Brainstorm on natural colour enhancing (fry) foods

[Colin_BC]

OK, where to begin? This little brainstorm started when I was reading up on keeping daphnia cultures. Unfortunately someone (not knowing what it was for) dumped my green water days before getting my daphnia. I was looking for other things to feed them, but only wanted to resort to yeast as a last resort since I've heard how easy it is to overdo it and wipe out the culture. I came across this thread here started by wuvmybetta which contained this link (at petfish.net) on keeping and feeding daphnia. In the petfish.net link the author says "Another food I have just heard about is Gerbers Baby Food, Sweet Potatoes. It is said to be an excellent food for the daphnia with the added benefit of indirectly feeding the fish some high carotene food that will enhance their color." After reading that I remember reading that it was carotene's that made "colour-enhancing flake food" effective; for that matter krill and some other shrimps have high carotene content that will naturally enhance colours (check this link for carotene's colour enhancing efftects on humans too. You are what you eat....). After reading the article at petfish.net, I started wondering if I could start a microworm culture with something like gerber's 1st foods (100% natural) sweet potatoes (I'll be experimenting on this since it's so easy and posting the results) so when I feed my triple red apisto cacatuoides or endler fry microworms they would be getting supplemented with carotenes right away to help with colour developement as they grow. From this I started searching to find out what other veggies were loaded in carotene's. It would seem that carrots in particular, and sweet potatoes, have the highest amounts of carotene amongst veggies; however the sweet potatoes contain more proteins. This has gotten me to thinking, why not just boil some carrot or sweet potato to really soften it up and add that to my fry food menu? For that matter I could feed it to all my fish as treat with the bonus of enhancing some colours.

If you're still reading at this point, I thank you. This post was literally putting a brainstorm (rant?) to writing. Now for the questions and oppinions.... What are your thoughts/oppinions on all this? I'm particularly interested in regards to supplementing natural carotene-loaded natural foods into a fry's diet?

Colin

 

[vantgE]

I know that spirulina is a carotene rich food and some flakes have carotene aditives, like you said krill is good too, I have never noticed a difference in color after feeding my fish food but have always provided spirulina flakes to them, i've also read new life spectrum foods give the best color to fish. Some food companies do add hormones to increase color and this would be best to avoid. However I wouldn't spend extra money on feeding fry coloring foods

 

[Colin_BC]

I know that spirulina is a carotene rich food and some flakes have carotene aditives, like you said krill is good too, I have never noticed a difference in color after feeding my fish food but have always provided spirulina flakes to them, i've also read new life spectrum foods give the best color to fish. Some food companies do add hormones to increase color and this would be best to avoid. However I wouldn't spend extra money on feeding fry coloring foods

That's why I'm thinking of boiled carrots or sweet potato; they'll be eaten by people as well so it's not an extra expence. I've been meaning to pick up some spirulina, but haven't gotten around to even looking for it it yet. I have Omega One's Super Color Flakes 9as well as many other flake, sinking, frozen, and live foods). I don't know that it's (Super Color) doing anything for anyone's colour in my tanks, but it's definately the favourite flake food amongst all my fish. Comparing it's ingredients to my other flake foods, the main difference seems to be the total content of Krill, Rockfish, & Shrimp, as well as Omega 3 & 6 HUFA's (whatever that is ). I think vegetables like carrots & sweet potatoes (just to name 2) will probably contain higher amounts of beta-carotenes, plus they're loaded in many other nutritional goodies.

Colin

 

[vantgE]

well i see no reason not too try, spirulina i hear can be found at those herbal health stores

 

[nc_nutcase]

I decided not to read this thread several times today... then just so I wouldn't have one lonely thread left unread... I clicked on it. Now I'm very glad I did.

I'm cycling a 55 gal which will be a Triple Red Cockatoo tank now. I love sweet potatoes, but my girlfriend hates them. So now I have an excuse to eat them! Well... an excuse to get her to cook them. And conveniently... we need to go grocery shopping this weekend!

I've also know that before long I need to learn about growing a culture to provide fry food. I'm not a breeder by any means and haven't ever really put effort into keeping fry alive, but would like to give it some effort with the Cockatoos.

It's always that one last thread... that makes it worth coming for... thanks guys!

 

[pnyklr3]

I second that! Let us know how it all works out!

 

[ccg]

Hey Colin,

I just wanted to let you know that this week I have started feeding my fish carrots, I have done so about 4 times now, so I am not sure if it has helped bring out their colours or not. I have only tried them in my barb tank and they love them so far. I have 6 tiger barbs, 6 cherry barbs, and 6 golden barbs. The tiger barbs don't bother with them at all, the golden barbs will eat them like crazy, and the cherry barbs love them!

Just a few quick tips if anyone is going to try and feed their fish carrots.

1. A little carrot will go along way!

2. Cut them into very tiny peaces, and then cut them again. My fish wont bother with them inless they fit into their mouth easily. My cherry barbs are pretty small fish though, so this may not be the case for you.

3. What I do is cut them really tiny, then poor them through a large strainer that I have (it is about the size of a normal bowl) all the very fine and tiny peace of carrot fall through it into a mug, i then put a bit of boiling water into the mug and let it sit for a few minutes, these are then the peaces I feed to the fish.

4. Only drop a few peaces in at once as they tend to sink very quickly.

5. I use the baby carrots that come in a bag, this is just what we had so it is what I used.


I am really interested in getting the colour to come out even more in my fish and am willing to try a few new things, so you'll have to let me know how you make out. Thanks for the post I enjoyed reading it, if you have anymore of these brainstorms/raints let me know! lol

Thanks,

Colen.

 

[pnyklr3]

Do any of you every feed any live or frozen foods?

 

[ccg]

I feed my fish frozen brine shrimp, and my fry frozen baby brine shrimp. I have never treid any live foods. I plan on starting a microworm culture shortly though to start feeding my fry.

 

[pnyklr3]

I was only asking because I noticed that the color of my cockatoos showed up a great deal when I started feeding a meaty, high-protein diet. I buy the frozen food called "Freshwater Multi-Pack" made by Sally's San Fransico Bay Brand.

It has 4 different things in it, and my cichlids appreciate the variety. The four different cubes are: Spirulina Enriched Brine Shrimp, Bloodworms, Cichlid Chow (turkey heart, dphnia, spirilina algae), and Emerald Entree (mysis, krill, plankton, spinach, romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spirulina algae).

 

[Jen]

I think the only way you will be able to see if it works is if you separate the fry into 2 identical tanks with the same decor and water params, but feed the different food (1 normal, 1 carotene) and observe the differences as they grow up. That woule be the scientific method of doing it. The food can be the only variable.

It does sound like an interesting idea! Hope it works

CCG - Carrots! What a brilliant idea. I keep asking people on the forum about the different kinds of veggies fish can eat, and I only get peas, cucumber and zuccini. My baby neon rosies are a gorgeous colour to begin with... I can only imagine how much nicer they will look if this works! What other veggies do you feed? I'm wondering if I would use broccoli and cauliflower, and maybe even bits of a baked potato. I dunno.

 

[Colin_BC]

Do any of you every feed any live or frozen foods?

I feed varietes of frozen and live foods, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, as well as several high protein flakes foods. For frozen foods, I feed (depending on what I have on hand) blood worms (hands down favourite), mysis shrimp, tubifex worms (messy), daphnia, and Hikari Tropical Mix. For live foods I feed mostly gammarus (scuds, small freshwater shrimp) and microworms (I culture with bread, KISS). I was gievn a small culture of scuds from the breeder when I picked up my nice triple red's. He said they were the best breeding conditioning food for cac's (You can also keep them in fry tanks as scavengers & the baby scuds may be fry food). They keep similar to daphnia, in fact you can keep them together in the same container. Only downside to scuds is they reproduce every 21-28 days typically whereas daphnia are much more frequent and larger batches. With the small amount I started with, i left them to multiply for near 2 months before feeding to my fish. I keep them in aerated greenwater and feed them decaying plant, shrimp pellets, and algae wafers. Hmmm, guess what, if the scuds eat decaying plants they should eat boiled (maybe even raw) veggies, too! You shoud see how the fish act when hunting these quick little buggers! They go insane. I feed some to all my fish now that I have more of them, but save the majority for anything I'm trying to breed. I had daphnia as well, but the culture crashed within a few days. There were a couple survivors that are slowly repopulating, though... I like the idea of keeping daphnia in fry tanks as well. The adults should be big enough that they won't be food, but all their babies will be great food for any fry in the tank. It will keep their bellies constantly full and since the daphnia will survive in the tank there is no risk of polluting the tank due to overfeeding. just feed the daphnia infusoria or liquifry, or even try some baby food like mentioned in the first post. I'm going to be getting some more daphnia cultures soon now that I have lots of deep green water to feed them.

canoechiq Posted on Apr 1 2005, 09:08 AM
I think the only way you will be able to see if it works is if you separate the fry into 2 identical tanks with the same decor and water params, but feed the different food (1 normal, 1 carotene) and observe the differences as they grow up. That woule be the scientific method of doing it. The food can be the only variable.

It does sound like an interesting idea! Hope it works

I agree 2 indentical tanks would be the scientific method. Perhaps if I have the time and extra space I can try that a short time down the road, but I can't commit to anyone on it just yet. I have to figure out how I can juggle the setup/experiment within my current tanks. I know it can be done, but which way is the best for me....?

ccg, Thanks for the suggestions on the feeding of raw carrots. For my fri I think I will have to use boiled carrot, however I'll try some raw carrot bits on my fish that are large enough to eat them.

If anyone is interested in any other veggies to feed their fish (that as a bonus are loaded in beta-carotenes and other goodies), check this link here for a chart showing beta-carotene content of different foods; it's sorted highest to lowest. According to that chart, boiled veggies conatins more beta-carotene's than raw veggies. I would have thought this to be opposite, however it could be that boiling breaks something down to carotene's or makes them more readily available and quicker to digest.... You can also check this link for another chart that shows different fruits, nuts, & veggies and their various nutrient content (look for beta-carotene as Vitamin A).

Pnyklr3, have you had any luck gettin your cac's to breed yet? I know you had been hoping to successfully breed them for a while.

nc_nutcase, as to you eventually needing live foods for fry, I have few easy uggestions. Hikari First Bites are always good to have on hand, as well as decapsulated brine shrimp eggs (can be fed without hatching, bought mine as well as regular grade A hatching eggs fro www.brineshrimpdirect.com ). For easy live cultures, there is always baby brine shrimp (search on this, there' tons of posts on this) which are very usually easy to hatch. Microworms is another great food to alwys have on hand. the cultures are dead easy to setup and maintain, and all fish of all sizes will eat them. Finely crushed flake food also works.

Did I miss anyone? thanks for the replies thus far, everyone. I didn't think my brainstorm would draw quite this much attention this fast...

Colin

 

[Jen]

I just tried feeding carrots... Wow that idea sank like a lead weight. I chopped them up super small for my tiny fish mouths, and they just watched them sink. Seriously. They swam around in the shower, and sucked in 1 piece, spat it out and that was that. I'll leave them in to see if my cories are at all interested.

 

[Colin_BC]

I haven't tried the carrots on my apisto fry yet, but I did try some boiled carrot in my Krib tank and community tank. Those who tried the carrots did go back for more, but not everyone in the tanks tried them. It is something to try again... Canoechiq, perhaps you should try boiled carrot. I think raw carrot may be eaten by larger fish with more powerful jaws, but consider how crunchy a raw carrot is... A small fry or any other small fish may have a tough time being able to chew it; whereas the boiled carrot is much softer and easy to eat for all fish.

Colin

 

[Jen]

I chopped them up really small, then pressed them through a garlic press, and put them in a cup with boiling water. It was a mushy mess. I though they would at least try a few bits.