Flowerhorns and vegetables

[JSpilo]

I serve pellets and frozen home made food to my tank... it can be messy.. I find probably more messy than I can see because it poofs in the water and get carried through the entire water column... but my fish love it and are very healthy and growing... I started because I couldn't get my tire track eel to eat anything but frozen blood worms.. they love the home made food.. works for me also because my tank is heavy planted and do big water changes

Yeah, thanks for your descriptive input. Sounds like too much work for me. I'll just stick with pellets.

 

[Cichlids keeper]

[

I mean RD. is talking with logic and reason and is backing up all what he says with sources. You seem to be only one with there feelings hurt...grow up

Don't try to start something.

 

[JSpilo]

[
Don't try to start something.

Cichlids keeper thank you

 

[Chicxulub]

Can we please work on the delivery of our messages folks? I don't like having to give out this many infractions in one thread.

 

[Ruturaj]

I didn't say that you were a moron, but your actions regarding this subject are certainly quite juvenile. This discussion wasn't about you, your fish, or any particular brand of fish food - yet you somehow felt the need to come in here and stomp your feet about your recent experience with pellets that certainly sound too large for your fish? Okay! lol

This hobby is a never ending learning curve, so you either learn from your experiences, and those of others, or you don't. The fact that "some" pellets are more dense, or harder, or whatever, can influence the size required for the individual fish. See second quote below. You made an assumption based on other foods that you have fed, and it didn't play out. That somehow makes the food crappy? Grow up. I have raised several FH over the years, they ate NLS exclusively, and I never had any feed issues. Gee, I wonder how that happened? As I previously stated, 3-4mm is a bit of a stretch for a 4" FH. You can argue that point all you want, many years of feeding fish, including several flowerhorns tells me otherwise. Obviously with this particular brand, it didn't work out so well. Not too sure how that qualifies the food itself as being crappy? Having approx. 20 years of experience with this brand I wouldn't have recommended a 3-4mm pellet for a 4" flowerhorn.



https://www.aquaafrica.co.za/blog-articles/leslie-ter-morshuizen/1/correct-feed-particle-size/18

Correct Feed Particle Size​

March 27, 2015 | BY Leslie Ter Morshuizen



Commercial fish farming depends on providing the fish with sufficient feed of the correctly nutritional quality to promote maximum, healthy growth. Although live feeds are important and serve numerous specific needs, it is seldom workable to feed fish exclusively on live feeds. We therefore generally rely on artificial feeds for the feeding of our fish to enjoy the benefits of bulk availability, storage and operational simplicity offered by this option. As artificial feeds are supplied in different pellet sizes, starting from a powder via crumble to a large pellet, we naturally need to know how to select the feed size that is best suited the cohort of fish being fed.



Obviously the gape of the fish’s mouth is the first factor to consider; if the pellet cannot fit into the mouth it will not be ingested immediately. As the pellet soaks water and softens, the fish will nibble at it, causing the pellet to fall apart and enabling the fish to eat pieces of the pellet. This causes large amounts of feed to be wasted as bits fall to the tank floor and certain elements dissolve into the water. However, it is equally important that the pellet should not be too small as the fish will usually not feed to satiation on pellets that are too small, especially in predatory fish where the size of the pellet is important to elicit an attack response.



If the pellet can fit into the gape of the fish, but only just, the fish tend not to digest the feed completely. This is evidenced by undigested pellets seen whilst inspecting the faeces. If the feed is not being digested it is clearly not contributing to growth!



Small fish require more protein in their diet than do larger fish of the same species, so the feed manufacturers include more protein in the diet of the smaller fish, thus in the smaller feed particle sizes. Feeding large fish on small pellets will therefore also result in unnecessary protein in the diet, which translates directly to financial waste as protein is expensive.



All this imprecision begs the question: `how do you know what the correct pellet size is for a group of fish?’



I do not believe that there is a simple one-size-fits-all type of solution due to the divergent dietary strategies employed by different species of fish. Predators tend to subdue and swallow large, infrequent meals whereas detritivores and herbivores are more inclined to nibble continuously. It is therefore necessary to consider the behaviour of the species you are farming in determining the most appropriate pellet size. However, the principle is that the feed particle must comfortably fit into the mouth of the fish. Practically, the pellet should be between ¼ to ½ of the area of the gape, with predators tending to receive larger pellets than other species. Ensure that the fish can comfortably eat the feed being fed, but err on the side of larger pellets rather than smaller pellets as this shortens feeding time and the fish tend to reach satiation more easily."






https://www.researchgate.net/public...ile_Nile_tilapia_Oreochromis_niloticus_L_1758

"The preferred or optimum food particle size can be dependent on
the hardness of the food (e.g. sizes of 40–60% MW for hard pellets
versus up to 100% for soft paste balls in A. anguilla,Knights, 1983)."



https://thefishsite.com/articles/how-big-are-your-fish-pellets

"As a general rule of thumb, pellet are generally considered optimal at sizes 25% – 50% of the fish’s mouth width. However, as with anything, the relationship between pellet size and growth rate is not entirely straight forward.

Pellet size is clearly important from one key physiological perspective – the individual’s mouth. Give a fish a pellet larger than its gape, and not only may it have trouble eating that pellet, but it could even choke. The way a fish eats is also an important factor in considering what size pellet to offer. Gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata), for example, essentially “chew” large pellets before swallowing them. During chewing, some feed is lost into the water, and with it precious nutrients that could otherwise be used for growth. Recent work from scientist Mateo Ballester Moltó (Instituto Murciano de Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario, Spain) demonstrated that feeding pellets smaller in size than manufacturer recommendations to gilthead sea bream reduced the need for chewing, reducing the loss of up to 42 grams of feed per kilogram of fish."




Good luck

I never thought about pellets being too small can be the issue. Never thought about satiation (didn't even knew the word, had to look it up).

I think my mix of pellet sizes is not good given this. My fish is around 6 inches including the tail. The width of the mouth seems to be around 1-1.4cm (I am really not good at guessing at that small distance, I tried using tape for reference). He doesn't have any trouble eating (northfin krill pro) 6mm pellet, a tiny fraction does come out of his gills though. But when I feed him hikari brine shrimp or algaemax 2mm, he looks stressed while eating them. Small pellets floating everywhere somehow worries him and I am not sure if gets satisfaction. Only larger option for algaemax are 3mm and 7mm, they don't make extra large 5mm pellets? Ultrared is 3mm.

 

[RD.]

In the home aquaria, feeding to satiation isn't an issue, nor should it even be a goal for the tropical fish hobbyist. We should not be so concerned with feeding fish to achieve maximum gains in growth, in minimum amounts of time. That goal is more of a commercial goal, where reducing feed conversion ratios and speeding up the process of fattening the kill are the only real end goals. Also, in commercial aquaculture settings, competition at feeding time is typically very high, where in the home aquarium fish are typically far less cramped, and have much less competition during feeding.

So we extrapolate what we can from commercial aquaculture, and use in an aquarium setting, and ignore the rest. The point that relates to this discussion is that for a fish such as a FH, with a small to medium gape, if the pellets are too large or hard for the fish, food will be wasted, which results in increased pollution, and wasted $$$$.

 

[Ruturaj]

In the home aquaria, feeding to satiation isn't an issue, nor should it even be a goal for the tropical fish hobbyist. We should not be so concerned with feeding fish to achieve maximum gains in growth, in minimum amounts of time. That goal is more of a commercial goal, where reducing feed conversion ratios and speeding up the process of fattening the kill are the only real end goals. Also, in commercial aquaculture settings, competition at feeding time is typically very high, where in the home aquarium fish are typically far less cramped, and have much less competition during feeding.

So we extrapolate what we can from commercial aquaculture, and use in an aquarium setting, and ignore the rest. The point that relates to this discussion is that for a fish such as a FH, with a small to medium gape, if the pellets are too large or hard for the fish, food will be wasted, which results in increased pollution, and wasted $$$$.

Thanks, I thought that fish will be stressed if it doesn't feed to satiation. Mine shows stress bars when I feed him brine shrimp or 2mm pellets.

Since feeding smaller pellets is not an issue then I will use up the current algaemax and then see what size my fish is at to choose next size.

 

[RD.]

A hungry fish is a healthy fish. In nature it's typically a cycle of feast or famine, and generally only in captivity that one will see fish that eat well on a regular basis. Some interesting reading on this subject in a past discussion.

Over time they will become obese. Prolonged feeding in this manner may result in excess lipid deposition and necrosis of the liver. (fatty liver disease) I've been saying this for the past 20 years, and many of those who work in the field of aquatics agree - one of the most common causes of death in captive fish is related to excessive fat deposits in and around the organs. Excess fat ends up stored in various tissues, specifically the liver. Over time this can lead to the degeneration of the liver, which is more commonly referred to as "Fatty Liver Disease". Years ago I read an article which included some info from a fish parasitologist at a Canadian University. He was involved with performing autopsies on dead fish at public aquaria and the single most common cause of death he's seen since he started to do the autopsies was "fatty liver disease". Ruth Francis Floyd from the U of Florida has stated the same.

With these 2 species of fish, I would highly recommend incorporating aquatic plant matter into their diet starting at an early age. Foods such as NLS AlgaeMax should make up the bulk of their diet once they get past the juvenile stage. Good luck.

 

[Ruturaj]

A hungry fish is a healthy fish. In nature it's typically a cycle of feast or famine, and generally only in captivity that one will see fish that eat well on a regular basis. Some interesting reading on this subject in a past discussion.

Thank you RD.

 

[RD.]

No problem, glad to help.