HELP... BEEF HEART debate is bugging me!

[aquartos]

Hi all,
Just been under fire from another forum about feeding my discus beef heart..
They are ranting about the fact that it is high in fat and is very bad for your fish... I replied there with some of the knowledge that i have acquired from reading about Beef Heart Mix on this forum, but they all seem to think that it is THE worst stuff for your fish!

Can anyone clear some things up for me with the following...



it is high in protein diet, but non of the mentioned food sources come from mammals, Fish store fat as Oil, Fish dont store it as solid fat like mammals, so the characteristics of the meat are totally different. Humans find it hard to digest red meat compared to fish meat. And our body temp is higher than fish's so we are capable of liquidfying the fat and utilizing it, fish arnt.

I find it hard to swallow (PUN) that you can "balance" BeefHeart by adding other substitutes meats, mammal meat has fat, even if you cut away the visible stuff, the addition of foods you still wont remove the characteristic of the meat.

I had it explained to me its like eating plastic, the material is totally not usable to us, and if it had the same principles of fat, it would be absorbed into our system and deposited on our heart

And some more...


But heres some quotes to add food for thought

• Mammals store excess protein as "hard" fat, that can be metabolized at a later time (during periods of fasting) whereas fish store it as "oil". Fish store oils due to the low "melting" temperature needed to use it at the comparatively low body temperatures fish enjoy. Fish can not use mammal fat and therefore it tends to accumulate in the liver, kidney, ovaries and depending on the species, pyloric cecae

• it's hard on the water quality

• Digestive system isn't quite designed to handle those types of foods, high in fibres and fatty contents - especially in large quantities.

• Its not Sterilized unlike Bloodworms...and BH is raw meat there's a possibility it could cause parasites or who knows what else

• If fed too often, beef heart can cause obesity, digestive problems, constipation (and possibly secondary internal infection because of that), which all can be very harmful, if not fatal to fish. If you have access to other types of food, I strongly recommend feeding those - better safe than sorry

• Beef heart is about as nutritious as black worms. The Hawaii Sea Grant did study on protein foods.

• Beef heart fish usually don't breed well or tolerate stress well.

• Its reasonably accepted that fish that live less than 3 years do not suffer from the long term health issues(Corys, Rams, Tetras, Killifish) (This is contracdicted with the study done on guppies proving significant fatty deposits around the heart)

Any thoughts?

Sorry for the long post... this has been buging me so I thought id ask some open minded people about it...

Cheers,

Shev

[Merrilyn]

I've been following that debate too Shev.

Can all of the discus breeders all over the world be so wrong? All those fish farmers in Asia, who rely on the health and beauty of their fish as a source of income ..... do you think they would do anything that would be detrimental to the health of their breeding fish, or limit the size of their spawns.

And what diet are they feeding ........ do you think they are using expensive dry foods, no, they are using what they have on hand, what works well and has been working for them for years.

A mixture of beefheart and vegetables.

A lot of the dry foods contain wheat flour or wheat gluten. If feeding beefheart is so unnatural, then please can someone tell me how wheat is a natural food??????

I'm not knocking dry foods. I use them myself, in fact several brands of them. But I use them as PART of a well balanced diet, along with frozen foods and a beefheart mix.

I think this is where you must draw your own conclusions.

I have been keeping and breeding discus for more than thirty years. My oldest surviving fish was 12 before he died of old age, and I have been feeding some form of beefheart mix to my fish for a very long time.

My fish are healthy, live long lives and have very large spawns. I can't ask for any more than that. :P

[Nathan]

i have also heard of such arguements. i have decided to continue using my beef heart mix (merrilyns recipe!)

ive bene using it for a bit less then a year on my discus, there growth rates are quite impressive, they have neevr been sick, great colours, very active and even spawning.

of course this is only about a 1/3 of there diet, an i wouldnt feed much more then that as i do believe they lots of other foods, i also feed them frozen brine shrimp, frozen BW, an live black worms.

[mistakes r crucial]

Until 3 months ago I fed a BH mix to all my fish on a daily basis and in fact it was their staple diet, mixed in with brine shrimp, blood worm and flake.

This has always been to the disgust of my vet as she firmly believes BH for any fish is unnatural and has far too much fat content and fat content of the wrong type. According to her it has long term affects on their internal organs.

The true leaders in our Discus hobby have had and continue to have great results using BH yet science tells us it's wrong, who knows! I no longer feed BH but that was a personal decision.

Cheers
MAC

[Phlipper]

I have always been led to believe beefheart should only be fed occasionaly, something I always kept in mind from my childhood days of fish keeping, but not so sure if this recomendation applies to discus or is is just for other fish ? I wonder if the main thing is to feed variety, not just beefheart mix, as has been suggested many times before.

I think the idea of beefheart causing digestive problems may only apply to pure beefheart ?.........Merrilyns and others recipes incorporate more than just meat, it has green food for fibre and various other components, and I would think this is the factor that makes it much more digestable and safer to feed.

[FishLover]

There are two kind of views here:

1. From the breader's point view, BH is a very cheap food. Something very important if you have to feed lot of fhis. It also promotes fast growth, again very important for the breaders. To over come the problems come with BH, the brreaders always trying to add more things to the BH mix, which is why they have such good results. They can also do much more WC than the average guys, which is a must when you use BH.

2. From the average fish keeper, since a few dollors of flakes will last over few months, the cost of food is not a big issue. The fish already big enough (thanks for the BH mix from the breaders) so fast growth is not really a first thing comes to mine. Making BH mix is mess and one batch last too long, maybe not fresh at the end of the batch. Another turn off point for the average fish keeper. Average fish keeper don't really care if they fish reach max size in 6 moths or a year. As long as they are healthy and pretty, it is good enough. Another thing about BH is it messes up the water quickly, which means more W/C for the fish keeper. Another point of not using it for the agerage guys. Adding all these negetive things about BH for the average fish keeper, you can see why there is a big risistant of using BH on their part.

I agree the main thing is to feed variety. Do whatever is easy and fit for your case and don't bother with the debate.

[Merrilyn]

Another thing that I find curious with meat from mammals being "so foreign" to fish, how about the Silver Arrowana who jump out of the water and pull small monkeys out of trees and eat them. Hmmmm last time I looked, a monkey was a mammal.

You could even take it a step further, and look at crocodiles, a cold blooded reptile, but they eat the flesh of any mammal silly enough to get in their way. And that's a major part of their diet. Small and large fish hang around and clean up any scraps. I don't know of any fish in the wild that would pass up a free meal.

Just something to think about.

[Nathan]

my vet was telling me this was absoultely no good feeding beef heart an it should be taken out of their diet completely.

he said it makes them grow fast but leaves their internal organs behind, meaning later on there organs will fail, also that its the wrong kind of fat for fish an that its just really unhealthy for them.

i continue to use beefheart an until i notice problems that i think is due to the food then i will continue to do so

[geo/discus breeder]

i think it is ok for your discus just in the write quanitys.

breeders of discus all over the world use beef heart mix. why would they keep feeding it to there discus if they will have un happy custumers and there breeding fish will have less breeding in them.

you guys that have spoken to your vets have you told them all the additives like lecithin, wheat germ, spirulina and baby spinach.

and its not all beef heart you can add things like scalops, prawns and beef liver.

my overall view is you can feed your discus a lot of beef heart and a bit of blood worms, brine shrimp. then your discus grow faster/breed beter you will just need to do more water changes. it just depends on what you are aiming for with your discus.

[Reillin]

I think the proof is in the pudding, and in this case, it is the internal organs of the discus which are discussed.

A review was made over some african cichlids, fed beefheart and the dissection revealed that it caused a lot of problems internally, although the fish were colourful and grew fast externally.

I guess we can wait till when they actually dissect experimental beefheart onto discus, however, it will be rarely that a cow will cross the river and its heart falls out. You must realised that a discus has existed for a lot longer than the aquarium trade. It has probably evolved over hundreds if not a thousand+ years and this evolution includes the necessary enzymes and disgestive tracks to digest the food found in its environment.

It must also be remembered that growth rate is not necessarily looking after a pet's fish interest. It is my opinion that we should try to mimic as much as possible the natural food eaten by the discus in its original home. We heed the advice of scientist about it's water conditions, the temperatures and we have made up alternatives for food for the fish. So maybe we should be open minded about looking at the possibility that the food we provide can be unsuitable for our pets.

What is also on the cards is, a discus nowadays is probably nowhere in any comparison with its wild cousin. We have bred and interbred them over countless of generations and I believe this will effect their makeup. It could be that our higher protein foods do give better colours and do make our fish grow a lot faster.


Some questions to ponder.

What is the percentage of survival for a standard batch of discus fry? Are they bigger for wildcaughts?

How long do a discus live for? Are they longer for wildcaughts?

How big do discus grow? Are they bigger in the wild?

Are colours as intense for fish in the wild?

Whether good or bad, I believe the answers to those questions is that, yes there is a difference between wildcaughts and "man-made" discus.

Cheers,
Vien.

[Phlipper]

Now before you scoff at me, bear in mind what I am about to say is not my own words but from a very interesting and well presented Aquarium instructional video being sold in some shops now. It's presented by a fellow who certainly seems to know what he's talking about, his name is Paul Talbot, and the video is well worth watching.
The video covers most aspects of aquarium management like filters, food, lighting, water chemIstry etc etc etc.

The part that created interest for me is in regards to excess feeding of Beefheart mixes. The video is quite adamant that Beefheart is very high in protien and will certainly achieve great growth rates for Discus and other fish, but "may" lead to other problems, digestive disorders not even being mentioned. The main concern according to this instructional video is that too much high protien food like beefheart is a main cause of Hexamita in fish, primarily Discus ?

I cant of course say whether this is true or not, but it makes you think a little.............Discus are more prone to Hexamita than other fish generally, and Discus are generally fed more beefheart mixes than other fishes to achieve good growth rates, so "maybe" there is some element of truth in the reccomendation ??? :?

[stonedavid]

[ Beef heart fish usually don't breed well or tolerate stress well]

The above was said on one of the other forums, i can assure you my discus pairs breed without fail every week, and the babies are eating BH from about 3 weeks of age. Re stress all fish in my tanks are able to handle water changes straight from the tap and no heated water is put into the tanks. During summer they handle the tropical temps without fail. Discus are more hardy and adaptable than people give them credit for. If they were stressed from a BH diet they wldn't be breeding??? BH is like any diet if you deliever a well balanced meal in any animal species it is healthy, if you were feeding an unbalanced diet of just BH by itself, of course it wld cause stress and medical problems. Look what happened in " Super Size me" :lol: Keep you diets balanced and nutritious and you will have no problems and shld you be concerned you can always suppliment with other ingredients. This is just my opinion and i understand and respect everyone elses opinion or view, its up to the indiviual person with the discus and what they find is a benifit in their situation.
rgds
Pete[/quote]