Aquarium Nutrition: Putting it All Together
In many ways, fish food is like an interweaving basket, remove one strand, and the whole thing can unravel. There is no one single ingredient that has more value than all others. Each and every ingredient used to make up a premium fish food is vitally important to your fish’s long term health.
For example, more and more evidence has proven that many common fish ailments such as lateral line disease in Surgeonfish, hole in the head in Angelfish, and fin erosion in Tangs, are almost always nutritional issues.
DIGESTIBILITY & CONVERSION RATIO
It’s amazing how fish hobbyists often compare fish food by just the sticker price. The true cost of an aquarium diet is impossible to determine based solely on the price on the jar. Many so-called “expensive” foods are actually more economical due to nutrition density and higher digestibility of the ingredients.
The key here is the feed conversion ratio: the percentage of the food mass convertible by the animal into biologically useful nutrients. A higher conversion ratio has two big results. First, your aquarium companions can eat less to receive the nutrition they need. Second is less waste —both because they’re eating less mass and because a higher proportion of what they are consuming is absorbed rather than expelled.
For this desirable feed conversion ratio, the ingredients used must not only be high in nutrients, but be in a form the fish can digest easily. For fish and other aquarium dwellers, this is quality marine-based protein sources, aquatic plant matter, etc.
You don’t have to be running a huge number of tanks for this savings to be noticeable. Even for the average hobbyist, the difference in the amount of food needed to keep your fish in optimum health when using a premium quality product just might surprise you.
The bottom line is w know a lot about what fish need in captivity if we take the time to understand nutrition, look at research and consider the realities of how fish feed in the wild. The determining factor of what makes a fish food high quality is the willingness to put this knowledge — and the quality, properly sourced ingredients — into the food.
In the next article, we’ll take a look at reading the labels for fish food, and the “Fish Food Economics 101” that equals the reality that not all products will put the necessary care and quality in to produce the best result…
BIBLIOGRAPHY & RECOMMENDED READING
Ako H., and Tamaru C.S. (1999) Are Feeds for food Fish Practical for Aquarium fish? Intl. Aqua Feeds 2, 30-36.
Fox, D. Biochromy. Natural Coloration of Living things. 1979. University of California Press, Ltd. London, England.