>Without digressing into the utopian dream of a "balanced" tank - that
>lovely idea of a kind of miniature "Biosphere" concept - can we explore
>food a little further? I know most of us are busy trying to juggle all the
>imperatives, commitments and various priorities in our lives that seem to
>rob us of precious time to devote to our "sanity-saving" past-times. This
>doesn't often allow us the time to stand for 10 minutes in front of each
>tank twice a day (or more often) and watch as each fish deals with our
>food offerings for that session. However a lot is learned about each
>individual as well as each species just by "fishwatching" in our own
>aquaria. We learn about the value of floating foods of varying sizes being
>given first to fill up the greedy Rainbows then the smaller slowly sinking
>foods for the nid-water feeders like the Werneri and Hardyheads and then
>the pellets that sink for the bottom dwellers. Then after that the frozen
>an d live foods for those that don't do well on dry foods ( with just a bit
>squeezed in by the Rainbows that you thought couln't possibly fit any more
>in!
I think that we can do a bit in the way of constant foods, such as Duckweed
and Wolfia for Rainbows, and little buggy critters for Goby/Gudgeons.
>In a breeding situation I know the situation is different - we have a
>monoculture and whether there are 50 or 5,000,000 fry the idea seems to be
>to get them to the largest dimensions (especially weight in aquaculture) as
>quickly as possible and at the same time as cheaply as possible so that
>they can be sold off to offset costs and hopefully make a profit. Obviously
>feeding is only one factor in the profit picture - labour, equipment,
>power, water supply etc etc all come into the equation as well.
But does fastest growth necessarily equate to best growth? I am not too sure...
>For us hobbyists, and generally speaking that is what we are here on this
>list, no matter whether our "real job" is being a doctor or an aquaculture
>consultant, the quality of the end product is very important because they
>will be the next generation in the on-going chain of maintenance of a
>captive population of this species or variety. So I feel we should try to
>produce fry that we would be happy to breed with ourselves and are
>confident that they will live and breed to the best of their potential.
Agreed - one shouldn't ask others to work with material that one wouldn't
use oneself...
>Feeding inappropriate nutrition to our fish will not produce good breeders
>or long-lived specimens in my opinion and I would be happy to hear from
>anyone who feels otherwise.
>In the same vein I don't feel happy about buying aquaculture produced fish
>if the nutritional value may be inferior ( for my personal nutrition that
>is) and I contend that the industry as a whole will eventually founder if
>they continue to persist with inappropriate feeding.
I think that the average consumer believes that fish is fish, Bruce...
allowing for differentiation between species - although they could be
educated otherwise.
>Obviously there are many aspects to this and some compromises need to be
>made along the way but at least in the hobby as opposed to the commercial
>side of things I can see a tendency for hobbyists to prefer to get their
>stock from other breeders and auctions because they feel that the fish they
>obtain will breed better, are of better quality an d will live longer. No
>wonder some of the commercial breeders of native aquarium fish are trying
>to shut us down with red tape :-)
I don't want to be seen to be stirring up ill feeling towards the industry,
as I have been accused of doing in the past, but I rarely visit fish shops
let alone purchase fish from them. There are various reasons for this, not
the least is that I have but few tanks, and am happy with the stock I have!
Regards, Andrew Boyd
__________________________________________________________________
Andrew Boyd - andrew at pcug.org.au - http://www.pcug.org.au/~andrew
"May you kindle Fire and never be burned by it,
May the Air never send storms across your path,
May the path across the Earth be a soft one,
May the Water of your tears always taste sweet with joy,
May your Spirit find your own true path...."
__________________________________________________________________