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By Adam Blundell Background Nutrition and fish health is a commonly overlooked aspect of the marine aquarium hobby. In fact nutrition should be a very well known, and highly discussed aspect of aquarium care. Poor nutrition in fish leads to loss of vigor, poor appearance, and death; while good nutrition leads to better colors, growth and even reproduction (Fenner 1998). All too often, we see new hobbyists setting up their aquariums, buying their fish, and buying their single can of flake food. Of course, the reason for this is the lack of discussion regarding fish nutrition. Hobbyists have been trained for years to feed their fish the same old food everyday. After all, most new marine hobbyists have had years of experience in the freshwater hobby, where simple flake food is the norm. What is most amazing to me is to see that we are now over a decade past the release of Angelo Mojetta’s The Encyclopedia of Aquarium Fish (Mojetta 1993). In that book, Mojetta lists several common aquarium fish and their appropriate diets. Mojetta’s food recommendations are mostly chopped fish, squid, artemia, bivalves, and vegetable matter. Yet, several years later his recommendations are still not well understood by the common hobbyist. This article will discuss some common fish food recipes, as well as present a new progressive recipe for different tank inhabitants. Literature Review Many fish food recipes exist and more and more hobbyists are willing to try their own. Most recipes have the same basic idea; get a bunch of different foods and mix them together. The source of those foods and the proportions of them are often variable and are the differing aspect of those recipes. A recipe I have coined as “The Fenner Recipe” is one of the most widely known recipes due to its publication in The Conscientious Marine Aquarist (Fenner 1998). In that book, the recipe is referred to as “Fenner’s Wonderful Marine Mash” (Fenner 1998, pg 145). This recipe calls for shrimp, mollusk (of any kind), seaweed/algae, and a multivitamin supplement. It is a direct, easy to follow, few ingredient recipe. For anyone new to the hobby, or who hasn’t made their own food, this is a great starting place. It provides nutrition and variety in simple food. Another popular recipe is that of a coral food recipe published in Aquarium Corals Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History by Eric Borneman (Borneman 2001). Borneman prefaces that recipe with the following statement “the requirements for suitable coral foods are nutrients that will remain largely in suspension and contain a mix of particle sizes, compositions, and elements to sustain and enhance the requirements of a mixed coral tank” (Borneman 2001, pg 64). Borneman’s recipe includes fresh seafood (shrimp, clams, etc.), frozen aquarium foods, dried seaweed, flake food, antioxidants, and liquid vitamins. This recipe is more in depth, requiring the acquisition of more ingredients. Other recipes include using “human food” as a basis for the fish food. By this I mean items such as carrots, peas, trout, salmon, cod, romaine lettuce, etc. I have termed this recipe the “Hobbyist Formula”. While extremely convenient to make and arguably far better than standard flake foods, it can be argued that it is not natural and therefore is not the best recipe. I believe this argument to a certain extent and therefore discourage its use, especially since other recipes (like Fenner’s and Borneman’s) exist. If indeed common foods are used it is still best to “stick with protein sources of saltwater origin” (Fenner 1998, pg 145). A fourth recipe I refer to as “Adam’s Fish Food” takes a different approach to food making. In that recipe I describe a process of basically mixing many types of frozen aquarium foods. The main difference between that recipe and the previously mentioned recipes, is that the “Adam’s Fish Food” contained 50% meat items, 30% vegetative items, and the remaining 20% was already a mixed food (i.e. Formula 1 or Prime Reef). The reason for this recipe was to match the natural diet of fish, since herbivorous fish eat between 30%-50% of their diet as vegetative matter. A Progressive Recipe This article is the first attempt, to the author’s knowledge, at publishing a progressive recipe for fish foods (although several revisions and follow ups are undoubtedly to follow). The basics behind a progressive recipe are to allow different fish foods (better term is “Reef Foods”) to be made, all in one mixing session. It is important to note that when we feed our tanks we are not just feeding our fish, but also our corals, mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms, annelids, and a wide range of other inhabitants. Because of this, a better term like “Reef Foods” or “Feeding a Reef” should be used.
"Adam's Reef Gumbo" Directions This recipe focuses on using marine meat products as the basics for coral food. This is under the assumptions that natural conditions provide marine meats as the food source for corals. The fish food section of this recipe focuses on a wide range of meat and vegetative items that are also assumed to be the staples of reef fish natural diets. Remember, whatever food you add to your tank will be feeding everything in your tank. [Editors note: To minimize the nutritional degradation caused by repeated thawing and freezing of food items, use fresh products when possible, and keep previously frozen foods as close to freezing as possible.]
Additives The recipe presented here intentionally left out all additives. The reason for this is because I would like to specifically address this issue separately. I DO add additives, primarily Zoe/Selco, to my foods. Note that Adam’s (2003), Fenner’s (1998), and Borneman’s (2001) all include the usage of multivitamins in their mixes.
Additionally, I do also add liquid garlic extract to my fish foods . Hobbyists have widely reported the benefits of garlic as a cure/preventative for many diseases including marine ich. My personal observation has me believing that garlic is in fact close to a “miracle cure” for many situations. I do add this garlic to the food mix after I have made the coral food, because after personal communication with Jake Pehrson (owner of CoralPlanet.com) we concluded that the effects of garlic on corals is not well known or witnessed. Therefore, better safe than sorry. Additional additives of amino acids may provide greater feeding responses in corals. Amino acid supplements from nutritional stores are now making their way into aquarium foods. The amino acids with the most potential appear to be those that induce feeding responses in nature like praline, glycine, and glutathione (Borneman 2001). Adding these amino acids to the water, or to the coral food, may increase polyp extension prey capture. They are also very useful to corals because they are building blocks for larger molecules, and many corals are unable to synthesize their own amino acids. Binding agents can also be of use in making homemade foods. Some recipes call for a packet of gelatin (Fenner 1998) to hold the food mix together. Certainly many commercially available frozen aquarium foods use gelatin. The key to this is to know if you want your food bound or not. Many coral lovers don’t want their food to stick together, as they want very small particles for filter feeding corals. Aquarists with large aggressive fish may want the opposite, as they don’t want small food particles that do get eaten and will eventually break down in the tank. Odd additions to food sources are out there, and their effects are unknown. For example, I have a friend who claims that the reason his reef tank is so successful is because he adds a can of Fresca to the tank every month. My mom always told me the key to a good recipe is to add a little celery salt. And I know from personal experience that my fish like chicken. In other words, there is a lot of other stuff you can add to your food, but it is probably not necessary. Finally, I would like to mention the addition of color pigments. It is believed that by adding colorful pigments to coral food (and fish food for that matter) you can increase the coloration of the animal. This intuitively makes sense. We’ve all done the experiment in elementary school where you put a stalk of celery in water with dark food coloring. A few days later you can see that coloring in the stalk and in the leaves of the celery. It therefore makes sense to think that high coloration in foods can create more colorful animals, although not necessarily healthier animals. With this in mind some people may want to add highly colorful items such as eggplant, tamarillo, or kale to their food mixes (Borneman 2001).
Conclusion There are many fish and coral food recipes available. We should be terming those “Reef Foods” or “Aquarium Foods,” since the food is feeding a plethora of organisms. While we don’t know the effects of all additives and nutrients, much variety and experimentation will lead to healthier animals. Finally, all recipes are really guidelines. It is important to understand the purpose of the ingredients and not just the proportions of them. For further reading please consult the references listed below. “The real trick is in making sure that each specimen gets what it needs” (Fenner 1998, pg 142). References Borneman, E., Aquarium Corals Selection, Husbandry, and Natural History. New Jersey: T.F.H. Publications, 2001. Fenner, R., The Conscientious Marine Aquarist, New Jersey: T.F.H. Publications, 1998. Mojetta, A., The Encyclopedia of Aquarium Fish, Translation by Mondadori A., and Gilbert J., New York: Barnes & Nobles, Inc., 1993.
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