Beefheart Mix

[G-1000]

Hi Everyone,

I have always wondered - why do we use beefheart mix as opposed to fish meat (fillets etc) ? I would have thought that it would be easier for discus to absorb fish based proteins as opposed to animals based protein ? Would there be any disadvantage to using a variety of seafood (e.g prawns, scallops, salmon, fish fillets) ? Any pros out there wanna provide a good answer ?

Grant

[goldenpigeon]

usually in a beefheart mix nost people put a variety of ocean and land meats

HTH

[Mulisha]

I add shrimp, prawns, fish fillet, and beefheart and add some dry food as well :wink:

My fish consume very easily as well..

[G-1000]

Ok, I see what you are saying - we use a mixture. I understand that fish are a lean source of protein which discus fish will usually eat in the wild, however, they will not normally eat beefheart in the wild (actually I am sure they dont). Whilst I am not against beefheart, I must admit that i dont understand why it is used - i.e wouldnt an all seafood mixture without beefheart be more easily absorbed by the fish ?

Ben, Ladyred, Kev, Andrew, Proteus et al. - Help me out here....

G

[goldenpigeon]

well no i dont think cattle fall in the amazon on a regular basis.... but tuna arent swimming around in the either. i think it is basically what we have readily available to us and had the right dietry requirements that we use for discus cfood. i have heard of people feeding their discus cat food.

[Mulisha]

Yeah i think we feed the discus what we do now is becuase it's easy becuase i wouldn't want to have to feed them like crickets or something if u get what i mean :roll:

A few more oppinions would be good :wink:

[Ben]

Grant,

There are a few reasons why beef heart is fed to discus and other fish. It is very low in saturated fats yet high in proteins. Of all the organs or muscles in mammals the heart is the best used.

Now, there is always some debate and i can tell you there are plenty of people who do not feed beef heart and say it is bad as it stretches the internal tracts of discus and other fish if fed.

But if beef heart is made along with other nutritious goodies and fed as a balanced diet along with brine shrimp, good quality frozen blood worms, good dried foods and maybe a treat of daphnia or white worms the fish will get all the nutrients they need.

Cheers
Ben

[Merrilyn]

I think "balance" is the key word here. The diet of discus in the wild would consist of worms, mossie wrigglers, small fish and shrimp, as well as any insect that happened to be unlucky enough to fall in the water. That would include flying insects as well as spiders, crawling insects of all kind and ground dwelling insects.

Now, it's pretty hard for us to exactly duplicate that diet, however, we do know that it's high in protein. Beefheart is an easily obtained form of high quality protein, along with a mixture of fish, prawns, all kinds of seafood and vegetable matter.

The main reason for using seafood is disease prevention. Fresh water fish may have diseases that can be passed onto our discus.

Mix this along with a high quality dry food, and you can't go wrong. :wink: