Thursday, February 7, 2008

Home Made Fish Food; How To Make A Nutritious Fish Food for Tropical Fish, Goldfish, And Carnivorous Fish

Super Omega-3You can make your own supplement for general fish feeding that is high in DL-methionine (an important amino acid in fish nutrition); Start with whole salmon which is an excellent source of carotene for color (frozen or even canned works), frozen peas, hard boiled egg, frozen or FD brine shrimp, duck weed or spiulina powder, and fish oil (cod liver oil works fine). Blend this mixture then add corn starch to the paste to dehydrate. Spread this paste on small strips of foil (or even wax paper if your dehydrator does not get to hot). Make sure you leave room for air circulation.

For a frozen food, substitute the corn starch with unflavored gelatin powder.

For goldfish and koi, add wheat germ powder. Use this formula for African Cichlids, except delete the wheat germ.
For more carnivorous fish increase the whole fish and decrease the spirulina powder or duckweed. Calamari (squid) can be added too for carnivorous fish, but make sure that all the ink is removed from whole squid.
Use this formula for Discus.

For spirulina powder, Spirulina One Flake can be substituted, but since this already a complete diet for many fish, I double the amount of this and decrease other ingredients by comparable amounts.

Health: Benefits Of Fish Oil For Fitness And Health

Super Omega-3When the words oils and fats are mentioned, health-conscious individuals tend to run for cover. What they fail to realize is that there are good fats and bad fats. Complete avoidance of intake of oils and fats would actually be detrimental – rather than beneficial – to their health.

The Truth about Fish Oil
Essential fatty acids must always be part of our daily diet – without them, we take one step closer to our deaths. Essential fatty acids are divided into two families: omega-6 EFAs and omega-3 EFAS.

Although there are only very slight differences to distinguish the two groups of essential fatty acids from each other, studies have revealed that too much intake of omega-6 EFAs can lead to inflammation, blood clotting and tumor growth. The good news, however, is that the opposite is true for omega-3 EFAs. Omega-6 EFAs can be found in vegetable oils while omega-3 EFAs can be found in fish oils among other foods.

Omega-6 vs. Omega-3
Physicians and scientists are of the same opinion that the cause behind increasing cases of heart disease, hypertension or high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, premature aging and certain kinds of cancer is none other than an imbalanced intake of omega-3 and omega-6 EFAs.

As mentioned earlier on, omega-6 EFAs can be found in vegetable oils. This includes but is not limited to corn oil and soy oil, both of which contains high amounts of linoleic acid. Omega-3 EFAs on the other hand can be found also in marine plankton and walnut and flaxseed oils. It should be significant to take note that fatty fish and fish oils contain eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), fatty acids that have been observed to provide many benefits to the human body. In the early 1970’s, a study on Greenland Eskimos have revealed that one of the major reasons why they rarely suffer from heart diseases is because of their high-fat diet (mainly composed of fish).

The two essential fatty acids, EPA and DHA, are also helpful in preventing atherosclerosis, heart attacks, depression and various forms of cancer. Fish oil supplemented food have also proven to be useful in treating illnesses like rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, Raynaud’s disease and ulcerative colitis.