Discus diet

[Guppysnail]

I saw a thread where folks were using worm shaped molds to make repashy. Could you make repashy in a thin layer then cut to fit the discus mouth in thin strips?  Sort of fool them into thinking it’s worms?

[_Eric_]

On 9/21/2023 at 4:53 PM, Lennie said:

Hey Eric

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm sad to hear you are also going through similar stuff.

 

I actually had a chance to talk to a biologist/fish ichthyologist friend after reading what Colu has shared about a study. Seems like Discus are actually meant to be mainly algae eaters, and she mentioned even sometimes insect levels are almost non-existent in their diet. She also mentioned; 

"fishes are largely known not to be able to process lipids well from mammalian or avian sources. Even with major elements/minerals when an insectivore is fed a diet that included fishes they couldn't as efficiently extract calcium or phosphorus, and we can apply this further because it's about enzymes and bacteria within the gut. You can't suddenly change an animals diet otherwise you could inject a person with gut biota and they could suddenly digest wood, or you could cure lactose intolerance. I don't feed entirely Spirulina but the aim is to get them onto Repashy soilent/super green with the range of algaes and if anyone has kept discus they know getting them onto new captive diets is a nightmare. I personally think in the wild they largely feed on a surface and there is some movement to it from the water. But also in captivity they are spoilt like humans given fastfood, if they refuse healthy food and being able to get their way."

 

Also seems like nitrite being higher with beefheart infers protein not being processed by the fish. Also she mentioned there is a higher survival or equatable on the spirulina. Skin pigmentation also seems to be better on algaes.

I think the following might be the study @Colu was mentioning. @jwcarlson

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250051348_Ecology_and_life_history_of_an_Amazon_floodplain_cichlid_The_discus_fish_Symphysodon_Perciformes_Cichlidae

 

Actually, I haven't had a very bad situation.  I was trying to encourage you in that my discus are eating the pellets, etc. now.   I don't know if I would try to get them on fully transitioned to repashy soilent green since this is your first go with discus. At least that is my thought process for my own fish.  However, that it what is great about this hobby- trying new things and comparing and refining results. 

I'm going to stick with feeding mine twice a day - beefheart once a day and pellet/Vibra bites/flakes/etc for the other feeding.  If you do decide to have 100% soilent green as your end goal, you may want to get them on some repashy community plus at first (since it has more meat) and then start mixing in soilent green and increasing hte proportion of it until you are 100% SG.  Not a route I'm going to go down but that would be my advice on getting them transitioned.

 

On 9/21/2023 at 4:53 PM, Lennie said:

Hey Eric

Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm sad to hear you are also going through similar stuff.

 

I actually had a chance to talk to a biologist/fish ichthyologist friend after reading what Colu has shared about a study. Seems like Discus are actually meant to be mainly algae eaters, and she mentioned even sometimes insect levels are almost non-existent in their diet. She also mentioned; 

"fishes are largely known not to be able to process lipids well from mammalian or avian sources. Even with major elements/minerals when an insectivore is fed a diet that included fishes they couldn't as efficiently extract calcium or phosphorus, and we can apply this further because it's about enzymes and bacteria within the gut. You can't suddenly change an animals diet otherwise you could inject a person with gut biota and they could suddenly digest wood, or you could cure lactose intolerance. I don't feed entirely Spirulina but the aim is to get them onto Repashy soilent/super green with the range of algaes and if anyone has kept discus they know getting them onto new captive diets is a nightmare. I personally think in the wild they largely feed on a surface and there is some movement to it from the water. But also in captivity they are spoilt like humans given fastfood, if they refuse healthy food and being able to get their way."

 

Also seems like nitrite being higher with beefheart infers protein not being processed by the fish. Also she mentioned there is a higher survival or equatable on the spirulina. Skin pigmentation also seems to be better on algaes.

I think the following might be the study @Colu was mentioning. @jwcarlson

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250051348_Ecology_and_life_history_of_an_Amazon_floodplain_cichlid_The_discus_fish_Symphysodon_Perciformes_Cichlidae

 

Actually, I haven't had a very bad situation.  I was trying to encourage you in that my discus are eating the pellets, etc. now.   I don't know if I would try to get them on fully transitioned to repashy soilent green since this is your first go with discus. At least that is my thought process for my own fish.  However, that it what is great about this hobby- trying new things and comparing and refining results. 

I'm going to stick with feeding mine twice a day - beefheart once a day and pellet/Vibra bites/flakes/etc for the other feeding.  If you do decide to have 100% soilent green as your end goal, you may want to get them on some repashy community plus at first (since it has more meat) and then start mixing in soilent green and increasing hte proportion of it until you are 100% SG.  Not a route I'm going to go down but that would be my advice on getting them transitioned.

 

[Lennie]

On 9/22/2023 at 1:56 PM, _Eric_ said:

Actually, I haven't had a very bad situation.  I was trying to encourage you in that my discus are eating the pellets, etc. now.   I don't know if I would try to get them on fully transitioned to repashy soilent green since this is your first go with discus. At least that is my thought process for my own fish.  However, that it what is great about this hobby- trying new things and comparing and refining results. 

I'm going to stick with feeding mine twice a day - beefheart once a day and pellet/Vibra bites/flakes/etc for the other feeding.  If you do decide to have 100% soilent green as your end goal, you may want to get them on some repashy community plus at first (since it has more meat) and then start mixing in soilent green and increasing hte proportion of it until you are 100% SG.  Not a route I'm going to go down but that would be my advice on getting them transitioned.

 

Actually, I haven't had a very bad situation.  I was trying to encourage you in that my discus are eating the pellets, etc. now.   I don't know if I would try to get them on fully transitioned to repashy soilent green since this is your first go with discus. At least that is my thought process for my own fish.  However, that it what is great about this hobby- trying new things and comparing and refining results. 

I'm going to stick with feeding mine twice a day - beefheart once a day and pellet/Vibra bites/flakes/etc for the other feeding.  If you do decide to have 100% soilent green as your end goal, you may want to get them on some repashy community plus at first (since it has more meat) and then start mixing in soilent green and increasing hte proportion of it until you are 100% SG.  Not a route I'm going to go down but that would be my advice on getting them transitioned.

 

It seems impossible to transition them to their nature diet rn. The best I can do is making them eat. They are extremely picky anyway. And Repashy is not sold here @Guppysnail.  Thank you very much for reminding me of @CJs Aquatics's worm tip. I will try actual eathworm and see if they will be interested. If they are, Tropical released gel food for herbivores, carnivores and omnivores but I didnt try yet. I will try to find a worm shaped silicon if they show interest to worms, bcoz they dont show interest to fd tubifex.

 

However, If I manage to get babies one day, who knows, yes I will try to feed them algae heavier diet I guess. Otherwise it kinda sounds like turning a bristlenose to a carnivore rn. That sounds very strange. Basically my discus is on carnivore diet while obviously they should be consumin algae mainly.

[Lennie]

No suprise. 

 

Ive found two type of worms from the garden(no pesticides). One was slimmer and more red. Other one was brown and lil bit thicker. None were too big or small. 

 

both were untouched.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Lennie

[jwcarlson]

Lennie, have you wormed them?  Do you have any pictures of them (your discus)?

[Lennie]

On 9/23/2023 at 3:46 AM, jwcarlson said:

Lennie, have you wormed them?  Do you have any pictures of them (your discus)?

I only did prazi bcoz they breathe very heavily. I suspected gill flukes but it didnt do much difference on their breathing issue. Also talked to Duck and she recommended to try kanaplex. I did 5 dose of kanaplex, but it still didnt work. Also tried 1 hob 1 sponge filter 1 airstone combo to increase oxygen, also used some aquarium salt. Nothing seems to work. No ammonia or nitrite in this tank tank. I think the egg laying cone I got them leeched to their previous tank and killed the cycle so I moved them to this tank. I took their main tank down, threw everything away, cleaned it with white vinegar and then hydrogen peroxide.

 

I keep their tank at 28C. 

Pics:

 

Video of the weird gill issue/heavy breathing. Prazi, kanaplex, aq salt, and combination of airstone, hob and: 

 

They are back to their main breeding tank. It is 60x60x50h (180 Liters/47.5g). They do attack food, but only if it is a floating cube of brine shrimp.

 

Edited September 23, 2023 by Lennie

[jwcarlson]

Are they actually swallowing the food? 

This is what I would try in increasing intervention levels... 

First, starve them... They can go a long time without food.  I had one go months before it died.  I routinely fast them for days at a time if we go on vacation, etc.  The bad side of that is that you can have a sick fish for a long time before it becomes obvious. 

Second, discus are absolutely fine at high temps.  You can go up to 93 F (34 C, I think) without any issue at least temporarily, wouldn't want to do that for months.  I have temporarily fixed picky eating discus with high temp and salt.  And they can handle a lot of salt.  Easily two tablespoons per 10 gallons and some discus folks say more than that. So, hot water, salt, and starving.  Bump it up a few degrees at a time, try feeding them what you want them to eat every 2 or 3 days.  If they don't bump it up warmer a bit and try again.  Cleaning uneaten food after offering. If that takes you to 93 and they still won't eat, you can dwell there for a couple weeks.  In the past this has worked for me, but then when coming back down in temps they stop eating again below 88 or so. 

Third thing would be doing metro, you want to do it at high temps, that might be your next step if they still won't eat... 93 and metro. 

So at this point you might see why many suggest bare bottoms and limited plants.  My experience with discus (while limited), has shown that they are susceptible to worms.  Additionally, any worming effort requires very heavily vacuuming substrate and it's extremely difficult with gravel or sand. 

The other third option would be levamisole.  I now worm all of my fish with pure levamisole at somewhere around 2.5 to 3 PPM.  Treatment suggestion I have been following from a discus breeder is dose days 1, 6, and 14.  Then another two weeks after that.  Levamisole is done at normal tank temps and dose left in for 24 hours then as big of a water change as you can do including full side and bottom wipe down (I use paper towels).  Levamisole will cause them to go on a hunger strike itself, so it is important to know that going in.  If you have a QT tank you can do this in with a bare bottom that would be great because you want to get all the expelled worms and eggs as it doesn't kill the worms it paralyzes them.  During levamisole I have also started doing 1 tablespoon of epsom salt and 1 tablespoon of regular salt per 10 gallons.

How to tell if you should do metro or levamisole... again, this is in my limited experience.  If they're eating minimally or pecking and spitting food out, metro seems to have been the way to go.  That sounds a bit like your experience.  For levamisole the symptoms have been more like aloofness.  Corner staring, hiding in the back. 

For both levamisole (each 24 hour dose) and metro (daily dose for 12 days), I shut lights off and black the tank off with a thick blanket.

Overall, if those are recent pictures, they look pretty good, but they can starve for a long time before it becomes really noticeable.  So your observations probably have some merit. Usually a pinched head shows up.  

 

Feel free to PM me if this seems nonsensical.  I don't visit forums very much anymore, so unless I get an email saying someone quoted me or messaged me, I don't usually check back, but I will try to follow what you have going on.  Best of luck! 

[Lennie]

On 9/23/2023 at 2:09 PM, jwcarlson said:

Are they actually swallowing the food? 

This is what I would try in increasing intervention levels... 

First, starve them... They can go a long time without food.  I had one go months before it died.  I routinely fast them for days at a time if we go on vacation, etc.  The bad side of that is that you can have a sick fish for a long time before it becomes obvious. 

Second, discus are absolutely fine at high temps.  You can go up to 93 F (34 C, I think) without any issue at least temporarily, wouldn't want to do that for months.  I have temporarily fixed picky eating discus with high temp and salt.  And they can handle a lot of salt.  Easily two tablespoons per 10 gallons and some discus folks say more than that. So, hot water, salt, and starving.  Bump it up a few degrees at a time, try feeding them what you want them to eat every 2 or 3 days.  If they don't bump it up warmer a bit and try again.  Cleaning uneaten food after offering. If that takes you to 93 and they still won't eat, you can dwell there for a couple weeks.  In the past this has worked for me, but then when coming back down in temps they stop eating again below 88 or so. 

Third thing would be doing metro, you want to do it at high temps, that might be your next step if they still won't eat... 93 and metro. 

So at this point you might see why many suggest bare bottoms and limited plants.  My experience with discus (while limited), has shown that they are susceptible to worms.  Additionally, any worming effort requires very heavily vacuuming substrate and it's extremely difficult with gravel or sand. 

The other third option would be levamisole.  I now worm all of my fish with pure levamisole at somewhere around 2.5 to 3 PPM.  Treatment suggestion I have been following from a discus breeder is dose days 1, 6, and 14.  Then another two weeks after that.  Levamisole is done at normal tank temps and dose left in for 24 hours then as big of a water change as you can do including full side and bottom wipe down (I use paper towels).  Levamisole will cause them to go on a hunger strike itself, so it is important to know that going in.  If you have a QT tank you can do this in with a bare bottom that would be great because you want to get all the expelled worms and eggs as it doesn't kill the worms it paralyzes them.  During levamisole I have also started doing 1 tablespoon of epsom salt and 1 tablespoon of regular salt per 10 gallons.

How to tell if you should do metro or levamisole... again, this is in my limited experience.  If they're eating minimally or pecking and spitting food out, metro seems to have been the way to go.  That sounds a bit like your experience.  For levamisole the symptoms have been more like aloofness.  Corner staring, hiding in the back. 

For both levamisole (each 24 hour dose) and metro (daily dose for 12 days), I shut lights off and black the tank off with a thick blanket.

Overall, if those are recent pictures, they look pretty good, but they can starve for a long time before it becomes really noticeable.  So your observations probably have some merit. Usually a pinched head shows up.  

 

Feel free to PM me if this seems nonsensical.  I don't visit forums very much anymore, so unless I get an email saying someone quoted me or messaged me, I don't usually check back, but I will try to follow what you have going on.  Best of luck! 

Thank you very much.

 

Ive increased the temperature so let's see if it will have any affect on their eating behavior

[jwcarlson]

@Lennie, how have your discus been?

[Lennie]

On 12/12/2023 at 12:29 AM, jwcarlson said:

@Lennie, how have your discus been?

I lost Marshall. It was very sad. Nothing I tried worked sadly. There is a discus guy here, told me that mine probably had a gill rot and it would be kinda impossible to treat. I don't exactly know what it was but all I know is I tried. Hope he is happier where he at. But their behavior with each other taught a lot to me about fish feelings. Lily literally put effort to make Marshall get better even when he was dying sitting on the bottom on its side. Watching their interactions made me even more sad I almost cried.

Lily, the female, is in a community tank in my bedroom with some rummynoses, sterbais, and two angels. She is doing great rn. Now much more accepting about food, no longer picky. More active and happy. She is enjoying her widow life I guess. No more men! 

 

Thanks for asking. Appreciated

[jwcarlson]

Darn, @Lennie, that stinks. 😞  Glad the female seems to be OK now, but obviously that doesn't make up for things.  Discus seem to be pretty touchy.  I have two that have some sort of bacterial infection in their heads (not HITH), but something that developed inside and ruptured.  One just got a small ooze of pus and the other a pencil eraser sized hole near his nostril.  I guess the lesson is sometimes it doesn't matter how much you do or how hard you try. 😞

[anewbie]

84 is really too warm for sterbai. You might find these video interesting on diet:

 

 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by anewbie

[Lennie]

On 12/12/2023 at 4:09 AM, jwcarlson said:

Darn, @Lennie, that stinks. 😞  Glad the female seems to be OK now, but obviously that doesn't make up for things.  Discus seem to be pretty touchy.  I have two that have some sort of bacterial infection in their heads (not HITH), but something that developed inside and ruptured.  One just got a small ooze of pus and the other a pencil eraser sized hole near his nostril.  I guess the lesson is sometimes it doesn't matter how much you do or how hard you try. 😞

Yea dude, sadly. I hope you find a way to solve the head issue on yours 😭 I got hyped about getting discus due to my dad, but I shouldve never gotten them at the first place given how fragile they are. Also they are big! I am more of a nano fish guy in general, other than plecos, the biggest fish I have in size are angels/gold gouramis. 

 

On 12/12/2023 at 4:16 AM, anewbie said:

84 is really too warm for sterbai. You might find these video interesting on diet:

 

 

 

Thanks for the videos 

They live in a tank where the heater is set to 27.5C (81.5F). 

[Lennie]

@jwcarlson say hi to Lily!

 

[Guppysnail]

On 12/11/2023 at 8:16 PM, anewbie said:

84 is really too warm for sterbai. You might find these video interesting on diet:

 

 

 

@anewbie does this guy sell foods?  If he has a webpage can you direct message it to me please?

[anewbie]

On 12/12/2023 at 3:35 PM, Guppysnail said:

@anewbie does this guy sell foods?  If he has a webpage can you direct message it to me please?

I am unaware of him having a web page; it was more or less something that came up when i told someone meat is not good for discus; specifically beef heart which was made popular before biologists stepped in (many years later after it became popular).

[jwcarlson]

I don't know... it's strange to me when someone says beefheart isn't natural and then is talking about selectively bred, lab grown algae and wheat gluten two minutes later.  

Beefheart has raised more discus than any other food if I had to guess. *shrug*

Edited December 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[anewbie]

On 12/12/2023 at 6:48 PM, anewbie said:

I am unaware of him having a web page; it was more or less something that came up when i told someone meat is not good for discus; specifically beef heart which was made popular before biologists stepped in (many years later after it became popular).

There is actually a long debate the impact of beef-heart. Also some folks claim marc weiss was trying to sell his own product. Some things that did come out in the text i read  is that clean water is extremely important for these fishes and beefheart pollutes the water very quickly in various ways (even if the fish eats most of it); it is indeed fatty and some folks have tried turkey-heart as a leaner meat. protein is good for fast growth and excess size (key ingrediants for breeding farms); but this isn't really a requirement for the home. Discus have done well on Marc's diet but how to evaluate 'better' is relative. If you do feed beef heart expect to do daily near 100% water changes (farms will do 100% water changes 2 or 3 times a day); there is an open question of the impact on fat with the some people claiming it reduce the fish life span and overall health and others saying it is insignificant issue - i'm not sure if there is a conclusion here but biologist definitely don't find beef heart in the disgestive track of wild fishes 😉

 

[jwcarlson]

On 12/13/2023 at 10:21 AM, anewbie said:

 i'm not sure if there is a conclusion here but biologist definitely don't find beef heart in the disgestive track of wild fishes 😉

 

I assure you that I am not trying to be argumentative.  But they don't find basically any of the stuff that Weiss was talking about in the digestive tracts of wild fishes either... lab grown algae... wheat gluten...  It's difficult to start talking about doing things "by nature" when what we're doing to these pieces of nature we own is not natural at all.  Weiss also talked about mussels being one of the best fish foods... how much clam meat is your average wild discus eating?

Beefheart certainly fouls water quickly, but feeding any food at appropriate levels for growing discus fouls the water which is why water changes are so important.  I think a good number of people buy adult more or less fully grown discus and keep them some way and then assume that tracks for that fish from fry to adult, but no one reallly thinks that about any other fish because we typically don't buy many fish that need to grow for 18-24 months.  And discus are kind of in this in between where they're not "monster fish", but they're also not your typical nano/community fish.  But their appearance draws people who want them to fill that planted community tank role and for the vast majority of people, they cannot just be kept that way successfully long-term.

If we want to get down to brass tacks, there's not really any plants where a lot of the fish in the hobby come from either, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop us from keeping them that way.  I think we get a bit into of a weird place where we draw boxes around things like "I want to feed my fish naturally" and then ignore that every single thing we do to them is not natural at all.  We can, in some ways, try our best to mimic that, but as a rule it's either impossible, impractical, or in a lot of cases irresponsible because we cannot mimic all of the other things occuring in nature and that might put our fish at risk.

I am also a beekeeper and there's plenty of round-and-round about "natural" beekeeping at least here in the US.  Animals requirements change when we domesticate them, full stop.  I mean, we have domesticated and selected some animals so much that they aren't even able to reproduce without our intervention anymore.

 

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread anymore, so I'll be quiet.  😄

Edited December 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[anewbie]

On 12/13/2023 at 11:17 AM, jwcarlson said:

I assure you that I am not trying to be argumentative.  But they don't find basically any of the stuff that Weiss was talking about in the digestive tracts of wild fishes either... lab grown algae... wheat gluten...  It's difficult to start talking about doing things "by nature" when what we're doing to these pieces of nature we own is not natural at all.  Weiss also talked about mussels being one of the best fish foods... how much clam meat is your average wild discus eating?

Beefheart certainly fouls water quickly, but feeding any food at appropriate levels for growing discus fouls the water which is why water changes are so important.  I think a good number of people buy adult more or less fully grown discus and keep them some way and then assume that tracks for that fish from fry to adult, but no one reallly thinks that about any other fish because we typically don't buy many fish that need to grow for 18-24 months.  And discus are kind of in this in between where they're not "monster fish", but they're also not your typical nano/community fish.  But their appearance draws people who want them to fill that planted community tank role and for the vast majority of people, they cannot just be kept that way successfully long-term.

If we want to get down to brass tacks, there's not really any plants where a lot of the fish in the hobby come from either, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop us from keeping them that way.  I think we get a bit into of a weird place where we draw boxes around things like "I want to feed my fish naturally" and then ignore that every single thing we do to them is not natural at all.  We can, in some ways, try our best to mimic that, but as a rule it's either impossible, impractical, or in a lot of cases irresponsible because we cannot mimic all of the other things occuring in nature and that might put our fish at risk.

I am also a beekeeper and there's plenty of round-and-round about "natural" beekeeping at least here in the US.  Animals requirements change when we domesticate them, full stop.  I mean, we have domesticated and selected some animals so much that they aren't even able to reproduce without our intervention anymore.

 

Anyway, I don't want to derail this thread anymore, so I'll be quiet.  😄

I don't disagree with anything you said 'cept that a biologist could chime in on family of foods. I.e, the relationship of wheat to other plants and meat to other protiens like insects.

--

After i wrote the above i did a bit of searching and it seems like fishes don't digest wheat; it is just a cheap binder/filler - take this with a grain of salt since i'm unsure of the accuracy of the comment.

--

 

 

I usually buy my angelfishes as dime size or raise them from frys and it takes 6 to 12 months before i can decide if i want to keep individuals or give them to the petshop - any my a. p. frys took 6 to 9 months to mature - very slow growing; so i'm not sure. As for food i intend to try plant based stuff and black worms (or freeze-dried black worms) and we shall see how it goes; in theory the blackworms won't pollute the water that badly - a fellow i know who feeds live blackworms to his discus sez he only water change twice a week (he is an importer of wc discus). Still it would be nice for a true biologist to chime in on these matters but i suppose the number of biologist who study freshwater fishes is probably pretty slime and breeders and such objective sometimes side track important issues like overall health; after all many bred fishes are so inbred for colours they are total mess-up health-wise from their wc counter parts.

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by anewbie

[jwcarlson]

The base of my discus feed now that mine are mature is freeze dried blackworms.  I would be broke if I tried to do that during grow out.  Blackworms feed out WAY cleaner than beefheart for sure, perhaps mainly because there's so much less tiny pieces of waste.  There was a discus breeder that used frozen, solid beefheart and then used a salad shooter or cheese grater type of thing that would shave little pieces of the BH into the tank, pieces probably a bit bigger than a VibraBite, but similar shape and would be able to be eaten in one "bite".  Typically, beefheart becomes a paste almost.  I did a double course grind for mine and I fed it straight with absolutely no additives during grow out.  Very little supplemental feed otherwise. 

And, yes, domestic discus are so far removed from wild (for the most part, but there are some that are more wild-adjacent to get back to that "look").

I agree that finding a fish biologist who specializes in nutrition is probably rare, indeed. 😄  I will say that we kind of want to default to the idea that the natural diet is ideal, but I think that ignores a lot of things.  I might be ideal for a few months per year and then fish might be more or less starving for a few months opposite of that.  Additionally, that in-and-of itself might lead to fish being significantly less long lived in the wild.  That said, perhaps there's some level of benefit that could be gained by putting the fish through those stresses.

I don't know of a lot of people who are doing things like that to their fish except for a few corydora breeders who are way deep trying to simulate the natural stresses of seasonal fluctuation to spawn fish that no one else has spawned in captivity.

Edited December 13, 2023 by jwcarlson

[anewbie]

On 12/13/2023 at 1:16 PM, jwcarlson said:

 

I don't know of a lot of people who are doing things like that to their fish except for a few corydora breeders who are way deep trying to simulate the natural stresses of seasonal fluctuation to spawn fish that no one else has spawned in captivity.

There are quite a few pleco that need very specific stress conditions to breed; and then there are panda gara and loaches (boita, not pangio) that need specific triggers to breed.

The explanation i heard for why bh is so messy are (a) meat spoils very fast at 82-84 degree and (b) the oils on the meat gets into the water in addition to little bits. The biggest negative i see repeated (fact or fiction) is the fat content is very bad for fishes. I do agree that what a fish eat in nature has a lot to do with what is available to eat in nature; having said that evolution using adopts the fish to eat what is in nature so there is that aspect. 

There is also the general whatever that too much of anything (or almost anything) is bad. After all i never heard that putting a fish in too much water was bad but certainly drinking too much water is pretty bad 😉

 

[jwcarlson]

I think there is less fat in properly prepared beefheart than you might imagine.  When done correctly there is zero visible fat remaining in the mix.  The meat of the heart is extemely lean, which is one of the reasons it is cheap.  It works a lot and is therefore lean and tough.

Beef heart is about 4% fat.  Bloodworms about 3%.  Black worms 7%.