Validity Of Non-Live/Preparred Foods

[Piscineidiot]

Just out of interest, has anyone conducted an experiment using live/dead foods of the exact same species and origin as food and compared growth rates then?

e.g. if you caught your own wild minnows etc. kept half of them alive, and killed/froze the other half and fed one cichla the live ones and the other the same number of dead ones.

That to my mind would be the only way to scientifically test the 'live vs. dead' theory. Of course, the behaviours of cichla hunting live food are interesting, and may alleviate whatever 'boredom' (if they're capable of experiencing that) they may be feeling, but in terms of growth rates, I don't see how a live fish is nutritionally different to a dead one of the same species.

A lot of the anecdotes on here seem to be of people feeding live fish of one species to their fish and observing a definite difference in growth rate to a fish being fed nothing but processed foods, or frozen foods of a very different nutritional value.

I personally know of a couple of studies out there detailing the fact that fish are digested much quicker than inverterbrates by marine fish, and would therefore contribute to faster growth rates. I do not however, recall if the fish 'food' was alive at the time of ingestion.

Any thoughts?

 

[Tongue33]

I have done this experiment on 3 occasions.. Undocumented as I didn't think about it except in the last one.. Still was too lazy.


Live food equals faster growth in all 3.

 

[Tongue33]

here is a post from me over on Cichlid-forum on the 29 of January this year siting my experience in this.

Growth food is proven to be LIVE fish . I have tested on several occasions live food vs live fish and live fish and live food vs non live.
In every experiment I have conducted the Live fish as food always produced double even triple growth rate in My Cichla.
I even tested for a month one tank eating pellets and frozen brine a couple times a day versus another tank eating fish every other day
The tank eating fish every other day grew from 1" to 3" in the one month perios and the fish in the Pellet and Frozen brine grew to 2" in the one month period.
They ate their fill on the frozen brine and pellets. And ate about to about the same stomache size on baby gups ...
Still for every one inch the non live diet grew.. the Live fish diet tank grew 2"
I also tried this with one tank eating earthworms at 3" and another eating live fish.. Growth was the same as stated above.. the live worm fed daily fish grew to 4" in the time that the live fish everyother day tank grew to 5"
This is just my own personal experience and I have plenty of cichla to be working on this with.. So I thought Why not..
Either way they still grow fast depending on species.. ocellaris, monoculus, and farmed Ocell/Mono grow at pretty much the same pace.
Hope that helps.

To add... Itsalmosteasy and I conducted a similar experiment with two Orinos.

I fed frozen bloodworms,mysis, and brine and he fed live fish...

Every week he would come over and laugh.. Cause Me " The Live fish feeding Nazi" Was not feedign live fish.. And the Orino I had was growing less than half the speed of the Orino he had!

At 2 months his was 2" larger than the one I had.


I started feeding Live fish and The dang thing sprouted wings and grew!! Thoguh Still didn't catch up to Itsalmosteasy's... But I felt after these experiments that my conlusion is pretty good.

 

[channarox]

ive tried this test before with two batches of baby temensis,3 in each tank and all the same size and from the same batch.
they were im guessing 1-2" when i got them.
one i fed live and the other i fed a mainly shrimp diet.
in 3 months the batch fed only live was already 6-7" while the other batch was slightly smaller at around 4-5".
this was when i was actually allowed more than one tank...

i would LOVE to feed a constant diet of live foods.
however,because im living with parents they make the rules around here.
and the rule now is ONLY ONE TANK in the house.
whenever i feed feeders i dont quarantine because i cant and i run the risk of feeding a dirty feeder.
lucky enough for me,the store i buy feeders from usually has very healthy batches of feeders.
still,the risk is always there.
also,being a student i dont have the time to go to the lfs very often to get feeders especially with my nationals coming around.
when i catch or buy feeders all i do is rinse them under fresh water and then drop them in the tank.
its obvious the differences when feeding live from non live.
when i feed live the cichla really color up and are so much more enthusiastic then when they see me with cut up shrimp.
lucky enough for me i havent lossed any cichla so far with bad feeders.

 

[channarox]

tongue,your pair are my favourite pair on this forum.

 

[Tongue33]

Thanks

Man!! I hope I never get the One tank rule!! Cause I really love my wife

 

[Scatocephalus]

I knew Joey had a lot to say about the subject. I was wondering when he'd chime in. Awesome vids and yes, you can see the intensity and fervor that these fish exhibit when feeding live foods.

I live near Joey and see how he takes in everyone's unwanted fish. I've often wondered if all of these people know that their prized spawn of Malawian cichlids is headed for the dinner plate. Joey's like that guy that takes home the free kittens in front of the grocery store to feed his python. LOL

 

[Marius]

ive tried this test before with two batches of baby temensis,3 in each tank and all the same size and from the same batch.
they were im guessing 1-2" when i got them.
one i fed live and the other i fed a mainly shrimp diet.
in 3 months the batch fed only live was already 6-7" while the other batch was slightly smaller at around 4-5".
this was when i was actually allowed more than one tank...

i would LOVE to feed a constant diet of live foods.
however,because im living with parents they make the rules around here.
and the rule now is ONLY ONE TANK in the house.
whenever i feed feeders i dont quarantine because i cant and i run the risk of feeding a dirty feeder.
lucky enough for me,the store i buy feeders from usually has very healthy batches of feeders.
still,the risk is always there.
also,being a student i dont have the time to go to the lfs very often to get feeders especially with my nationals coming around.
when i catch or buy feeders all i do is rinse them under fresh water and then drop them in the tank.
its obvious the differences when feeding live from non live.
when i feed live the cichla really color up and are so much more enthusiastic then when they see me with cut up shrimp.
lucky enough for me i havent lossed any cichla so far with bad feeders.

Do you have space INSIDE the stand? If you can sneak in one or two 10gal tanks, then you're set with the quarantine tanks.

If you feed feeder goldfish all you need is a good air source and daily water changes, no filter, no heater needed. Plus, if you can sneak those 10gal in, then you can deworm, quarantine your feeders and have some piece of mind.

 

[R1_Ridah]

Live food equals faster growth in all 3.

Do you think by freezing goldfish it will loose some of it's nutrients over time compared to fresh live fish?

I think someone should document a test on Massivore vs Live. Massivore is the only one that had worked for me to really see an increase in growth for my PBASS. Ofcourse I was feeding by the handfuls.

The only reason I don't like it is the freakin "Stank" of an odor it has. In addition when the PBASS craps, it freakn makes a mess on the bottom of the tank and builds up.

The test should consist as follows.
Get two Pbass in the same tank with a divider ofcourse.
Regiment to feed every other day. This way it will give the PBASS adequate time to digest it's food. Feed 1 Massivore Pellet since it advertises 1 = 2 Goldfish and feed the other 2 Live goldfish. Being in the same tank, same water condition however two differen't feedings should be interesting.

Run it's course for at least a couple of months and I think an increase in growth will be seen.

 

[Marius]

Do you think by freezing goldfish it will loose some of it's nutrients over time compared to fresh live fish?

Of course, but not as much as worms for example. Frozen fish loose some vitamins, but once thawed their cells don't break as badly as frozen worms for example. Worms, once they hit the water they leak out nutrients as the cells break.

It's definitely one interesting project, and a little difficult for one to do this on his own in real time. Might I suggest a couple people getting together and doing a conjoint study?