Vegan /vegetarian fish food

[thiswasgone]

Yes of course, i put up that picture above specifically because it illustrates the beautiful juxtaposition of sharp canine teeth ripping into some fibrous vegetation. but the whole point is they can and do subsist entirely on vegetation when they need or want to for whatever reason. After all, being strictly herbivorous would put them at the same disadvantage carnivores face.

I feel like everyones getting wound up over the wrong reasons here. Just as OP shouldnt prescribe their vegan diet plan to their fish we shouldnt be ascribing our warped political beliefs to them either.

Your example is extremely disingenuous. Given the choice Pandas would most likely eat meat (they do but mainly only carrion in the wild as they de-evoled their drive to do so) but they evolved so far down an extremely niche path during the previous Pleistocene (ice age) that they are now at the brink of extinction. Had humans not evolved to what we are today the giant panda species may have evolved into a true herbivore in several thousand more years but as it stand they are a predatory animal forced to be herbivores due to environmental changes. However, even regardless of humans, the most realistic view of giant pandas as a species paint them as an evolutionary dead end.

Still, to humor the point, the only way to replicate such a change in the home aquarium setting is to force feed and breed several hundred generations of fish until you keep getting fry that survive long enough on a vegan diet and carefully interbreed those fries until you create a substrain that will inevitably go extinct due to having such a strict nutritional diet. My judgement/opinion on such matters is immaterial as we already do this type of breeding for aesthetics; however, most people on this forum (and likely any serious fish keeping forum) would likely find this reprehensible and condemn it much like the previous pages already express.

To your final point, how anyone on this forum treats their pet is their own business but I would hope that their actions/treatments are driven behind solid, rational thinking and experiences (both your own and from others). To most people attempting to convert non-humans to vegan diets is irrational and pointless; to declare this as as a "warped political belief" is ridiculous. It's not political to point out the obvious; it's unethical and unrealistic long term to forcfully feed your pets diets their bodies are not designed to withdraw nutrients from.

 

[RD.]

I never had anything against his use of fish processing waste, just didn’t like how he poo pooed fishmeal, and made asinine comments like the one in that article. Void of nutrients, total farce, but plenty of folks took the bait.

 

[Trouser Cough]

Marketing: A predatory process aimed at influencing the purchasing decisions of those least capable of making an informed choice on their own.

I appreciate the insight, RD.

 

[Friller2009]

My fish get routinely fed vegetable matter in the form of mostly aquatic plants (Vallisneria, Watercress, Duckweed and hornwort) through my diy frozen food mix.
But they don't get fed that only. Also in the mix is a range of fish and invertebrates (The species changes each time I make it up)

I just think a varied diets a good diet. I've personally observed grunters, rainbows and others eat plant material in the wild. However I have also seen grunter smash down a smelt which happened to swim past and rainbows dart to the surface to grab a bug which fell in.

Regardless, fish need proper food.
Feeding fish a vegan diet would be like feeding cows dead sheep - And look how that turned out.

Fish don't got personal opinions, views and beliefs so don't put our silly human things onto them.

I'm not having a dig at you for being a vegan. I don't really give a damn about "animal rights" and seeing feeding animals to animals which eat animals as wrong. I would go vegan if it genuinely was better health wise than a nice varied diet.

And touching on that last bit. Animals eat animals. Haven't you heard that Disney song?

 

[Backfromthedead]

Your example is extremely disingenuous. Given the choice Pandas would most likely eat meat (they do but mainly only carrion in the wild as they de-evoled their drive to do so) but they evolved so far down an extremely niche path during the previous Pleistocene (ice age) that they are now at the brink of extinction. Had humans not evolved to what we are today the giant panda species may have evolved into a true herbivore in several thousand more years but as it stand they are a predatory animal forced to be herbivores due to environmental changes. However, even regardless of humans, the most realistic view of giant pandas as a species paint them as an evolutionary dead end.

Still, to humor the point, the only way to replicate such a change in the home aquarium setting is to force feed and breed several hundred generations of fish until you keep getting fry that survive long enough on a vegan diet and carefully interbreed those fries until you create a substrain that will inevitably go extinct due to having such a strict nutritional diet. My judgement/opinion on such matters is immaterial as we already do this type of breeding for aesthetics; however, most people on this forum (and likely any serious fish keeping forum) would likely find this reprehensible and condemn it much like the previous pages already express.

To your final point, how anyone on this forum treats their pet is their own business but I would hope that their actions/treatments are driven behind solid, rational thinking and experiences (both your own and from others). To most people attempting to convert non-humans to vegan diets is irrational and pointless; to declare this as as a "warped political belief" is ridiculous. It's not political to point out the obvious; it's unethical and unrealistic long term to forcfully feed your pets diets their bodies are not designed to withdraw nutrients from.

Extremely disingenuous huh? Yeah youre right, cause only bears evolve apparently, no way theres even one species of fish out of millions throughout the course of natural history that would've had to follow a similar path. Sorry, im trying hard to close my mind enough to get the hang of all this.

Theres a group of people on this thread arguing we shouldnt humanize our fish, all the while humanizing them by applying their own opinions to the issue instead of addressing this question objectively.

Reprehensible? Unethical? Fish care not what a bunch of self-righteous primates think is good and right. They will adapt to the status quo and move on regardless. What you call an evolutionary dead end i would call a new beginning. Were things to change drastically on this planet tomorrow to favor vegetarian bears, pandas would proliferate, and those beholden to the old ways would perish.

Humans try to explain things in terms of what they can control. The natural world simply isnt bound by your ethics or opinions, fish especially.

 

[JackEmerson]

Does the fish-keeping hobby exist in locations where people are observant Hindus? The Hindu folks I know do not eat meat/fish, and I doubt they would feed such matter to pets. If a quality pure veggie diet was possible (I doubt it is), it may open the hobby to a much larger worldwide group.

For those who are sensitive to these topics, no this is not a discussion on religion or politics, but it is a discussion on how those who are strict vegan/vegetarian (a huge worldwide population) can feed fish in a healthy manner.

 

[Trouser Cough]

... it is a discussion on how those who are strict vegan/vegetarian (a huge worldwide population) can feed fish in a healthy manner.

They can do that only by being selective about the types of fish they care for. This thread pitty-pats around an unresolvable issue and subjective nonsense is inserted at random intervals to make it seem plausible that an omnivore could thrive as a vegetarian when in fact very few instances can be documented even amongst humans and even then it's a stretch to pretend that guys that drive 200mph race cars are also strength athletes.

Louis Hamilton may be an endurance athlete but a strength athlete he is not. Arnold may once have been a steroid addled bodybuilder but to assume that at 76 he's now either a bodybuilder or a strength competitor is too generous.

An omnivore is a carnivore as well. Using an example that's not too extreme in the context of prior comments consider that a piranha is also a carnivore with minimal omnivore tendencies.

Would it be reasonable to expect that that same piranha should be nurtured by someone intent on finding a vegetarian solution for it? Would it have any ability to spontaneously evolve in a manner that might satisfy the needs of its "rescuer"? How long might it survive with what we'll call a 'runner's physique' before it transitioned to the trash can?

 

[JackEmerson]

They can do that only by being selective about the types of fish they care for. This thread pitty-pats around an unresolvable issue and subjective nonsense is inserted at random intervals to make it seem plausible that an omnivore could thrive as a vegetarian when in fact very few instances can be documented even amongst humans and even then it's a stretch to pretend that guys that drive 200mph race cars are also strength athletes.

Louis Hamilton may be an endurance athlete but a strength athlete he is not. Arnold may once have been a steroid addled bodybuilder but to assume that at 76 he's now either a bodybuilder or a strength competitor is too generous.

An omnivore is a carnivore as well. Using an example that's not too extreme in the context of prior comments consider that a piranha is also a carnivore with minimal omnivore tendencies.

Would it be reasonable to expect that that same piranha should be nurtured by someone intent on finding a vegetarian solution for it? Would it have any ability to spontaneously evolve in a manner that might satisfy the needs of its "rescuer"? How long might it survive with what we'll call a 'runner's physique' before it transitioned to the trash can?

 

[thiswasgone]

Extremely disingenuous huh? Yeah youre right, cause only bears evolve apparently, no way theres even one species of fish out of millions throughout the course of natural history that would've had to follow a similar path. Sorry, im trying hard to close my mind enough to get the hang of all this.

Theres a group of people on this thread arguing we shouldnt humanize our fish, all the while humanizing them by applying their own opinions to the issue instead of addressing this question objectively.

Reprehensible? Unethical? Fish care not what a bunch of self-righteous primates think is good and right. They will adapt to the status quo and move on regardless. What you call an evolutionary dead end i would call a new beginning. Were things to change drastically on this planet tomorrow to favor vegetarian bears, pandas would proliferate, and those beholden to the old ways would perish.

Humans try to explain things in terms of what they can control. The natural world simply isnt bound by your ethics or opinions, fish especially.

Again with the disingenuous claims; where have I or anyone else claim there are no herbivore fish species or that fish could not evolve to be one? If you're going to argue stick to the point and don't make ad hominem and strawman attacks on the people who disagree with the OP of the thread. My previous post was 2-fold: claiming giant pandas are a carnivore surviving as a herbivore is disingenuous (they are a "transitional" heribivore species although it's doom to be a failure; "transitional" only due to their taxonomical classifications as carnivores) and the entire discussion, until you brought it up, has been fairly apolitical and non-"self righteous" as you put it. 90-99% of the comments have been strictly about the illogical decision to force carnivious/omnivorous fish a vegan diet. There is nothing political, self-righteous, or honorable to point out the obvious. At the core of most replies is not a message related to ethics but the simple fact that it is illogical to try and change the diet of creatures if it would not positively benefit them. I've read many disucssion on this forums and others on nutrition not only for fish but humans and large birds of prey. On this forum in particular RD. has extensively gone in depths about the aquarium pellet industry and had he found vegan-style pellets to be the best nutrition wise I would bet most users on this forum would switch over if we could afford to.

You and the OP seem to be the only one arguing over a moot point; most users here do not care about a partial vegan diet as we only want the best for our fish but a full-vegan diet is clearly deterimental to carnivious and omnvirous fish.

I will break this down for you clearly: there is no species on Earth, aside from humans, that intentionally desires to consume a singlur source of energy IF it has the option and ability to eat multiple types of food without competition & without extraordinary effort. Even then, it's is extremely risky for humans to solely consume a single food source type aside from a few specific examples. Most, if not all, known heribovres in nature are opportunistic carnivores as energy transfer and storage is the single driving force of life outside of (although intimately tied to) reproduction for all life aside from humans (that we know of so far).

 

[SilverArowanaBoi]

Again with the disingenuous claims; where have I or anyone else claim there are no herbivore fish species or that fish could not evolve to be one? If you're going to argue stick to the point and don't make ad hominem and strawman attacks on the people who disagree with the OP of the thread. My previous post was 2-fold: claiming giant pandas are a carnivore surviving as a herbivore is disingenuous (they are a transitional species although it's doom to be a failure) and the entire discussion, until you brought it up, has been fairly apolitical and non-"self righteous" as you put it. 90-99% of the comments have been strictly about the illogical decision to force omnivorous fish a vegan diet. There is nothing political, self-righteous, or honorable to point out the obvious.

You and the OP seem to be the only one arguing over a moot point.

I will break this down for you clearly: there is no species on Earth, aside from humans, that intentionally evolves to consume a single source of energy IF if has the option to eat other types of matter without competition. Even then, it's is extremely risky for humans to solely consume a single food source type aside from a few specific examples.

Let us take the giant panda again for example. You see the end result now but once again the Giant Panda ( Ailuropoda melanoleuca ) is a result of selective pressure due to the multiple ice ages that have occurred during the past several million years. More specifically, most recent findings believe their earliest known ancestors where likely carnivorous bears in europe (although likely spread throughout the greater Eurasia continent)

^^^ 100% agree