Feeding Cichlids and other fish meat

[Colin_T]

the discus fish Symphysodon - SciELO - M.MOAM.INFO

Dec 22, 2008 - of the lake hosting more than a thousand discus. Only 16 of the 41 ..... ing free-swimming B. cichlae wit...

moam.info

And there lies the answer, if @itiwhetu wants to read through. The stomach content analysis of Discus in the wild shows them to eat a high volume of vegetable matter and detritus, and a study of their anatomy shows their guts to be evolved to process plant matter first and foremost. They get a minority of their food from crustaceans and bugs that fall into the streams.

That surprised me, as I thought they were more carnivorous. So my suggestions were wrong - I would now make a paste food with a high spinach, seaweed, and other pureed veggies, and a bit of blendered shrimp for the crustacean side of things.

I just read that article on discus and found it absolutely fascinating. I wonder if that is why we have so many problems with discus having intestinal problems and constantly being put onto medications like Metronidazole. Basically we are feeding them meat based foods and they are primarily vegetarian fish. They have more plant matter in their diet than rainbowfish do, and rainbows have all sorts of issues when they don't get plant matter in their diet.

Going back years ago when I first started in the pet industry we gave discus beef heart & liver, and some frozen bloodworms. They always had internal problems and never did well, and they got a reputation for being a hard to keep fish. Even today you buy discus food (frozen and dry) and it is mostly meat based with frozen discus food still containing mammal meat and bloodworms, dry foods having a few more fish & shrimp meats. All the shops I have been to recently still feed discus on beef heart & liver and bloodworms.

Tropheus were similar until someone said they are vegetarian. When people dropped meat foods from the diet of Tropheus cichlids, the fish lived and thrived.

I think we need to sticky that article/ link in the discus section and change the diet for any discus we keep. That is a complete eye opener for me and I will say just about everyone else. Discus are vegetarians, who would have thought it.

@GaryE, thankyou for that link. I don't normally learn much these days but I learnt something today and it might just change the way we keep discus and how long they live for in aquariums.

For anyone who doesn't want to read the article, it found about 60-85% of the wild discus diet is plant based and the rest is insect, insect larvae and small crustaceans. We have been way off in what we feed discus.

 

[itiwhetu]

I just read that article on discus and found it absolutely fascinating. I wonder if that is why we have so many problems with discus having intestinal problems and constantly being put onto medications like Metronidazole. Basically we are feeding them meat based foods and they are primarily vegetarian fish. They have more plant matter in their diet than rainbowfish do, and rainbows have all sorts of issues when they don't get plant matter in their diet.

Going back years ago when I first started in the pet industry we gave discus beef heart & liver, and some frozen bloodworms. They always had internal problems and never did well, and they got a reputation for being a hard to keep fish. Even today you buy discus food (frozen and dry) and it is mostly meat based with frozen discus food still containing mammal meat and bloodworms, dry foods having a few more fish & shrimp meats. All the shops I have been to recently still feed discus on beef heart & liver and bloodworms.

Tropheus were similar until someone said they are vegetarian. When people dropped meat foods from the diet of Tropheus cichlids, the fish lived and thrived.

I think we need to sticky that article/ link in the discus section and change the diet for any discus we keep. That is a complete eye opener for me and I will say just about everyone else. Discus are vegetarians, who would have thought it.

@GaryE, thankyou for that link. I don't normally learn much these days but I learnt something today and it might just change the way we keep discus and how long they live for in aquariums.

For anyone who doesn't want to read the article, it found about 60-85% of the wild discus diet is plant based and the rest is insect, insect larvae and small crustaceans. We have been way off in what we feed discus.

This thread was about feeding meat to your fish, but if you look at my tank these fish have access to as much plant as they could ever wish for. I believe that Cichlids need some protein in their diet as do all fish, I posted this thread never suggesting that was all that my fish were getting in their diet. I try to give my fish everything that they need to be healthy and happy in the glass box I provide.

 

[Colin_T]

This thread was about feeding meat to your fish, but if you look at my tank these fish have access to as much plant as they could ever wish for. I believe that Cichlids need some protein in their diet as do all fish, I posted this thread never suggesting that was all that my fish were getting in their diet. I try to give my fish everything that they need to be healthy and happy in the glass box I provide.

I wonder if your discus are eating plants and algae in the tank and having meat as a side dish.

 

[GaryE]

I had never questioned the heavy protein approach to feeding Discus. This thread got me thinking, as @itiwhetu challenged us to offer alternatives, and I realized I had never done that search. When I can find the info, I look for stomach content analysis studies when I am getting a new fish. I hadn't found that trick when I had Discus, and just listened to the people around me. I fell for fish lore, and that is never good.

It's a slap in the face with a wet Discus! Thanks. I needed that.

Research takes you places. I came across a piece in a climate change study where there had been an analysis of digestive enzymes in 2 African killifish, in an attempt to determine why 2 species in one river barely overlapped. It turned out they had temperature sensitive digestive enzymes that only worked in a narrow range. The river warmed as it moved to savannah conditions from jungle, and the rainforest killie couldn't digest fast enough to compete and survive in warmer water. All of a sudden, since I have those fish, I began to take temperature way more seriously, and I see results. A 2 degree difference...

There is so much like that you can find if you go digging, and the gross concept of stomach contents is valuable stuff. I often search with keyword and "pdf", since most papers are in that format. A huge percentage of scientific papers are behind expensive paywalls, but if you get the title and author, you can ask for them and most researchers are happy to share, even with fishnerds. It's difficult reading for an untrained person like me, but you can always find nuggets. Not chicken nuggets. Not for your fish.

Imagine how far off base the 1960s, bare, sterile Discus tank with beefheart only was. The kind of tank @itiwhetu showed, with tons of plants, makes so much more sense. Those 1960s tanks for Discus are like keeping a cow in a parking lot, when it needs a meadow.

 

[Colin_T]

Imagine how far off base the 1960s, bare, sterile Discus tank with beefheart only was. The kind of tank @itiwhetu showed, with tons of plants, makes so much more sense. Those 1960s tanks for Discus are like keeping a cow in a parking lot, when it needs a meadow.

Those 60s tanks are still around today. Seriously, most pet shops have discus in bare glass tanks and feed them meat. Most discus breeders in Asia have the fish in bare glass tanks and feed them meat. Very few shops or breeders keep discus in planted tanks but they all feed them meat. A few people do keep discus in planted tanks and Itiwhetu has his discus in a planted tank. The people who keep them in heavily planted tanks rarely have issues with the fish even when they feed them meat.

Jack Wattley got it wrong. Discus are vegetarian, not meat eaters.

This thread is a eureka moment in fish keeping. I am so excited about this information and I don't get excited. There are times when pieces of a puzzle come together and solve a mystery and this is one of those times.

For over 60 years people have been trying to keep discus alive in aquariums and most fail dismally. The fish just about always have intestinal/ internal problems, go off their food, do stringy white poop and die.

All the books tell us discus eat meat. They're all wrong. The scientists and researchers who went to the Amazon and did the research discovered the truth and this thread has allowed us to join the dots and solve the reason why discus are hard to keep in captivity. We have been feeding vegetarian fish on a meat diet. No wonder the poor little buggas die.

Itiwhetu starting this thread got GaryE involved. Gary found the research paper for discus stomach analysis and hallelujah, we solved one of the biggest fish keeping problems for the last 50 years. This is huge people. Discus die in aquariums because they are vegetarians, not carnivores. We have been feeding them the wrong food.

Itiwhetu, GaryE, and the researchers who did the paper have made my day. You guys have really made my day and it is wonderful. Thankyou

For anyone having trouble keeping discus, give them plant matter and see what happens. Record your findings and post it on the forum and lets change the way discus are kept in captivity.

 

[itiwhetu]

I wonder if your discus are eating plants and algae in the tank and having meat as a side dish.

That is what I assume they are doing; I have always kept Discus the way I am now and have never really given much thought to how much grazing they are doing during the day. But thanks to @GaryE, I now know why this method of keeping Discus has worked for me over the years.

 

[itiwhetu]

I had never questioned the heavy protein approach to feeding Discus. This thread got me thinking, as @itiwhetu challenged us to offer alternatives, and I realized I had never done that search. When I can find the info, I look for stomach content analysis studies when I am getting a new fish. I hadn't found that trick when I had Discus, and just listened to the people around me. I fell for fish lore, and that is never good.

It's a slap in the face with a wet Discus! Thanks. I needed that.

Research takes you places. I came across a piece in a climate change study where there had been an analysis of digestive enzymes in 2 African killifish, in an attempt to determine why 2 species in one river barely overlapped. It turned out they had temperature sensitive digestive enzymes that only worked in a narrow range. The river warmed as it moved to savannah conditions from jungle, and the rainforest killie couldn't digest fast enough to compete and survive in warmer water. All of a sudden, since I have those fish, I began to take temperature way more seriously, and I see results. A 2 degree difference...

There is so much like that you can find if you go digging, and the gross concept of stomach contents is valuable stuff. I often search with keyword and "pdf", since most papers are in that format. A huge percentage of scientific papers are behind expensive paywalls, but if you get the title and author, you can ask for them and most researchers are happy to share, even with fishnerds. It's difficult reading for an untrained person like me, but you can always find nuggets. Not chicken nuggets. Not for your fish.

Imagine how far off base the 1960s, bare, sterile Discus tank with beefheart only was. The kind of tank @itiwhetu showed, with tons of plants, makes so much more sense. Those 1960s tanks for Discus are like keeping a cow in a parking lot, when it needs a meadow.

Thank you for looking at this, we have all learnt something. Which is why we play on a site like this. I just do what I know works for me and being an old boy I tend to just keep doing the same thing if it is working.

 

[anewbie]

I wanted to wake up this thread because I've been watching my festums and angels (they are not discus but at least not too far different) and I will say they will munch a fair amount of plant matter when I don't feed them (they are not adults; the adult doesn't seem to eat a whole lot). Now please note I said they eat a fair amount of plant matter not plants. Mostly they spend a lot of time nibbling on the splintered end of the jungle val and pieces of plant matter that has fallen off plants. Now how much is really be consumed i can't say for sure because I'm not going to cut them open but they do spend a lot of time begging for food (they would love to be fed every 5 minutes; but i only feed them 2 1/2 times a day). Now it might be they are eating mostly biolfilm growing on the decay who knows . I'm just happy giant angle is not being nasty with them as they sometime are...

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have one thing to offer on discus diet etc.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=discus+fish+diet&btnG=

 

[itiwhetu]

I have one thing to offer on discus diet etc.
https/scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,33&q=discus+fish+diet&btnG=

When I clicked on the link it takes me to 30200 papers, that is a lot of reading, I may get back to you in the year 2035 with a comment.