Hi everyone,

Just wanted to drop in and say hello. I haven't kept discus before but have kept almost every other type of cichlid. I guess it was inevitable that the discus bug would bite.

Recently a friend of mine working in aquaculture gave me samples of a food they were using to raise marine fry he was working with (eg clownfish, seahorses, and these huge cod that had teeny fry lol) at the place he worked at. The results I've had with this food have been simply awesome. As some of you who've kept marines know, spawning them isn't out of the questions but raising the little tykes is difficult due to their exacting nutritional requirements. Technologies in aquaculture have come leaps and bounds in the past few years and they now have a variety of foods that can fulfill those requirements. There are a couple of things that I thought was interesting in relation to these foods as compared to commercially available foods for the aquarium.

One is that nutritional profiles for the foods are readily available and the foods are made to very exacting tolerances. There really isn't any magic ingredient in terms of a good food to be fed to fish, yet we are bombarded with many products that claim this and that, that do not reveal exactly what it is that gives us good results. I believe what is present in many of the more exceptional foods that makes a difference are omega fish oils (HUFAs and PUFAs), carotenoids & their derivatives, and protein and vitamin content. I guess my point is that we are probably paying for marketing more than anything else, whereas in the aquaculture industry you get what you pay for, and you know what you are getting lol. If you get a good food I'm sure many of you have noticed that the fish produce less faeces, this is termed the feed conversion ratio, and this information is also available.

I guess what I'm saying is we as hobbyists can benefit from the scientific research that has been done by those in aquaculture in many ways. This food is complete and so can theoretically be used to good effect as a staple food with no added foods. So far so good for me, growth rates and colour in my fish have actually improved, and they were really good before as I was using a variety of different foods. Convenience is high because they come in exact sizes, i.e. i use the 300-500 micron (bbs size) for fry to 2-3cm and after that use 1200mm size for all larger fish. No need to crush/sort through these things. The small food is a bit like cyclop eeze but waaay cheaper lol... AND in order to be able to get marine fry to feed on it it has to have a high attractability, I find this works great and ALL my fry will accept it if its the right size for them, I even raise my peppermint fry on it, as well as few days old apisto fry. Basically anything that can take BBS... Soon I'm going to try to order an even smaller size of it, though the problem is that you need less of the smaller stuff but still need to order like 10kgs of it lol...

I guess the only test now is when I finally get some sort of discus, and give it a go on them and their fry if they breed. I'll keep you guys updated. In the meantime its just a thought for you guys to consider, after paying so much for your fish you may want to know what exactly is goin in em Try talking to your local aquaculture place and see what you can obtain! It might just save you money AND be better for your fish...

Heres a link to what I use, but there are a lot of other products out there too, ranging in price but of course the higher you go, the better the product is in general, but at least you know what you're getting

http://www.inve.com/solutions/index....a=aqua&id=1470

Oh and this is a cac at 3 months old raised only on the NRD: