Thoughts on nutrition in discus...

[mtchye]

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:

[Merrilyn]

Very interesting reading. Do you know where we can obtain domestic quantities of this food, as opposed to taking 10kgs at a time. Please keep us posted if you do use this food on discus. We are all very interested in the nutrition of our fish.

[Brad]

It would be good to try different feeds.
I have thought about culturing freshwater rotifers the same way as used for feed clownfish fry etc..

Along with using hufa enrichment on BBS.

This is available and highly recommended to enrich brine as it is a fairly poor diet on its own.

[mtchye]

Hi guys,

Yes I'll keep you informed. Usually you cannot buy the food in smaller quantities but next time I do a buy we can get together those ppl interested and share a bag or two.

Culturing rotifers in freshwater is a very intensive and relatively difficult process. You are also right that most marine fish are fed HUFA and PUFA (these are essential fish oils btw for those who dont know what we are talking about) encapsulated bbs. BBS in itself is not that high in nutrition, most ppl feed their fry this because most fry will take it readily. Thats what all this artemia replacement feeds are about - they incorporate the nutrients needed like the HUFA's into the food while maintaining attractability to fry, and a consistent size and FCR (feed conversion ratio) to make it very efficient and easy to feed the fry.

I gave a friend of mine the 300-500 micron size (roughly bbs size) and his discus fry were eating it even whilst still feeding off the parents, so I have high hopes that they will do well on it.

I guess the long winded point i was trying to make is that it pays to approach our fishkeeping from a scientific perspective, and we have a wealth of research and technology available to us through the aquaculture industry...

[Brad]

How is this food made.
Does it have tiny air bubbles in it simular to golden pearls so it stays suspended in the water coloum?

Sounds like it is good but not sure if the fry would reconise it as food.

[mtchye]

Hi Brad,

This particular food is made a certain way which my friend explained to me, but it went totally over my head. It is a little more expensive than your average aquaculture food but it floats for quite a while then sinks slowly (does not suspend). However its still cheap compared to aquarium foods!

I believe that the fish recognise it as food due to its smell and taste. It also a reddish colour due to the amount of carotenoids in it. Its supposed to have attractants and stuff in it, and it does seem to work, as I have had relatively 'difficult' fry such as apistos and tanganyikan dwarf cichlid fry take to it as soon as they could fit it into their mouths. Next project, some german rams I just acquired.. then maybe discus if I can get one of those breeding pairs advertised by Kev!

If anyone here has fry already that they want to try it out on, email me: mtchye -at- iinet.net.au

It will be interesting to see the results. Certainly the very high carotenoid content (similar to cyclop eeze) would be beneficial in terms of colour I would expect... and the high protein and oils I'm guessing would be ideally suited for discus.. Then again I dont have discus YET so I don't really have a clue - they may well turn out to be on a higher level of fussiness than any of the fish I've kept!

Ah well, being difficult only makes them more desirable I guess!

[mtchye]

Wow you discus ppl are super keen lol... We now have enough interest to do another order. THe interest is mainly in the fry food which is 300-500 microns in size (roughly baby brine shrimp size, depending on species of bbs). Theres 1kg left to fill and cost is $30/500g roughly + postage. If anyone wants to take the last 2 lots just pm or email me. The others who contacted me I'll send u details once the order is filled.

Some of you also wanted the adult version of the food, 1.2mm in diameter. We still need to find buyers for another 7kgs of that though so I wouldnt hold my breath. The larger stuff has the same composition but is half the price, due to the cost of sorting the smaller stuff to such a narrow size tolerance.

Just to recap on the stats for the food, its a diet meant to be used to raise marine fry as a sole food, no supplementation needed of HUFA's, PUFA's or vitamins. I've been using it with great success on peppermint fry, apisto fry, and african cichlid fry (but they'll eat anything really lol)... Growth rates and colour have been much improved, previously they got homemade frozen food, hikari pellets, sera flora and new life spectrum.

Heres the stats.

Moisture 7% Vit. A3 30,000 lU/kg
Crude protein 59% Vit. D3 2,500 lU/kg
Crude lipids 15% Vit. E 400 mg/kg
Crude ash 12% Vit. C 2,000 mg/kg
Phosphorus 1.7% Antioxidants ethoxyquine, BHT, propylgallate
DHA/EPA 2 Sum3 HUFA 28 mg/g dwt

High protein content, no inclusion of terrestrial animal proteins
High HUFA and phospholipid content, optimum amino-acid balance with high DHA/EPA ratio
High attractability, very good water stability, reduced sediment in the tank, improved water quality
Nice free-flowing product showing excellent behaviour in the automatic feeders
Very narrow size distribution (<200, 150-300, 200-400, 300-500, 400-600, 500-800), better homogeneity of the fish, less cannibalism
Fast growth, low FCR (Feed Conversion Ratio - basically the fish poop less)

You can email me at mtchye -at- iinet.net.au
It'll be interesting to see what those with discus fry will find, hopefully good results will still hold

[mtchye]

hi,

the order for the small size is now filled. Theres now about 6kgs left of the larger adult size to go. I'll wait a couple of days then do the order, if we can't fill the last 6kgs, I'll just order the small size first, and do an order of the larger size once we have enough ppl.

Cheers
Vincent

p.s. hopefully getting my new discus shipped tomorrow, woohoo

[mtchye]

Hi everyone,

There is now 3kgs left to go on the larger size. Any takers?

[Merrilyn]

Just received my package of fry food from mtchye. Didn't have any really young fry to try it on, but did feed it to 8 week old fry, and they went for it without any hesitation. Also fed it to young siamese fighting fish (bettas) with the same result. These fish had previously refused flake and pellet food, eating only live brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms and beefheart.

I will keep everyone posted on the results of feeding this new food to discus fry, but so far, so good.