Feeding Fish Vegetables

[Enigma]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Im assuming that potassium is the reason some feed it.....I fed it as a treat, like you said, just to get some variance in their diet....

I think maybe I'll try it. We always have bananas in the house.

[RD]

Ive been telling peeps this for years....even got into a heated debate about it here with more than one person.....I think NLS is a great food for freshwater and even a fish only , but I will not feed it to my reef

Honestly, for some people ignorance must be bliss.




With regards to copper in food food, this topic comes up from time to time on various forums and is something that apparently many reef hobbyists do not fully understand, anymore than many freshwater shrimp owners.

In small quantities, copper is an essential element to all life forms.


Copper and Aquatic Life


http://www.copper.org/publications/n...er_health.html



Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY has been feeding NLS (daily) in his reef tanks for the past 10+ years. You can view his 20,000 gallon reef set up (the largest in NA, and 4th largest in the world) in the link below, where he also mentions feeding New Life Spectrum.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/2/aquarium

Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded Aquarium authorities. He has consulted with many public Aquariums worldwide, and has also presented reef-keeping lectures throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.


Bob Fenner, who is widely known through his various published works on aquatics, as well as his wetwebmedia website, has stated that New Life Spectrum is a nutritionally complete food, to the point of it being the best food, period. http://wetwebmedia.com/foodsppt1.htm

Bob's bio can be found here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/WWMAdminS...ex/bobfbio.htm

Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. You can view Mr. Delbeek's bio in the following link.

http://www.jcdaquariumdesign.com/Pages/about_us.html

The gentlemen mentioned above are not only highly respected, very experienced long term reef keepers, they also hold one or more degrees in the various related sciences, and would most certainly never use anything in their systems that even had the potential to harm any type of life form.

Also, none of those individuals have any type of vested interest in New Life.


Last but not least, please keep in mind that almost everything and anything can become toxic at high enough levels, including some vitamins. No nutritionist would recommend completely eliminating vitamin A, B, D, E and K from the diet just because at higher levels these substances can be toxic to a fish, yet this exact type of logic is what's used when some hobbyists discuss essential trace elements such as copper.

Happy fishkeeping.

[FragIt Dan]

+1 on RD's comments. I co-wrote a publication in Limnology and Oceanography regarding Cu and Fe in the Ocean. Cu, along with many other elements found in fish food (and vegetables as well) have an acceptable range in concentration that is beneficial to each organism. I was actually able to negatively effect some phytoplankton by decreasing the Cu concentration to very low levels. Trace amounts of Cu found in fish foods (and fresh or blanched veggies) are not enough to raise the concentration above levels that are detrimental to anything in your tank.

As for fresh veggies, I am sure that some of the coral foods that I have tried are, in part, veggie juice. IMO, just because lettuce is not found in the ocean, doesn't mean it isn't good for your fish or corals. Nutritional content may be just fine, but the companies selling you stuff would have you believe otherwise .
Dan