I keep forgetting to thaw frozen foods, but...LIVE FOOD thoughts

[GaryE]

@TwoTankAmin . Fiber is essential, and one of the main areas where live insect type food is superior. I'm not sure why you went to AI for that info. If you're going to provide sources, something I appreciate and respect in your posts, stick with credible ones. AI overviews aren't there yet. I assume you're thinking new aquarists might read the thread, and the info is of use to them.

I get around it by adding fiber to my home mixed frozen foods. I run dried soldier fly larvae through a coffee grinder and add it, and there's always a high fiber vegetable component in mixes. When I do buy flake, I look at the fiber content first.

My insect eaters have digestive systems adapted to the whole bug, exoskeleton and all. If we paid more attention to fiber, newcomers wouldn't see bloated Betta splendens or have to use peas, past the first few weeks when they may be adjusting from having been raised in antibiotics to force growth.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

@GaryE
OK you want science. I can find you a lot of papers on the use of Daphnia as a primary fry food. But that doesn't help on the issue of feeding them as a fiber source. I am a bit pressed for time this morning and having a bit of an issue phrasing my search on Google Scholar re Daphnia specifically as a fiber source.
Let me know if you want to see the info on using for fish fry/ I will provide that easily but I need to return to searching on the fiber issue. Two interesting factoids I read about daphnia for fry was that the size of the daphnia matters. It was important to use very young daphnia for fry as the daphnia can grow fairly fast and become too large for the fry to eat. T eother thing I saw mentioned a lot was that daphnia as food will be bacteria free
The Google AI does provide links to the info sources is has used to create their answers. Unfortunately, most of these were not research papers but rather fish sites, Reddit etc. So I will need a bit more time to nail down the fiber issue here.

Wait i just hit on this before I logged off the PC. Read the last sentence:

Setyawan, S.T., Cahyoko, Y. and Sari, L.A., 2022, July. Providing feed from a mixed of chicken broth and chicken manure with different dosages on nutritional content Daphnia magna. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 1036, No. 1, p. 012105). IOP Publishing.

Abstract. Live feed is one of the most important factors of the success of fish farming, especially
in fish hatchery activities. Live feed that has the potential to support cultivation activities is
Daphnia magna. One of the problems on Daphnia magna culture is feed availability that can meet
the nutrients in Daphnia magna. The aim of this research was to study the effect of providing feed
from combination of chicken broth and chicken manure on the nutritional value of Daphnia magna.
This study was experimental using the RAL method consisting of 4 treatments with 5 replications,
namely control treatment (P0) 7.5 mL/L dose of feed, (P1) 2.5 mL/L dose of fermented feed, (P2) 5
mL/L dose of fermented feed and (P3) 7.5 mL/L dose of fermented feed. Data analysis was
processed using ANOVA and Duncan. The result of this study has a significant effect (P<0.05) on
nutritional content of Daphnia magna with the best dose in P3 which can affect the highest protein
(51,98%) and highest fat (12,17%) of Daphnia magna. The highest fiber (13,32%) of Daphnia
magna was found in the P1 treatment and the highest carbohydrates (37,51%) of Daphnia magna
was found in the P0 treatment.
Full paper here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/1036/1/012105/pdf

Note this refers to live daphnia. But I consider frozen to be close to live. I assume the live is cultured so it can be fed when recently hatched or if allowed to grow larger then what it is fed is important. I also believe that daphnia shell is Chitin.

Wait again- I am making progress by looking at comparisons of the chitin in Daphnia v.s. Insects. When I asked Google "daphnia chitin v.s. insect chitin" all of the links they provided for their answers were to research papers. I will investigate this further this evening.

 

[GaryE]

I don't want papers. You're misunderstanding.

Stomach content analysis of most of our fish when caught in the wild, along with basic anatomy gives the info.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

My bro hung me up so I was forced to be home instead of on the road. So I started to do more researech.

The science is in the papers as far as I am concerned. That is how reliable research is published.

What the fish eat in the wild is not necessarily what they eat in our tanks. In the wild they can only eat was is available. Moreover many foods in the wild are seasonal, So to get any true idea of the stomach contents in wild fish would likley need to be the result of catching the fish at different times of the year.

So I have been reading the papers used by the AI here: https://www.google.com/search?q=Dap...zX7RmZYqXzyosI4KGnvrpufntV2khKxHTIR08&csuir=1

Basically, from what I am reading here this from the AI seems to be accurate:

Which one should you use?

For Fry & Ornamental Fish: Daphnia is often superior as a "perfect food" that won't foul the water and provides highly bioavailable chitin for developing juveniles.

For Commercial Aquaculture: Insect meal is the more viable long-term replacement for fishmeal, provided the chitin levels are balanced to ensure high digestibility.

So, I intend to keep using Daphnia as part of the diet for my fish. But I also have a number of foods which contain soldier fly larvae. But I am curious how you see the difference between feeding fish soldier fly larvae that have been cultured vs those found in nature? Gouel one feed their fish with insect meal only found where they cae found in the wild and can be caught/found by fish?

Is it OK to feed bottom feeders with insect meal?

Finally, there is a difference between examining gut content and analysing the nutriona; va;ue of the things found in that content. We know fish need protein but does this mean that only the protein available where they live in the wild is the only protein that benefits them the best? Somehow I am willing to bet this is not the case and that other things which contain similar forms and amounts of protein are perfectly fine to use.