Best food there is, bar none

[paul b]

Now I know that I have always said that the best all around food for our animals is whole fish followed by blackworms, but I lied. :(

Live blackworms is actually the third best food.

 

The absolute best food for our animals, bar none, not even if you go to Mars is Salmon eggs.

Salmon happens to be one of the healthiest foods we as humans can eat because of the Omega 3 oils and other essential fish oils,

But an exceptionally large percentage of that oil is in their eggs.

Yes Salmon Cavior is relatively cheap (as far as fish food goes) and available in Asian markets. It is sold fresh so I don't know if you could get it in the mid west. If anyone lives in the mid west, let me know if you can get it there.

It sells here in NY for almost $40.00 a pound which sounds expensive but it is only about a quarter of what frozen mysis sells for. I just bought 4 ounces for under $10.00 which will last me months.

Each fish only needs one egg which are about a quarter inch across and brimming with salt water fish oil.

My bubble corals, cup corals and any other coral with a mouth just gobbled them up. My bangai cardinal ate four of them and can't hardly close his mouth. They must be target fed.

The large hermit crab attempted to tear the bubble apart in an attempt to steal an egg but I am a little bigger than him and I wrestled it away from him. He was sulking in a corner so I gave him his own salmon egg.

These can only last in the refrigerator maybe two days and must be frozen. I put them in those little plastic trays that mysis come in after they are empty and freeze them.

Asian markets also sell a much smaller fish egg for half that price so depending on the size of your fish you can custom feed these things. I only give this to them a couple of times a week as I do blackworms because they are very rich.

They are even better than worms because besides the oil they supply calcium and every other thing a fish would need. After all, a salmon egg is essentially a compressed Salmon.

 

:D

[jason the filter freak]

did you come to this conclusion on your own or have you seen some scientific data to substantiate this claim. Glad you gave a price comparo to mysis being that that seems to be the base line frozen food most of us feed. If you have a source for the above I'd love to see it, it all sounds great I'm just curious to read more.

 

Also are the eggs overly fragile? say if a fish bites it does it goes all over the place or does it just come apart in small pieces?

[paul b]

Jason, I do most of my own research and came to the conclusion myself, but I have been experimenting with fish eggs for many years (decades) Fish roe, especially saltwater fish roe is very oily and contains everything to make an entire fish.

Including the yoke sack which supplies the growing fish with nutrition. This would be a supplimental food and not meant to be fed every meal.

The eggs do not come apart when a fish eats it. If they bite it the semi transparent casing may peel off but it is almost neutrally boyant and almost floats so the fish or another one quickly grabs it and eats it.

If the fish misses it completely, the crabs immediatly hone on it as I am sure it smells pretty strong. As soon as I fed a bubble coral, a hermit crab ran from almost a foot away, climbed up the rock about 8" and tried to steal it.

I have not tried the smaller eggs yet although I did a few years ago. I have a lot of smaller gobies and pipefish so I am interested if they would go after it. The Salmon eggs are the perfect size for most fish in the three inch size range.

My hippo tang, fire clowns, bangai cardinal and larger gobies just love it.

[Nate]

Very interesting. I will have to try this sometime. Thanks for the info.

[lanman]

Wow... free fish food!!

 

Okay - maybe only if you live in Alaska, or on the Oregon coast. I lived in Seaside, and Astoria Oregon for several years. Salmon eggs were generally just thrown away as part of cleaning the fish. I should e-mail my brother, and see if he could find a source. A few pounds of free salmon eggs, frozen and shipped, would probably be a pretty good deal.

 

bob

[paul b]

Don't forget, these are a suppliment maybe twicwe a week, not to be used as a staple food, they are much too rich for that and they will make your skimmer overflow so you need to watch it.

[dandy7200]

Hey Paul, glad to see you on our boards FWIW, this is the best article I have ever read in regards to nutrition for our wet pets: http://www.reefland.com/forum/marine-fish-...-nutrition.html Written by one of the few reefers who have been around as long as you

[NamReefs]

this is great!! But when you feed your fish by salmon egg, does it make your water cloundly?? Becuase I think salmon egg contain alot off oil in the egg

[paul b]

Written by one of the few reefers who have been around as long as you

 

Yes he has been here as long as me.

 

The Salmon eggs like anything else will cloud your water thats why I said to use them as a suppliment no more than one egg per fish once or twice a week. Tiny fish will not be able to eat them. Watch each one and remove any un eaten eggs. They are very oily and rich. They are good for LPS corals but although they will eat a few of them I would feed no more than one egg per coral. Your skimmer will probably overflow so watch it. My entire 100 gallon tank gets about 5 eggs a week and my skimmer still goes nuts. They are a suppliment like a vitamin pill and not a staple food.

[ctenophore]

Great post & idea, Paul. Thanks for the informative thread!

 

I wonder how these would do for anemones? I will get some and see if it speeds up time between manual divisions.

[dschflier]

Very interesting. I will try as well.

[paul b]

I wonder how these would do for anemones? I will get some and see if it speeds up time between manual divisions.

 

I know I have a few large Mojano anemones as an experiment and they eat them.

[www.fishnreef.com]

I said to use them as a suppliment no more than one egg per fish once or twice a week.

 

Paul,

Thanks for the info. How do you manage "one egg per fish". It's a feeding frenzy anytime food is dropped into a tank. Target feeding would be an interesting trick to manage.

Nadir

[paul b]

Nadir, I would never put this or any food in my tank without target feeding. That would cause a frenzy in any tank and some of the food will invariably be lost and some fish will not get to eat.

I use one of these and always have. I squirt some food on one side of the tank then target some fish on the other side of the tank, then I manage to put one egg into each coral and chase the fish away with the tip of the thing. I can actually push an egg right into the mouth of a coral so the fish don't get to it. The coral takes a while to close around the food so sometimes you need tokeep the feeder in there until the coral closes. The fish almost suck the eggs and worms right out of the feeding tube. I have been using this method of feeding for over forty years and it has always worked for me. There is no uneaten food and if something does fall between the rocks I can pull it out into the open with it or blow it into the open.

No food goes in my tank unless I know exactly where it is. Every fish gets some food at every feeding.

I have a lot of smaller gobies and pipefish so they get live baby brine every day. Not all fish eat the same thing

 

[zygote2k]

I believe commercially caught Salmon is freshwater. I know they live in the ocean and are born, die, and mate in freshwater. Most Salmon comes from freshwater hatcheries.

[paul b]

They are born in freshwater like eels but they are considered a saltwater fish. They spend 7 or 8 years in the sea and only a few days in fresh water where they lay their eggs and die. The Atlantic Salmon do not die after spawning but return to the sea.

[www.fishnreef.com]

I would never put this or any food in my tank without target feeding.

 

Paul,

Very interesting. The points about the fat and vitamins is excellent. Will give it a try.

Have you tried the smaller roe vs. the larger?

Thanks for sharing again.

Nadir

[paul b]

Yes I have used all sorts of roe in the past. Some fish egggs are just too small and they get lost in the tank

[zygote2k]

Atlantic Salmon info:

 

Salmon Life Cycle from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) have a unique life history known as anadromous, in which they are born in fresh water, live their adult lives in the ocean, and return to fresh water to reproduce. To thrive, Atlantic salmon require rivers and streams with adequate flow, cool water, and high dissolved oxygen levels. The diagram at the left shows details on the salmon life cycle (click to enlarge).

 

 

 

 

EGGS - Pea-sized orange eggs are deposited in riverbed gravel in autumn, and hatch the following early spring. As the eggs develop, the eyes of the developing wild salmon can be seen through the semi-transparent membrane.

 

ALEVIN - The partly transparent alevin hatch and remain hidden in the riverbed gravels, feeding from the attached yolk sac. They are about 2 cm or less than 1 inch in length.

 

 

FRY - Wriggling up from the gravels, fry begin feeding on microscopic life in the stream. They eventually reach a length of 5 to 8 cm./2 to 3in. before transforming into parr.

 

 

PARR - The vertical markings, called 'parr marks' appear, with a single red dot between. Parr remain in the river for 2 to 6 years, depending on water temperatures and food availability.

 

 

SMOLT - At a length of 12 to 24 cm/4.7 to 9.5 in. a springtime transformation of the parr takes place into smolt. A silvery sheen replaces the parr marks, and internally they undergo a complex transformation to survive in saltwater. On the downstream journey the odors of the smolt's native river are imprinted on its memory, to be recalled when it returns to spawn.

 

 

ADULT - Silvery hunters, adult wild salmon live one or more years at sea. Most populations follow lengthy migration routes to waters off southwestern Greenland where they grow rapidly on a diet of crustaceans and small fish. Other feeding grounds exist, such as waters surrounding the Faroe Islands north of Scotland, and some populations may stay closer to home rivers, such as those from the inner Bay of Fundy Rivers. Wild salmon that return after one year at sea are called grilse.

 

Adult salmon return to home rivers, entering freshwater between April and November. Once in freshwater they stop feeding, living off accumulated fat reserves.

 

In late fall the wild Atlantic salmon spawn. The female digs a 10-30cm/4-12 in. deep nest called a REDD in the gravel bottom of the stream. Her eggs and the milt from an adult male are released into the redd, the gravel replaced with additional tail thrusts. In some cases sexually mature male parr manage to fertilize a percentage of the eggs. In the painting parr are seen swimming nearby, looking for an opportunity. The female may lay 1,500 eggs or more for each kg./2.2 lb of body weight. - Thus a 12 pound female salmon will lay about 8,000 eggs, completing the life cycle.