Fish Don’t Eat Cows!

Imagine a maruading pack of goldfish hunting down and eating a cow, or perhaps a chicken or pig. A ridiculous mental picture isn’t it? The fish creep up slowly on the unsuspecting critter after enticing it into the water with their seductive lip movements at the water’s surface and then tear it savagely limb from limb. Not likely.

It would appear that some people do imagine our humble goldfish to be big game hunters though. Some fish foods that we have looked at recently have listed as their two largest components “Cereal” & “Meat By-Products (beef, pork,chicken,lamb)”. These products are neatly labelled with little slogans like “specially formulated for fish”.

Now there is nothing wrong with advertising your product to the best of your ability, but there is a problem with using high levels of animal protein and fats in a food that is “Formulated for fish”.

Fish do not digest animal fats very well, and quite a lot of what goes in will come out the other end undigested. A fully digested meal for a goldfish should be a dark solid material. Often when using a food that is high in animal fats the result of the digestion process will more closely resemble the original food.

Fish have evolved in a situation where most of their energy comes from aquatic lifeforms, and aquatic life forms seldom store energy as fats. Aquatic life forms use oils to store energy. So therefore when one of our little fishy friends takes time out from chicken hunting, and decides to eat one of their smaller tank mates, what they get is a large dose of aquatic proteins and oils.

Next time that you see a can of fish food conveniently placed on your local supermarket shelf, have a look at the ingredient list. Once you have done this, compare the ingredient list to any fish food that you find in a pet store. We think you’ll find that the pet store brand has things like squid meal, crab meat, fish oils etc. as their “Meaty” type components.

You look at the ingredients of the food that you eat, why not pay attention to what you are feeding your fish. You’ll find that keeping your tank clean will be easier and your water will be far less likely to smell or become cloudy.
Best of all though, your fish will be healthier!