powdered fish foods for supplementation

[Rain_Frog]

Which are technically safe for frogs? I've heard of people using fish food for color enhancing, but I'm not sure how healthy that is for a dart frog. Most of that stuff contains fish meal which is pretty unnatural. I have used cyclopeeze, but that is technically a crustacean, not ground fish meal.

couldn't feeding things that derive a lot of protein from fish could cause things like encephalitis? Mostly because its not natural for them to consume animal protein in that matter. It's a little different with larger frogs like bombina or xenopus, but they will eat fish more readily in captivity.

I already know about the caratenoid thing, because we've discussed this about a hundred times already. I'm actually more interested in providing more protein for my animals.

[Ed]

For many many years, standard Tetra-Min flake foods and Aquarian Fish Flakes were the preferred food choices without any problems.
If you look at the history of this, the tadpoles were originally reared on things like nettle powder and other vegetable sources with some succcess. Over time people switched to fish food for convience with great success and then over the last ten years for some reason people have switched back to plant based diet.

snip "couldn't feeding things that derive a lot of protein from fish could cause things like encephalitis? Mostly because its not natural for them to consume animal protein in that matter. "endsnip

Why do you assume its not normal for them to consume animal protien? They readily canibalize each other for more protien...
Also people have to remember that protien is to a large extent protien.. The general amino acids are the same (although some sources may have different ratios or lack one or another) regardless of the source.

Ed

[Rain_Frog]

Ed, to clarify, I was talking about adult frogs, powdering the fish food and putting it on fruit flies for increased protein and for extra caratenoids.

Ok, yes, proteins are pretty similar. But fish protein though for adult frogs?

I am aware that some people have powdered fish food for color enhancing adult frogs like leucs, but I do believe brent brock mentioned that testesterone can sometimes be added. How to know that, I don't know.

I use fish food mostly for tadpoles though.

[Ed]

I would have to dig the actual numbers out but you could cause issues by significantly changing the ratio of fats, protiens and carbohydrates in the diet. There are specific optimal ranges for carnivores..
This would be due to an overall change not because it is from fish...

Ed

[bbrock]

Originally Posted by Rain_Frog

I am aware that some people have powdered fish food for color enhancing adult frogs like leucs, but I do believe brent brock mentioned that testesterone can sometimes be added. How to know that, I don't know.

I don't recall mentioning testosterone as a food supplement. I have mentioned a variety of carotenoids for color enhancement. By far the best luck I've had for coloring up blue jeans pumilio is astaxanthin in the form of Naturose (which Ed turned me on to).

My general philosophy on supplementation is that variety and moderation are good. Too much of anything is bad.

[Rain_Frog]

you didn't mention using testosterone as a supplement, but you once said that sometimes they add testosterone to fish foods to get various fishes into breeding condition, which is something to look out for. However, knowing which do and which don't I don't know if they use a scientific name for the ingredient in the list that wouldn't just simply say "testosterone."

So, how do I know which fish foods have it and which don't?

[Ed]

I believe that I was the one that mentioned that some color enhacement fish foods can contain testosterone or analogs as this causes a greater increase in coloration.

Ed

[bbrock]

Originally Posted by Ed

I believe that I was the one that mentioned that some color enhacement fish foods can contain testosterone or analogs as this causes a greater increase in coloration.

Ed

Ah, mystery solved. I haven't kept fish for a looong time. I honestly think Carter was President the last time bred any fish.

But Ed's comment does make sense given that colorful fish are often sexually dimorphic so making a male fish "more male" would trigger the most intense coloration. Seems like it would be unlikely to work for frogs though given that they aren't sexually dimorphic and their colors aren't tied to the breeding cycle (at least as far as we can tell).

[brian_]

I am going to be powdering my FF's with Naturose (astaxanthin powder) when I get darts that have an orange, or red colour that I want to deepen/enhance.

I also will be adding spirulina powder, pure hawaiin brand to my FF's in order to enhance the blues on my azureus and cobalts, etc.

I have been breeding discus for a couple years and adding these naturally enhances their colour a lot.

[Rain_Frog]

any place where I can order naturose for cheap?