I was interested to find a paper that compared the nutritional quality of
aquaculture raised fish against that of wild caught specimens of the same
species and you guessed it , many of the beneficial fish oils etc (that are
recommended as being a major reason for eating more fish) are either
reduced or even worse replaced by less beneficial ones. Presumably this is
due to the less than optimal diet that the captive fish are forced to eat
because they do not have the ability to search for more appropriate foods
as they would in the wild.
The combination of confinement with consequent lack of exercise and
abnormal diet probably constitutes a form of cruelty in the eyes of some
and certainly defeats the long term aim of the aquaculture industry to be
a viable alternative to wild harvesting.
Not only will they find consumer resistance to taste (as they have found
with aquaculture prawns) but they will find resistance on the grounds of
nutritional inadequacy. Since they have huge amounts of capital tied up in
infrastructure it does seem rediculous to pinch pennies on food. Hopefully
for us the spin-off may be better fish nutrition research. In the meanwhile
we need to get back to the drawing boards with our pet fish and try to
emulate their natural diets as much as we can.
It seems that an "apple a day" may not be such a good idea after all :-)
Perhaps an apple one day, a pear the next, an orange the next, a banana the
next etc may be better :-)
In other words feed a variety of appropriate foods, not too much and not
too often and tell us all what is working for each other.
Cheers
Bruce Hansen----------
> From: Mach Fukada <tuhoitc at aloha.net>
> To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [RML] Food for thought
> Date: Monday, 16 June 1997 6:07
>
> 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,