Re: [RML] Food for thought

Adrian R. Tappin (atappin at ecn.net.au)
Mon, 16 Jun 1997 18:20:36 +1000

At 10:07 15/06/97 -1000, Mach wrote:
>This is one of the new big issues here in Honolulu. At the University of
>Hawaii researchers have been working on using commercial aquaculture feeds
>to raise ornamentals. Typically there is a greatly increased growth
>response. these feeds are typically about 20 % lipid/fat. One of the
>questions raised is if this "unnatural diet" would have concequences, i.e.
>reduced viability, reduced fecundity, reduced life span.

This is the big problem - most fish nutrition research is based on
aquaculture for food fishes and very little, if any research has been done
on ornamental fishes. Even in Singapore, they have based a lot of their work
on previous aquacultural studies. Aquaculturists only want to grow their
fishes to table size as quickly as they can at the cheapest price. Us
aquarists on the other hand want to keep out fish alive and well for as long
as we can. I'm going to reduce the amount of food I have been feeding my
fishes and see what develops. Probably also increase the vegetable matter,
especially for the trifasciata.

Adrian.
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Adrian R. Tappin
Home of the Rainbowfish
http://www.ecn.net.au/~atappin/home.htm
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