I understand something of the use of fillers in food as well as fortifiers.
But I'm seeing Milk products (whey, etc) in fish food?
Trix are for Kids, and Milk is for Mammals!**
Is this as nuts as it seems?
OK to be honest, until I came to MFK, I never was keenly aware of any particular issue of feeding "non-aquatic matter" as food to aquatic creatures. For 4 decades I fed nothing but Tetramin flake and Wardley's Shrimp pellets, & cheap steamed zucchini*. I always had big fat fish. Lots of filler (meal) was in that fish food, but it was in mine too . . .
Many years back, I started feeding Tetra pleco wafers to my common plecos & they got fatter yet. now most folks (and some of us Americans) understand that Fat isn't Healthy, and it dawned on me as well: fillers?
In the 1990's I cut back 75% on commercial foods and fed much zucchini to the big fish (Plecos, Silver Dollars.) It seemed to work well, and my plecos, who had never lived over 8 years were living to 14 !
Now I raise a lot more species, and stock a lot more commercial foods. I am becoming prejudiced that seafood is the holy grail, and that maybe I should eliminate commercial foods (milk!) and "terrestrial" foods for the big fish. I want to raise shrimp and feeders and maybe crawdads, but the extra work is a concern.
But I'm not sure I could do better than commercial food, as the issue of added vitamins and minerals + other modern fortifiers concerns me.
Recently I cut out the zucchini and started feeding Bug Bites, dried krill, AlgaeMax & Excel with spirulina. Impossible to say with what effect yet. I recently moved all these fish around and they're still unsettled, but still fat. I'm thinking a varied diet would be better than just PlecoWafers, Zucchinni and Tetramin.
Paying $50~100/lb for commercial foods is unwelcome, but for krill and spirulina-based it's not cheap.
*I live in the zucchini capitol of the known universe. It's almost like crabgrass here.
**When I wrote that I immediately envisioned a Hollywood mermaid, and 100% cognitive dissonance ensued.
But I'm seeing Milk products (whey, etc) in fish food?
Trix are for Kids, and Milk is for Mammals!**
Is this as nuts as it seems?
OK to be honest, until I came to MFK, I never was keenly aware of any particular issue of feeding "non-aquatic matter" as food to aquatic creatures. For 4 decades I fed nothing but Tetramin flake and Wardley's Shrimp pellets, & cheap steamed zucchini*. I always had big fat fish. Lots of filler (meal) was in that fish food, but it was in mine too . . .
Many years back, I started feeding Tetra pleco wafers to my common plecos & they got fatter yet. now most folks (and some of us Americans) understand that Fat isn't Healthy, and it dawned on me as well: fillers?
In the 1990's I cut back 75% on commercial foods and fed much zucchini to the big fish (Plecos, Silver Dollars.) It seemed to work well, and my plecos, who had never lived over 8 years were living to 14 !
Now I raise a lot more species, and stock a lot more commercial foods. I am becoming prejudiced that seafood is the holy grail, and that maybe I should eliminate commercial foods (milk!) and "terrestrial" foods for the big fish. I want to raise shrimp and feeders and maybe crawdads, but the extra work is a concern.
But I'm not sure I could do better than commercial food, as the issue of added vitamins and minerals + other modern fortifiers concerns me.
Recently I cut out the zucchini and started feeding Bug Bites, dried krill, AlgaeMax & Excel with spirulina. Impossible to say with what effect yet. I recently moved all these fish around and they're still unsettled, but still fat. I'm thinking a varied diet would be better than just PlecoWafers, Zucchinni and Tetramin.
Paying $50~100/lb for commercial foods is unwelcome, but for krill and spirulina-based it's not cheap.
*I live in the zucchini capitol of the known universe. It's almost like crabgrass here.
**When I wrote that I immediately envisioned a Hollywood mermaid, and 100% cognitive dissonance ensued.
