Gourami Sauce

[BlueLineAquaticsSC]

While perusing my local Asian grocery store I found jars of Gourami sauce, only ingredients being blended gourami and salt. Would you consider feeding fish to your fish, maybe mixing with rapashi?

[Tlindsey]

I personally wouldn't maybe if it was frozen. @BlueLineAquaticsSC

[Guppysnail]

I would question having fish directly ingest that volume of salt. I know we use salt in the water for fish. 
Im speaking of the difference in us swimming in the ocean and us dehydrating from drinking ocean water. 

[mynameisnobody]

No way, the level of preservatives is probably ridiculous. What’s the benefit of feeding this over anything else? 

[donnots]

Gourami are a common widespread food fish in countries like Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Vietnam. 

In your picture is a fermented fish paste kind of like Cambodian prahok or Vietnam po hooc. It's more of a base used for cooking or making side dish dips. Strong smelling, strong tasting, and definitely not safe for feeding to other fish. 

 

[AtomicSunfish]

It’s a preserved food for people, so not really suitable for most pets. Kind of like pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, or beef jerky.

Always blows me away to know people eat blue and snakeskin gouramis, when so many of us keep them ornamentally. But I guess it’s the giant gourami that is mostly used in aquaculture. Makes sense, given that they grow to be 2 feet long! 😮

Edit: does the jar on the left show a feather back knife fish?!

Edited July 12 by AtomicSunfish

[donnots]

On 7/12/2024 at 10:39 AM, AtomicSunfish said:

It’s a preserved food for people, so not really suitable for most pets. Kind of like pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, or beef jerky.

Always blows me away to know people eat blue and snakeskin gouramis, when so many of us keep them ornamentally. But I guess it’s the giant gourami that is mostly used in aquaculture. Makes sense, given that they grow to be 2 feet long! 😮

Edit: does the jar on the left show a feather back knife fish?!

In a lot of Southeast Asia it's the three spot gourami (Trichopodus trichopterus) that is eaten most. It's plentiful. You can find them all over. They're like bluegills in the US. You can find them bagged up at markets, fermented, etc. 

[Tony s]

On 7/12/2024 at 10:39 AM, AtomicSunfish said:

Always blows me away to know people eat blue and snakeskin gouramis, when so many of us keep them ornamentally

We had a banker 20 years ago that spent his vacation time in Laos. trying to set up a small swine farm from scratch. His report was that the jungles there were very quiet. If there was something moving there, they would eat it. everything from birds to grubs. including monkeys, everything we would call a pet, all the stuff they could get from a river.  very little refrigeration also. So, all those animals for consumption were either kept alive or sort of fermenting in the jungle heat all day. So, yeah, not surprised at all. makes a lot of sense

Edited July 13 by Tony s

[Tony s]

On 7/6/2024 at 11:58 AM, BlueLineAquaticsSC said:

Would you consider feeding fish

If it's made like fish sauce. the runoff off whole fish and salt allowed to ferment until the liquid settles at the bottom. not consumable for fish. Barely consumable by humans. only in small amounts for flavoring

[AtomicSunfish]

On 7/12/2024 at 1:38 PM, donnots said:

In a lot of Southeast Asia it's the three spot gourami (Trichopodus trichopterus) that is eaten most. It's plentiful. You can find them all over. They're like bluegills in the US. You can find them bagged up at markets, fermented, etc. 

Yep, that’s another thing that fascinates me; how what’s exotic here is common somewhere else, and vice versa. 😁

[donnots]

On 7/12/2024 at 3:57 PM, Tony s said:

We had a banker 20 years ago that spent his vacation time in Laos. trying to set up a small swine farm from scratch. His report was that the jungles there were very quiet. If there was something moving there, they would eat it. everything from birds to grubs. including monkeys, everything we would call a pet, all the stuff they could get from a river.  very little refrigeration also. So, all those animals for consumption were either kept alive or sort of fermenting in the jungle heat all day. So, yeah, not surprised at all. makes a lot of sense

Lots of stuff they let live, depending on the country. In Cambodia no one will eat turtles or squirrels -- both normal food where I'm from in America. But they will eat rats and spiders, which I've never heard of an American eating. Everyone comes up with their own reasons to eat this or that I guess. 

[Tony s]

In Laos where he was at, they had very deep jungle and very little protein to speak of. He was doing illegal missionary work there. Under the guise of agricultural assistance. They made quite a bit of difference for that community. When he retired, I believe they were up to 20 sows. which were capable of producing 200 market animals a year. just unheard of there. including methods of feed production and all the supporting infrastructure. primitive still to be sure, but effective. He goes back now, and it looks like a completely different area. Other interests have kind of moved in and through the surrounding area. Less jungle, more traffic. but the farm is still intact, I believe

On 7/13/2024 at 2:29 PM, donnots said:

both normal food where I'm from in America

Yeah, same here. More rabbits and deer though. Although I did have a class on edible insects at university