Feeding Lettuce

[laga77]

There are vitamins to be had in the fluids of the lettuce. It should not be used as a replacement of anything, but just as an addition. My foxface didn't poop out anything that looked like lettuce, but again, that's not where my concern was. My concern is the vitamins that are absorbed while the fibrous mass passes through the gut.

When I feed my 2 Foxface, one of which is 4.5 years old. I feed cheato, caulerpa, and nori. All of which supply them with what they need without any doubt. Bottom line is that feeding lettuce MIGHT be beneficial at best and harmful at worst and is totally unnecessary because better alternatives exist.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Where is it said it is harmful? What's harmful about it?

 

[oneofmany]

I'll take a Spirulina based flake food they might sell at Walmart over lettuce 8 days a week and twice on Sundays.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

But you don't have to take one over the other. We're just talking about additions to providing as varied a diet as possible and if it's beneficial. If you have lettuce in your fridge... BRING IT!! Throw in the Walmart food and all sorts of other things. Don't limit yourself. Fresh vitamins are SO important.

 

[laga77]

Where is it said it is harmful? What's harmful about it?

You are feeding cellulose to an animal who has evolved never eating it. We do not know what effects it has on fish long term. An example of this is cats eating fish. Cats evolved from animals in the Sahara plain and did not have fish in their diet. Todays house cat can eat a little, but will get sick if fed a steady diet of it. There are two posts on this thread where people feed lettuce on a regular basis. We just don't know if it is good or bad. Just because someone started feeding the fish lettuce 30 years ago, like I did, makes it a good idea. Remember, it is also said to blanch the lettuce to break down the cellulose and that is not true. Not only that, lettuce does not have much nutritional value to begin with. What I am saying is stay with a natural diet and remove any doubt. . To oneofmany: check the ingredients on the spirulina flakes. Many are made up of fish meal with very little spirulina. Try to find one with the most.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Plant forms of nutrients is WELL studied in marine fish. We DO know about it's benefits. I don't know how else to say it other than that.

You probably need to be mindful of your reference, just as an FYI. I mean no disrespect by pointing that out, but I'm sure the authors would appreciate a proper citing of their work.

AH, Sargent JR, Thompson KD 1993
Terrestrial and fish oils affect phospholipid fatty acid composition, development of cardiac lesions, phospholipase activity and eicosanoid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 49(3):665-73

The actual article name and authors are: J.G. Bell, J.R. Dick, A.H. McVicar,, J.R. Sargent, K.D. Thompson. (1993) Dietary sunflower, linseed and fish oils affect phospholipid fatty acid composition, development of cardiac lesions, phospholipase activity and eicosanoid production in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar). Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 49(3):665-73

 

[oneofmany]

To oneofmany: check the ingredients on the spirulina flakes. Many are made up of fish meal with very little spirulina. Try to find one with the most.

I was just trying to make a point, but even still... That flake food that doesn't consist of a lot of Spirulina is probably a better choice than lettuce. It's too bad we can't take the PEPSI challenge and find out.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

I was just trying to make a point, but even still... That flake food that doesn't consist of a lot of Spirulina is probably a better choice than lettuce. It's too bad we can't take the PEPSI challenge and find out.

The quality of the vitamins in a store bought food will depend on the quality of the food, how old the food is, what kind of vitamins are in them, how was it stored, how much food the fish has to eat to get a certain value, so on and so forth. Fresh foods can be better in regards to some vitamins, such as vitamin C.

Spirulina has phenomenal fatty acids. I consider it "super food".

Keep it varied. Don't keep it a long time. Store it well. As with everything, moderation.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Found this video:

 

[CastAway]

Back in the day (1980's), my LFS would clip cucumber in their tanks. I have not heard or seen that in a long while...

 

[tgp4274]

well..... romain is not the only thing I feed........
they get pellets 3 times a day and 4 frozen cubes in the evening
I do also feed nori once or twice a week
I've also read feeding brocilli..... I tried it but none ate it

 

[mfinn]

Back in the 80's and early 90's we didn't have access to the dried algae sheets like we do today.
We fed Romaine Lettuce and it keep the tangs healthy and fat.

 

[beegee]

It is like humans eating grass. We don't have the enzymes necessary for digestion. I grab a golf ball size chunk everyday from one of my dumps and throw it in the FOWLR

dumps or sumps?

 

[Toadfish]

I don't really have a problem with feeding lettuce as a supplement to more natural foods. I wonder about what the high moisture content does to their osmolarity, but I doubt it's a huge deal. Might be a bit of extra metabolic effort, but probably not much. As an aquarium service tech, I have seen a strong correlation between tanks that feed lettuce and tanks with a crap ton of cyano, but that is purely anecdotal evidence, so take that for what it's worth.

Feeding lettuce in lieu of more natural foods? That I do not approve of. We have safer, more natural methods easily accessible to us. Even without some of the citations above for what it's actually doing to your fish (the liver deposits in particular) there's a lot we simply don't know about the long term effects of alternative diets.

There haven't been formal scientific studies done on a lot of common questions in the aquarium hobby. I think this is mostly because it's a set of pretty niche questions. The studies above were, if you note, done in regards to fish farming. Important work, and economically worth a very long study. Digestive health in captive tangs? Not worth studying, not compared to other demands. Zoos, public aquaria, and aquaculture facilities by and large endeavor to replicate natural diet. Why risk your specimens comparing a readily available natural food you know works to a slightly cheaper but riskier food? Cost benefit on that study sucks.

This hobby is hard enough already without screwing around with corner cutting. Just feed the right foods.

 

[jmanrow]

Interesting, do they get any nutrition from it at all?

Yes, but don't feed your fish Iceberg Lettuce... no nutrition there!

 

[Lionfish Lair]

Actually, lettuce is a good nutritional source of several minerals and vitamins.

I'm always looking into ways to get fresh vitamins into my fish. Vitamin C and E are especially difficult and I keep my eyes open for stable sources of thiamine. But seriously what are we afraid of here? It's almost like we are more tolerant of dipping our coral in insecticide, dosing our tanks with chemicals to get rid of a couple of flatworms and using mystery proprietary products to fight algae, but we're hesitant about attaching a piece of lettuce to a clip occasionally?

 

[Black Pearl]

I feed the Tangs Bok Choy

 

[ludnix]

Back in the day (1980's), my LFS would clip cucumber in their tanks. I have not heard or seen that in a long while...

This is still the norm for feeding freshwater snails and plecos though I haven't tried it with saltwater fish.

I totally agree with Lionfish Lair that variety is important. Lettuce will never compare to Nori in caloric density but I don't see the harm in mixing it up occasionally.

 

[laga77]

I was wrong about the cellulose. There is cellulose in algae. The numbers vary from site to site so it is hard to find out exactly how much. I still believe lettuce is a poor choice because reef fish do not eat plants. Algae is not a plant. Variety is great and I believe in it, but variety should consist of the proper choices. Why feed a plant when nori and cheato is so available. I received a new Rabbit fish this morning from DD and he is chowing down on some cheato as I type.

 

[ntsekov]

There are vitamins to be had in the fluids of the lettuce. It should not be used as a replacement of anything, but just as an addition. My foxface didn't poop out anything that looked like lettuce, but again, that's not where my concern was. My concern is the vitamins that are absorbed while the fibrous mass passes through the gut.

Why not just use the juices on nori? It's effective way of supplying anything to a Tang (although I fail to see how a Tang can suffer from malnutrition, they eat everything I,put in the tank and graze almost everything, mine are fat pigs).