Morning all,

I have read alot on here about people feeding heart meat to their aquatic creatures... and was just wondering if there is any reason why you couldn't use other types of organs... such as liver and kidneys etc.

The reason I ask, is we have ended up with a ox Kidney in the fridge, and the cats are enjoying it.... im just wondering if it is safe to feed to the Koura I have got... I threw a couple of pieces in last night to see if they liked the taste... which they do... I'm just wondering if there is any reason not to feed them Kidney?

Once the kidney is gone I'll be getting heart for the Koura, so if the kidney is unsafe then they can just eat other stuff for now.

I did a search but couldn't really find any answer.

Cheers!

When I was seriously breeding guppies I used to make up a food using liver, farax, heaps of greens and a few other things put through the blender then cooked like a steam pudding and frozen into icecubes. Worked well. Used uncooked it will polute the water.

In aquaculture, mammalian protein is rendered so that any prions in the feed are destroyed. And of course brain, spinal cords and other nerve tissue is not included in the feed to minimize including prions in the feed.

I don't think that prions would be an issue for non consumption fish would it?

No, likely not a problem .. just alluding to the view that animals and fish should be fed their natural foods, and tinkering as was done by farmers led to the transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathies to humans. I am annoyed that I was in the UK at the time, and ate at McDonalds Now, what was I saying??

Thanks for the replies...

So what I am interpreting from the above posts is that feeding kidney etc is ok... providing I take normal precautions, like removing any excess that is left behind when they finish eating so it doesn't pollute water.

Oh... and not eat the Koura in case I get mad cow or similar :slfg:

Being an aquarium organism I wouldn't even think about eating them.

Cheers.

I used to feed the guppies a new piece each day and remove the old bit if any was left.

I think that you would have to be exeptionally careful that any leftovers were suctioned out immediately. You have bare bottom tanks?

Yes. Makes life a lot easier when you are breeding 50000 fish a year. Basically overfeeding to get rapid development. Heaps of food and heaps of water changes.

What do you do with 50,000 fish a year? Whitebait fritters??

Sold them to a wholesaler who onsold them to retailers all over the country. I was breeding 8 pairs of angels in those days (amongst other things) and there is no way the market would take them today. People must have wised up to them. The market now will swing towards those fish that the maf requirements will be hard on. An opening for someone.

So, all the angels in NZ now are from the same 8 parental pairs?

Not the same 8 pairs but about 30 years ago a lot would have been. Mostly imported today I suspect.

I got mine from a TM breeder who lives a few kms away. He had quite a few tanks of them, but I doubt he had 50k.

The best spawning I had was over 1200. They can lay every 10-14 days for 18 months so that can add up to more than the market can handle very quickly.

That is an impressive number of fish

And those Angels proucing that sort of number... they must get tired. :yaw1: haha.