 1, and Table 2, in the following document.

FEEDING CAPTIVE INSECTIVOROUS ANIMALS: NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS OF INSECTS AS FOOD

http://www.nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf




HTH
 
RD. said:
Not to rain on anyones parade but there is a couple of problems with your experiment that I thought should be mentioned before anyone runs out and starts mass feeding insects to their fish, especially young growouts. For a starter, tilapia will show decent growth when fed sh. sandwiches, which is why they are used on commercial farms in 3rd world countries where the funds for commercial aquaculture feed is very limited. Not all fish will appreciate a groundnut cake. :)

Secondly, the insects that are easily found in North America do not typically consist of 90% protein. Even on a dry matter basis (moisture removed) the more commonly found insects that are fed in captivity average 40-70$ crude protein. As far as crude protein goes that's still impressive, but the main problem of most insects fed in captivity is that they are very poor sources of calcium. Over time this can result in an unbalanced calcium-phosphorus ratio, which can result in serious health issues.

For those interested please refer to Table 1, and Table 2, in the following document.

FEEDING CAPTIVE INSECTIVOROUS ANIMALS: NUTRITIONAL ASPECTS OF INSECTS AS FOOD

http://www.nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf




HTH
Click to expand...

Great added information there! I was interested in seeing notes of the experiment, just thought it'd be a fun read. So you're not raining on anyone's parade! Perhaps you can share what your fishes diets are for this thread as was its meaning. Looking forward to seeing your regimen! Thanks again for the post!


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