Flake food = malnutrition?

[Boggle]

A recent report in a popular Aquarium Journal discussed findings in regards to the viability of certain well established aquarium product lines. Hardest hit was Flake Food.
The report told of potential health risks (caused by malnutrition) when the diet of fish is flake based.
The concern is two fold and has to do with the extreme heat which flake is subject to during processing.
Firstly, this causes the vitamin content to become severely compromised. Vitamin C is lost completely while the properties of other critical water soluble plant extracts are greatly diminished.
Secondly, it causes flake to be, obviously, very dry. What isn't immediately obvious is that the very dry nature of flake causes it to be very ABSORBENT. Thus, when it hits the water it absorbs more than twice its weight in water. Subsequently when the fish eat they are then swallowing a proportionately significant amount of water verses viable food content. This explains why fish can appear to be so frantically hungry despite being fed and even overfed. Clearly this is not a healthy situation in regards to fish nutrition or aquarium hygiene.

source:http/www.perthaquarium.com.au/products-fs.htm

 

[CFC]

Experienced fish keepers have known this for years, you wont even find a tub of flakes in my fish food cabinet. The best foods for fish are live and frozen ones with shrimp and aquatic insect larvea being the best of these as they would make up the largest part of most fishes natural diets. A good quality staple pellet food will also supply good nutrition (i recomend Hikari brand) but still should not replace live/frozen food completely, i recomend that fish be fed live or frozen food at least twice a week.

 

[Boggle]

Question is, why aren't newbies told?!

Flakes make up only around 10% of my fishies' diet, but I'm sure there are ppl who feed their fish nothing but flakes. And the most recommended food for fry seems to be ground up flakes, so how can anyone expect healthy adult fish?

Very upset...

Shall try the Hikari food tho, thanks

 

[daza]

Thanks for posting that boggle. Very informative.

I had read that a varied diet was important but didn't know flakes were that bad.

 

[Boggle]

Tell me about it, no wonder my fry weren't growing.

But it's like that with anything: I just bought my b/f a couple of gouldian finches, and was advised at the pet shop all they needed was seeds & water. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

 

[Tropjunky]

Well there is good news i feed flake food but tetra Pro says that it used a low heat process. Wether it does is unknown. i also feed frozon and freez dried and wen i can live i find that flake food is very good if u soak it in a milti vitamin supliment every so often. cos most foods cant provide 100% of all vitamins and minerals every1 should have some way of suplimenting their diet with the missing nutrition.

 

[Boggle]

Thnx for the tip, I'm assuming it's a multi-vitamin supplement designed for fish?

What brand do you use?

 

[Nidge]

I think its importent to give your fish a varied diet and not just one type or the other.
As CFC said live and frozen food is very good and food with krill or shrimp in it is also very good.
I feed my fish flake probably once a week just and i would give something else with it like frozen brineshrimp.

 

[Boggle]

Agree completely.

Someone said the other day that frozen shrimp has the nutritional value of cardboard, so I switched to freeze-dried shrimp, but it's not like shrimp is a staple.

I'd hate to think how many newbies, for example, think that flakes are 90% of the diet.

 

[CFC]

To give you a rough idea of how varied fishes diets should be this is a typical list of what i feed my fish over one week.

One box of live crickets
150 live shrimp
14 packs of live glassworm/daphnia
200 grams of frozen bloodworm
50 grams of frozen gamma shrimp
50 grams frozen krill
50 grams of frozen mussel
50 grams of frozen whitebait/lance fish
25 grams of frozen cockle
a small handfull each of cichlid pellets, carnivor sticks, catfish pellets and algea wafers
1 small head of lettuce

this is also supplemented with seasonal feedings of live mosquito larvea from the garden and the odd earthworm that i find.
Of course most people will not need anywhere near that ammount of food nor need to use some of the more carnivorous food but the basics of insect/insect larvea and shrimps should be a part of every fish keepers weekly feeding routine (with the exception of those who keep fish that require a more vegetable based diet).

 

[CFC]

Agree completely.

Someone said the other day that frozen shrimp has the nutritional value of cardboard, so I switched to freeze-dried shrimp, but it's not like shrimp is a staple.

I'd hate to think how many newbies, for example, think that flakes are 90% of the diet.

Frozen foods are far more nutritious than freeze dried foods, frozen is the next step down from live.
Shrimp is very much the staple diet of most tropical fish, shrimps are found in huge abundance in tropical waters and most fish with the exception of herbivors and very very small fish will take full advantage of this food source. The major ingredients in any good quality pellet food will be shrimp and white fish.

 

[rvm]

I only discovered live Shrimp the other day as my LFS doesn't stock them, but I found a shop that does about 20 miles away. I bought 40 of them, put them in my big tank and they were all gone within about 20 minutes. My big fish love them!!
Is there any way to keep a stock of them so that I don't have to make trips to this shop every week??
I only feed my fish flake every couple of days, The bulk of their diet is frozen/live and Hikari pellets. Knowing this now, I don't think I'll bother with flake any more!!!!!

 

[CFC]

Live river shrimp can be kept in a smallish tank with a filter and mildly brackish water, there is no heater or lights required

 

[Boggle]

rvm - this is what I'm setting up soon, as this frozen/freeze-dried dilema gives me too many headaches
http/www.our-oasis.net/main.php?loc=absh

CFC - lol, that's more seafood than I put on at a BBQ!
Can't wait to switch to live worms & shrimp!

 

[CFC]

For the record unless the brine shrimp is enriched with a vitamin supplement it is as nutritious as cardboard, i can now see where the confusion has come in when you said that freeze dried is better than frozen as in the case of brine shrimp it probably is. I dont bother with brine shrimp at all unless i have fry and i am hatching my own brine shrimp larvae (nauplii) to feed them, for adult fish it just isnt worth the bother.