Can fish get heart disease?

[Tom Stevens]

All kidding aside, I have been feeding heavily to climb out of 0 nitrate/phosphate to get rid of all this brown algae. The fish are fat and happy. Which got me thinking... What are the long term health affects of fish eating too much? Do they stop when they are full or just keep eating like my labradors? In any case, I managed to get nitrates to .25 ppm. Funny, the things reefers worry about. <sigh>

 

[Fudsey]

How are you skimming? Is there a way to turn it down so you are skimming dryer? This helped me get some nitrates in my tank.

 

[rkpetersen]

Interesting question, and while I haven't researched the scientific answer, I'll overreach and hazard a guess based on what I do know. First, the fish heart is very different than the human/mammalian heart; for example it's only two chambers, we have 4. When people talk of 'heart disease', they typically mean coronary artery atherosclerotic disease (angina, heart attack). Many fish don't have coronary arteries at all, the heart muscle gets all its oxygen from blood within the heart chambers themselves. So these fish literally can't get heart disease of the type we usually talk about. Looked at another way, when a fish gets larger, does it get 'fat' the way mammals do, by building up excess supplies of fat cells, or does it just enlarge all its normal tissues more like what a growing human child does, only as an adult? Also many fish have pretty short and inefficient digestive tracts, so if you feed them too much, it just goes through (to be eaten by something else.)

 

[Tom Stevens]

Yes, I am skimming and it is turned all of the way down. I am thinking I will remove the cup for a couple of days and see what happens. Thanks for the idea.

 

[rkpetersen]

lol, Was I taking your question too literally? I do that sometimes.

 

[fish farmer]

I raise a strain of steelhead that have a genetic defect in the population that causes heart issues. I've seen lots of fatty deposits inside of hatchery raised trout, we fed a high fat diet for awhile. These fish aren't getting the exercise either.

I used to care for a huge(52 lb) salmon, we fed him too much, but there was a good story behind his life before he got fat. Nearing the end of his life he would take a nap when we would clean the 20 foot tank he shared with smaller salmon. After cleaning the tank, draining it part way and scrubbing, he would lie flat on the bottom for a couple of hours, until he got his breath back. Other smaller fish in the tank were unaffected.