Does fat equal health in fish?

[RobW]

I gotta disagree that fat fish are uncommon in nature. I rarely see skinny fish but I see lots of fat (my wife prefers the term "fluffy") fish. This video was taken from dives on 3 days picked randomly. and are pretty indicative of what I see when diving. Species include mainly tangs and parrot fish who are the most common fatties. There is one plump Rock Beauty angel.

Where were those dives located? The last few clips were beautiful!

 

[Dana Riddle]

I'll admit that I haven't waded through all 5 pages of this thread. But if you've ever made a dive on any Hawaiian reef , you would have noted that Tangs are really fat (I mean healthy fillet sizes. You know what I mean if you've attended a true Hawaiian luau.. not one of those of fake toursity luaus.) If the diet is correct, fat fish are a good thing.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

And there is differences between species to. Most tangs are vegeterians - they should have 100 % food from algae or eat the algae growing in the aquarium - not high protein dry food. Their guts are 5 - 9 time longer than many other fish.

I cannot believe I am saying this, i am sorry Lasse, I have to disagree on this one

While tangs are vegetarian, the 100% things is a bit overstated. I have a Vlamingi, yellow, and purple. 5 minutes ago I dumped in 2 ounces of black worms and and a chopped up frozen mahogany clam. They go nuts. All are fluffy as saltyhog mentioned. Color is great as is their temperament in the tank. They do also get vitamin soak Nori and frozen mega algae, but I would say it is at least 50/50 or more meat than greens. May just be the way my guys grew up, but worked for over 10 years now.

And evening everyone, hope alls well.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

My tang goes nuts for frozen meaty foods, as well as the nori. Shocker, all of my wrasse also go nuts for nori. They are supposed to be carnivores. Heck, even my two leopard wrasse join in on the nori and they are supposed to eat copepods.

I think the notion that this fish is supposed to eat only this or only that is hog wash. Yea, maybe they need more plant matter in their diet than another fish, and are adapted to do that. My tomini pecks at the rocks all day long. But so do my leopards. Albeit, they are pecking at two different things.

To say they dont get any nutrition, or even that eating the wrong "-vore" of food is harmful... psh.

 

[RobW]

My tang goes nuts for frozen meaty foods, as well as the nori. Shocker, all of my wrasse also go nuts for nori. They are supposed to be carnivores. Heck, even my two leopard wrasse join in on the nori and they are supposed to eat copepods.

I think the notion that this fish is supposed to eat only this or only that is hog wash. Yea, maybe they need more plant matter in their diet than another fish, and are adapted to do that. My tomini pecks at the rocks all day long. But so do my leopards. Albeit, they are pecking at two different things.

To say they dont get any nutrition, or even that eating the wrong "-vore" of food is harmful... psh.

I feed a variety of different foods. All the fish eat all the foods. My fire shrimp hijacks the nori from the clip and runs off with it! I feed LRS foods mostly. Herbivore stuff for the blue tang. Mysis, brine, spectrum pellets sometimes. Fish colors are fantastic and everyone eats pretty well.

 

[saltyhog]

Where were those dives located? The last few clips were beautiful!

The last clip with the Rock Beauty was in Curacao, the others I just didn't have my filter on the camera. They were in St. Croix a couple of months ago.

 

[RobW]

The last clip with the Rock Beauty was in Curacao, the others I just didn't have my filter on the camera. They were in St. Croix a couple of months ago.

Awesome!

 

[bwomac44]

I cannot believe I am saying this, i am sorry Lasse, I have to disagree on this one

While tangs are vegetarian, the 100% things is a bit overstated. I have a Vlamingi, yellow, and purple. 5 minutes ago I dumped in 2 ounces of black worms and and a chopped up frozen mahogany clam. They go nuts. All are fluffy as saltyhog mentioned. Color is great as is their temperament in the tank. They do also get vitamin soak Nori and frozen mega algae, but I would say it is at least 50/50 or more meat than greens. May just be the way my guys grew up, but worked for over 10 years now.

And evening everyone, hope alls well.

That's reassuring about the tang diet. I've heard from an old school reefer that tangs should only eat vegetarian.
I read that tangs eat a lot more meat earlier on as they grow then gradually shift to a more herbivorous diet as they age.
My PBT goes crazy for the PE Mysis and any pellets I might feed, but I am sure to give him his daily sheet of nori. I'm guessing he'll eat this way his whole life. Hopefully it's a long and "happy" life!

Side note, my leopard wrasses love nori too. I would have never guessed.

And I have the biggest Royal Gramma I've ever seen.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

That's reassuring about the tang diet. I've heard from an old school reefer that tangs should only eat vegetarian.
I read that tangs eat a lot more meat earlier on as they grow then gradually shift to a more herbivorous diet as they age.
My PBT goes crazy for the PE Mysis and any pellets I might feed, but I am sure to give him his daily sheet of nori. I'm guessing he'll eat this way his whole life. Hopefully it's a long and "happy" life!

Side note, my leopard wrasses love nori too. I would have never guessed.

And I have the biggest Royal Gramma I've ever seen.

They look great. Keep it up

 

[dtownsend001]

Having accumulated over 2000 hours on various types of of underwear breathing apparatus I have observed that typically most fish look pretty dawn well fed so I have no problem with fat fish in my Aquariums.

 

[Mastiffsrule]

Having accumulated over 2000 hours on various types of of underwear breathing apparatus I have observed that typically most fish look pretty dawn well fed so I have no problem with fat fish in my Aquariums.

May need a small edit there, :) or a great new invention

 

[bwomac44]

One notion I saw on R2R not to long ago by a member regarding overfeeding was very insightful.
Essentially, “Fish have very simple digestive systems. The more you feed the more they crap.”
I feed mysis in the morning and place a sheet of nori in the afternoon so the mysis has time to process. Otherwise my powder blue would just **** out a bunch of semi-digested mysis as he stuffs himself on nori.
No reason to constantly put food down their mouths, as they’ll crap out what you just fed them without getting all the benefits.
I suppose this is why you can have plump fish feeding once per day so long as the food is nutritious (I use PE Mysis) and everyone gets their fair share. The 3/4 cube of mysis is eaten by my 7 fish within 30 seconds once per day and everyone is looking beautiful. And of course nori for grazing :)
Dump the mysis in all at once lest my little firefish be outcompeted!

 

[OrionN]

I always believe in feeding variety. Also I don’t believe that pellets or flake are inferior to frozen. I think fresh dry food does retain a lot of their nutrition and a lot of the vitamins.
Combination of various food always best. I feed combination of high quality flakes and frozen mysis along with one of the best pellets in Otohime pellets along with food grade Nori.
The colors of my fishes are second to none. They spawned often, especially my angels.
When on vacation I just let the tank be. Automatic feeding, top off, light, circulation. I just make sure I clean the skimmer. My tank weather 10 day on automatic fine. No problem. The fish just as fat and healthy as ever with no one attend to them for 10 days last vacation.

 

[GoVols]

My PBT goes crazy for the PE Mysis and any pellets I might feed, but I am sure to give him his daily sheet of nori. I'm guessing he'll eat this way his whole life. Hopefully it's a long and "happy" life!

Your PBT is super!!!

No matter what else that might be fed, I feed my tangs nori, every day too.

 

[code4]

On my goodness. Just read through all of these posts. I admit to having slightly chubby fish. I like feeding them. It makes me feel needed. I feed a variety of foods. Mostly frozen and nori. But also pellets because my captive bred clowns tell me it is their comfort food. And some mastik because my blue spotted jaw fish loves it. All this talk of food makes me hungry. Just feed my fish again and have some ice cream.

Shelley

 

[MPS]

It seems hard for me to know the sweet spot for a 'fat' vs 'well fed' fish. Their bodies don't tend to store the weight in the way humans and other animals do. If my tangs start getting multiple chins... Well I guess it's diet time. ;)

Nah, it just means that they need to do a couple more laps. [emoji6]

 

[KrisReef]

I went to Las Vegas once and had to visit a casino that has a huge aquarium which was nice. I did notice that all their fish looked mega-fluffy and the water was murky. After reading this thread it would seem that they were not getting all the benefits of their meals before they exited the fish perhaps.

They had purple tangs in the tank that looked like they were trying to get a night job as the Michelin Man. They were so deformed I didn't recognize them as tangs and wondered if they were some kind of angelfish. They waddled around the tank slowly; they were probably 8" long or slightly bigger but they were approaching 24" in circumference at the belt line. That shocking Las Vegas aquarium experience changed my mind for a few years about the purple tang being my favorite reef fish. I eventually got over it but I still feed my fish very lightly to avoid their developing any tire sales rep figure. My best friend and longtime fish enthusiast recently noted that the purple tang "looked fat an happy."

My boss caught 2 bluefin tuna on Sunday and we had a nice meal of that this evening. I didn't give the fish any because I'm tired and forgot to share the catch. They often get salmon or tuna off the bbq and they will eat it hot, but generally, they get thawed mysis w/algae or other random reef cubes and a small rip of Nori once per day, two times on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and my birthday according to their union contract. In return, they dump on my corals and keep the algae in check.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

The fish digestive system comments got me thinking... Not sure how many of you are fisherman, or have cleaned a fish, but the anatomy of a fish is quite surprising when you realise just how small an area their stomach and intestines take up. Anything above the lateral line and behind the anal fin, is meat.

 

[Wrangy]

I always believe in feeding variety. Also I don’t believe that pellets or flake are inferior to frozen. I think fresh dry food does retain a lot of their nutrition and a lot of the vitamins.
Combination of various food always best. I feed combination of high quality flakes and frozen mysis along with one of the best pellets in Otohime pellets along with food grade Nori.

This IMHO is one of the most important things with fish feeding!!


My current feeding is:
- A pellet mix has 8 different pellets in it that gets auto-fed 3 times a day (NLS, AF, ON)
- A NLS Premium flake food whenever I feel like being nice haha
- A frozen cube at least once a day (mysis, clams on half shell, chopped mussels, dwarf angel mix, premium mix, lobster eggs, baby brine shrimp, etc.)

In all my tank gets fed anywhere from 4 to 10 times a day haha and my current fishlist is:
- C. burgessi (Burgessi Butterflyfish)
- C. declivis (Declivis Butterflyfish)
- P. marcellae (French Butterflyfish)
- H. melasmapomus (Black Earmuff Wrasse)
- O. borbonius (Blotch Anthias)
- C. purpurascens (Lavendar Dottyback)
- M. atrodorsalis (Fortail Blenny)
- C. rhomboidalis (Golden Rhomboid Wrasse)
- C. colini (Colini Angelfish)
- A pair of p. biaculeatus (gold nugget maroons)

 

[vetteguy53081]

I tend to alternate between more feedings of smaller amounts and less feedings of bigger amounts with following thought:
- bigger feedings are better for slower fish as they get to grab a few pellets before more aggressive fish wipe them out.
-smaller multiple feedings are better in keeping the fish well fed throughout the day and is more natural

Easier to go with small feedings and add food than to try and remove.