Particular discus care

[Hendre]

Here as in where you live, or here as in MFK? Lots of discus keepers still feed beef heart mixes.

Here in SA it is deeply frowned upon. Not good for lifespan whatsoever, people here feed Benkers frozen, pellet and even lean ostrich in some cases. People have been raising and breeding wonderful fish without beefheart.

 

[RD.]

Hendre, I suggest you take a closer look at the discus folder of the SA tropical fish site that you are a member of.
https://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/forums/discus.123/

Even the sticky author in the nutrition sub folder feeds beef heart. I'm not saying that there aren't those that do not feed it, but clearly many people in SA do, including members of that forum. It might be frowned upon in certain social circles, but that's about it.

I'm afraid that unfortunately the vast majority of discus owners world-wide still feed beef heart.

 

[Hendre]

I see, however if I recall correctly that person vehemently dislikes beefheart now. I'll get in touch with him, not that was written well over two years ago.

I'll do some more diving, but also saw one of your posts against beefheart:

I posted the following last year in response to the feeding beefheart to fish question .......



Fish aren't hard wired to assimilate the fatty acids found in beef, chicken, etc anymore than they are hard wired to assimilate large amounts of carbs. These excess lipids get stored in & around the organs, and eventually shorten the fishes lifespan. Can these foodstuffs offer amino acids, and solid growth, yes, no question about that, but that doesn't qualify them as being a good source of food for a fish.

Even a lot of the major discus keepers have moved away from beefheart over the past decade, for these exact reasons. It's a great food for breeders that simply want quick growth in their juvie fish (so they can take them to market quicker) but it is most certainly not an ideal long term diet. Lee Newman, Curator of Tropical Waters at the Vancouver Public Aquarium has spoken out against feeding beefheart many times, for the same reason as I do, it tends to lead to fatty degeneration of the liver.

Dr. Peter Burgess MSc, Ph.D.,of the Aquarium Advisory Service in England, is not only an experienced aquarium hobbyist, but also a scientist that specializes in the health & disease in fish. He has written over 300 articles and five books on fish health and is a visiting lecturer in Aquarium Sciences and Conservation at Plymouth University, where he works with the University of Plymouth training students in scientific research. Among his other positions, Dr. Burgess is a senior consultant to the Mars FishCare business and regularly runs fish health & husbandry courses for aquarists, fish scientists and vets. He's also a regular contributor & Fish Health consultant for the Practical Fishkeeping Magazine, as well as other magazines devoted to the fish keeping hobby.

Below is an excerpt from the Practical Fishkeeping Magazine and written by Dr. Burgess, titled;


Liver Damage and Red Meats





Add to that, FH are not carnivores, and their digestion system is not designed to digest large amounts of protein, no matter the source of that protein. There is no need to feed a FH prawn, tilapia, etc. If you feel the need to supplement their diet with live food, feed them some vegetable matter.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/threads/beef-heart.516069/

Just an example.

 

[RD.]

Yes, I have been speaking out against feeding BH to fish, for many years.

I was simply pointing out that many discus keepers (world-wide) still embrace the use of it. The author of that sticky wasn't the only person on your SA forum that supported the use of beefheart. You better clue those folks in.

 

[Hendre]

Ah. No harm done!

The author is Prof Dirk who I have posted about here before, he left the forums after that and broke off from the chain of beefheart too. The current active discus keepers preach the proper message nowadays

 

[Madou]

I don't even understand where feeding beef heart came from.
That's worse than feeding red meat to piranhas, and that actually does happen once in a while in the wild. I can't imagine a discus commonly swimming upon a beef, taking out its heart and feeding in it.

Fine, my imagination does go way too far sometimes.

 

[RD.]

From the following link …..

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?73086-quot-Beefheart-quot-under-the-microscope/page4

"In the beginning, when discus were being imported in milk containers from S.A. , mortality was high. Germany was getting most of the discus then. Feeding was a problem. The wild fish were not taking the dry foods available at that time. Live food was fed almost exclusively, with tubifex being the discus' favorite food. As we know, and they did, too, tubifex were carriers of several types of pathogens. Many experiments were performed. Someone (I do not recall his name, but have it in an article packed away) sliced beefheart into worm-like slivers, and the discus began to accept it. Over time, more experiments provided us with the ground mixes we have now. It's popularity today is mostly out of tradition and cost effectiveness with bigger breeders and farms. It is not the best food for discus though. Dr. Schmidt-Focke was one of the first to realize this, and quit feeding his discus BH in favor of a seafood diet. Untergasser also has showed us the harm BH can have on discus and other cichlids. Dr. Winfree, who makes a living on fish nutrition in the lab and the tank, also rejects the idea of BH as a diet for all types of cichlids.

Discus cannot digest mammalian fat, known as hard fat or tallow, causing gut problems for the fish. Fat collects around vital organs, shaving years off a fish's life. Discus have been known to live up to 15 years. The harmfulness of mammalian meat to cichlids is not a theory, it has been clinically proven. BH does contain the least amount of fat than any other muscle in a steer.

Mat "

I posted in that 2009-2010 discussion as well, starting at post # 77. Funny how most of what I posted back then was ignored by the vast majority.

 

[Hendre]

New ideas do take time to set in. Especially when most of the information nowadays screams beefheart at you.

 

[RD.]

That link above, posted on one of the largest, if not the largest discus specific forum on the web (65,000 members), was started close to a decade ago. lol

These are not exactly new ideas, nor is the information that I posted in that discussion, new. The information on the net still screams beef heart due to websites such as the one linked to above, where longevity is shadowed by quick gains in growth.

 

[RD.]

Just wondering if you decided to give this a go, and what the results have been thus far?