8 replies to this topic

[bigfish]

is it ok to feed mt calvus occassional blood worms?
cheers Anthony

Edited by: mtchye at: 6/29/04 6:02 pm

[mrseby]

GO FOR IT !!!!

IT'S ALL GOOD 4 THEM

[7BARfrontosa]

They grow much faster feeding them bloodworms. All friend costantly feeds them bloodworms and you should see the size of them now is just such a short period of time. He got his at 4cm and after 4 months of feeding them bloodworms, their like 8+cm. Bloodworms have like 62% protein and like all altos. they require a high protein diet as they are carnivores in the wild.

[bigfish]

are u sure this statement is correct?
i have always known calvus as slow growing and have never heard of them growing this fast!4cm+ in 4 months resembles a zebra! what else was he doing right? maybe he got sum special calvus! :

[7BARfrontosa]

It's true. I know its a common fallacy that they grow slow, and I do still believe that but I've seen these calvus's before he bought them til now and I can tell you they are around 8cm now (not crossbreeds either). He feeds them bloodworms everyday and by the looks of it quite a bit. I wouldnt make a statement if I it couldnt be backed up. Alot of aquarists dont like feeding their fish with bloodworms regularly but my friend has had no problems with it, bloodworms are a staple diet for his calvus's. I wouldnt recommend feeding too much bloodworms to any other fish other than calvus's though. It's up to you what you want to do, just sharing my experience.

Edited by: 7BARfrontosa at: 12/4/03 9:12 pm

[bigfish]

hey thanks for sharing, im not sayin your lyin just a bit out of the ordinary!
stranger things have happened

[mtchye]

Hmm... not disputing the growth rates or anything but I believe most frozen bloodworms contain very little protein at all.. more in the region of 10% or less..


In fact I believe some bloodworms are enhanced with extra vitamins during the freezing process? Perhaps these vitamins which can sometimes be lacking in some dry foods enables them to grow faster?

I haven't kept calvus but in my experience Tangs seem to be more picky about their food. If they like something they will eat a lot of it, if they aren't too happy about a certain food, they may eat just a minimum. Lots of light feedings of varied foods work best IMO. (Although I was given a sample of one food that seems to be very excellent so far in terms of nutritional content and attractability to the fish - its an artemia replacement designed for aquaculture use)

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[7BARfrontosa]

refer to this site on nutritional content of bloodworms
members.optushome.com.au/...odworm.htm

[mtchye]

Quote:

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Chemical analysis shows that bloodworms contain 9.3% dry matter and of this there is 62.5% crude protein, 10.4% crude fat and 11.6% ash with 15.4% nitrogen free extract.

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Yup, that confirms what i thought. The bloodworm itself is mainly water. Of the 9.3% of it that is dry matter, 62.5% of that is protein. So 62.5% of 9.3% is a total protein of around 5.8%...

So you are getting very little protein/kg of bloodworm. In contrast many manufactured feeds vary from 30-50% protein. However, this doesn't mean that bloodworm are not a good food. I find the fish really like the Hikari type which are supposed to have lots of vitamins in them. I think many of us underestimate the crucial role vitamins and other trace dietary requirements play in growth and health of our fish.

For example some dry foods that have been manufactured some time back may keep a lot of their protein content but have almost zero vitamin content. With vitamin deficiencies you may not maximise a fishes growth even with tonnes of protein intake.

(Works the same way in humans too, 4 fruit and veg anyone?)
Haha it would be interesting to see how many here pay more attention to their fishes nutrition than to their own - i would probably fall into that class lol!

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