Fishkeeping - Feeding Your Fish: Diet, Nutrition, How and What Fish Eat - General Guides. Introduction. In the natural world, a fish can expect to come across many hundreds of different types of foods, some have adapted to make use of all these sources of nourishment, where one species generalises however one will specialise and so many fish have adapted to take advantage of the scraps others would leave behind. ![]() HUGEEE selection of live tropical fish and inverts for sale with information, facts and care from the UK's leading online aquatic store delivered to your door.The intricately balanced ecosystems and food chains in the wild shaped over thousands of years cannot be easily recreated in the domestic aquaria we maintain, but the feeding habits and preferences of our fish remain. This article explains the paramount importance of a balanced and complete diet for your fish. ![]() One of the fastest growing catfish is suckermouth catfish which is often seen in many home Aquarium. Unlike zebra pleco, you’ll find them easily in most of the. This data sheet gives you basic information about Starlight Bristlenose Pleco diet, sexing, breeding, distribution, water parameters and compatibility. Male Bristlenose Female. Family: Loricariidae. Genera include: Ancistrus Dolichopterus, Ancistrus temminckii, Ancistrus cirrhosus. We'll look at the following issues/items in detail: What fish need and the importance of research and species specific diets. Why knowing what your fish will eat and how they eat it is so important when choosing your stock- list. What we can feed, including a basic look at nutritional benefits and practicalities of: Dry goods. Frozen foods. Live foods. Vegetable based and miscellaneous foods. How do I feed my fish? Techniques for shy or picky species. Before I start I must stress that the information and advice given below is very general in nature, we'll discuss how variety in dietary requirements makes giving specific advice per species impossible in this short article. The important thing to remember is that research should always come before a purchase and is the only way you'll discover whether you can cater for the dietary requirements of your fish. Also we will look at freshwater species only as metabolic differences make marine fish's nutritional needs somewhat different, along with the complexity of feeding technique/acceptance issues for a hobby so reliant on wild caught specimens. What . The relative amounts of the substances above vary between species but you'll find some common ground, for example the dietary in- take of protein generally being higher in Carnivores than in Herbivores. Identifying the general classification of your chosen species is the first step to tailoring a diet specific to his/her needs. Is your fish primarily herbivorous (plant and vegetable matter)? Buy Albino Butterfly Bushynose Pleco - Ancistrus sp. Live fish, plants & coral orders over $149 ship FREE everyday at That Fish Place - That. Carnivorous (meat, live or dead)? Or Omnivorous (Omni meaning all). Having this information will stop you from making costly mistakes with your fish's health. Herbivores: Many herbivorous species such as plecs and rasping fish have a large elongated gut, with barely any stomach at all. The gut is designed for constant grazing of small amounts of vegetable/plant matter and the length of the digestive tract allows for breakdown of the complex compound cellulose. Representative herbivores of the family Cichlidae for example display a wide range of anatomical differences and many species are still evolving their own ways of dealing with the foods available to them. Herbivorous fish do not have the capacity to take large meaty items of food. This often causes problems as many Cichlid keepers will know, despite inability to deal with these large items many fish simply can’t pass up the dietary protein these foods are so rich in. Common sense should rue the day here, care should be taken to match food size and variety with the fish’s ability not only to effectively eat it but also to digest it. Very few fish are true herbivores, the majority will capitalise on available protein however it is made available. The key here is not to force fish to eat only plant and vegetable matter and thus suppress natural behaviour, but to ensure as aquarists we regulate the diet, keeping dietary intake of protein down to below 5%. As well as supplementing their diet with protein many fish are known to eat wood. Some of the most notable wood eaters being sucker- mouth catfish (Loricariids), such as the Royal Pleco (Panaque nigrolineatus). Availability of bogwood/driftwood should be seen as a necessity for these species that surely will not thrive without it. Aside from ensuring that their teeth are kept in good condition it is believed that the wood absorbs excess nutrients from difficult to digest plant matter which the microbes present in the fish’s gut would otherwise be unable to digest. Algae Eaters: Snails, shrimp, Plecostomus, and Otocinclus to name just a few of the animals often recruited to deal with problem algae in the aquarium. It is important to remember however that algae are a large and diverse group of organisms and often to the frustration of the keeper the cleaner employed has no interest in eating it. A reason I believe that algae in the aquarium should be re- assessed in our minds as a dietary requirement for certain species rather than a nuisance for them to clear up. Twig Catfish (Farlowella sp.) and Hillstream Loaches (Balitoridae sp.) are excellent examples of micro predators which relish diatomic algae growth, but are often mistaken for vegetarians by their keepers for their affinity for these algaes, it is however the myofauna content inside the algae which these fish crave. Green algae is enthusiastically eaten by shrimp species, Dwarf Suckermouth Catfish (Otocinclus sp.) and a large number of Plecs making the mainstay of many of these fish’s diets for the vegetable content alone. It is important to recognise that algae supports a cornucopia of organisms which in turn support vast food chains, careful research around “algae eating” species is important to understand the specific needs of their diet. Again, supplementation of micro foods and alternative plant matter and suitable protein where appropriate should be a matter of course. NB Some algae are inedible and should be removed at first sight, such as Blue- Green Algae (Cyanobacteria), certain cyanobacteria produce dangerous cyanotixins. Carnivores: In comparison with Herbivorous fish, Carnivores have a very different digestive tract, relatively short in comparison and containing a large stomach capable of part digestion of large bulky foods such as whole fish etc. This system is ill- equipped for dealing with plant matter and the breakdown of cellulose. Smaller species are often stated as being micro predators or myofauna consumers preying on extremely small, often microscopic creatures found throughout their environment, such as infusoria/aufwuchs. Food offered should be appropriate in size and nature to cater for these more specialised feeding habits. As detailed above, many species will accept unsuitable food types when available, again, the responsibility for provision of suitable diet not only in nutritional content but in shape and form is the fish keeper’s. Omnivores: Omnivorous fish can be stated as being something of a happy medium between carnivorous and herbivorous fish, both possessing a stomach and intestinal tract of reasonable size. Though specialising in neither food type. Evolution has shaped the biology of fish as in any other animal to allow them to occupy a particular niche in their ecosystem. Some are so reliant on their niche's that they become dependant on a very small range of foods (lepidophages or scale eaters for example) and are wholly incapable of locating/catching or processing a wider variety of foods offered to them by their well meaning new owners. This may seem very basic, but its very important that so far as diet is concerned we get the fundamentals correct, inappropriate diet can and does lead to poor health, poor growth and vitality and an extensive list of complications. RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH!!! The principles above are sweeping and general, but once you know what group your fish best fits in to (by doing your research) you can start to look at a diet specific to your fish. For example, take two carnivores, one may be a piscivore (fish eater) whilst another maybe an insectivore (insect eater), the piscivore may not gain adequate nutrition from insects and the insectivore may be un- equipped to catch or eat fish etc. There are many foods out there that claim to be a complete . Siluriformes (catfish) for example as a group contains strict herbivores, strict carnivores and plenty of omnivorous species. Throw aside the “catch all” foods and spend a little time researching the specific dietary requirements of your species’, a tailored diet will ensure happy, healthy and long lived livestock. Why knowing what your fish will eat is so important when choosing your stock- list. How often can we say that we think specifically about how and what we will feed a specific fish when introducing it to a bustling community or choosing it amongst the hundreds of species at our local fish shop? When compiling a stock- list do we consider where each species will occupy a niche and whether any feeding conflicts may arise from our choices? Many fish have evolved to occupy a very specific portion of the water column, on the other hand some will go to where the food is. A fairly straightforward way to identify what position in the water column you’ll find a fish locating it’s food is by taking a look at the shape, structure or position of the mouth. Generally speaking, fish which feed from surface foods, such as surface skimming insects, often have mouths that are upturned which gives them greater positioning and agility when feeding on floating foods (see fig. Bottom dwellers who feed primarily from the substrate often have downward pointing or under- slung mouths and even complicated suckers (see fig. Fish that feed from the middle layers of the water column and also the generalists happy to feed anywhere within their environment often have very centrally located forward facing mouths, neither significantly upturned nor under- slung (see fig. Looking at the adaptations of your fish will give you an insight into the area of the tank they are most comfortable eating.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2017
Categories |