Tropical fish make charming additions to any aquarium, but they require special care in order to remain healthy and happy. Their wellbeing requires the appropriate food, temperature and routine.
Fish should only be fed what they can consume within five minutes to avoid increasing ammonia and nitrite levels in their aquarium. Unfed food will cloud up their tank water, leading to unhealthy increases in ammonia and nitrite levels that will result in cloudiness in its surroundings and lead to cloudiness themselves.
Contents
Protein
Proteins provide energy essential to growth and health in aquarium environments. Too much protein may pose problems by creating ammonia levels in the water that become toxic over time.
Balance can be achieved between protein and energy by providing energy-yielding nutrients (like lipids ) according to fish requirements, helping reduce feed consumption, spare protein intake and improve health by decreasing disease incidence or build-up of fatty acids in their bodies.
Recent research demonstrated that altering hybrid yellow catfish diets by altering P/E ratios had significant ramifications on immunity and antioxidative status. Diets with lower P/E ratios reduced plasma concentrations of lysozyme and immunoglobulins, suggesting they could negatively impact immunity.
Carbohydrates
Carbs are essential in small amounts for providing energy for fish. Furthermore, they aid the body’s absorption of fat-soluble vitamins.
Carbs and non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) do not digest directly in the gut but are instead fermented into short-chain fatty acids and gases such as H2, CO2 and CH4. As the levels of carbohydrates and NSP in fish feed can inhibit protein utilization and negatively impact growth, their presence should not be taken for granted.
Tropical fish foods in the form of flakes, crisps or pellets are used as supplements to a frozen diet, particularly by carnivorous species and those leaning towards carnivory such as angelfish and cichlids. Surface feeders find these food sources particularly enjoyable.
Vitamins
Most tropical fish require diets rich in vitamins to support their immunity, coloration, disease resistance and breeding health. Vitamins include both fat-soluble and water-soluble forms; some examples of fat-soluble ones are vitamins A, D and E while water-soluble ones include thiamin, riboflavin, niacin pantothenic acid vitamin B6 vitamin C folate/folic acid etc.
Feeding tropical fish the appropriate staple food will provide them with all of their necessary vitamins. Doing this also prevents overfeeding which may cause health or water quality issues. Gut-loading feeder fish or live insects with vitamins is another excellent way to add essential vitamins into their diet, since nutrients will pass from one animal to the other when eating its feed.
Minerals
Minerals are inorganic elements that serve essential functions in our bodies such as nerve impulse transmission, acid-base balance, enzyme co-factors and osmoregulation. Furthermore, minerals form an essential part of some tissues (mainly skeletal structures) and boast various physical characteristics such as hardness, lustre diaphaneity colour streak cleavage fracture resistance etc.
Fish are capable of extracting calcium from their aquatic environments through their gills, while sodium, potassium, iron and phosphorus are obtained primarily through diet.
Trace minerals play a critical role in nutrition as they help regulate osmotic balance between tissue and water environments. Although it’s unknown exactly which minerals fish require, their requirements likely mirror those of land animals – making inclusion essential.
Supplements
As fish have less sophisticated immune systems than mammals, supplementation of their diet is necessary to maintaining an aquarium healthy environment. Copepods and phytoplankton provide essential vitamins and minerals essential for a balanced diet in fish tanks.
Vitamins are a diverse class of organic compounds that serve specific and essential functions in aquatic animals’ bodies, yet many cannot be synthesized by the body at rates sufficient to meet nutritional requirements.
Attributing improved growth performance to adding exogenous phytase supplements to a Moringa seed meal-based diet enhanced performance of Catla catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) and Nile tilapia (O. niloticus). Astaxanthin, another vitamin-like compound found in many fish species, was also observed increasing coloration while garlic supplements contain allicin which stimulates appetites while improving fish health.
