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Beef heart substitute

I picked up diced beef heart and some beef liver. The liver looks way leaner than the heart. I may give the liver a try.
 
please do more research before deciding to feed beef (or any other mammalian products) to fish, while some breeders will use this to get rapid growth on juvenile fish it's not an optimum diet for any fish - too high in (strange) fats, too high in protein for long term diet ...

Liver should be avoided except as a very small part of the recipe, also use only organic liver (liver acts as a detoxifying centre for the body).
Although liver may appear leaner than beefheart (you're supposed to remove all visible fat before adding to the mix!), it generally contains more total fat/100g
 
please do more research before deciding to feed beef (or any other mammalian products) to fish, while some breeders will use this to get rapid growth on juvenile fish it's not an optimum diet for any fish - too high in (strange) fats, too high in protein for long term diet ...

Liver should be avoided except as a very small part of the recipe, also use only organic liver (liver acts as a detoxifying centre for the body).
Although liver may appear leaner than beefheart (you're supposed to remove all visible fat before adding to the mix!), it generally contains more total fat/100g

The reason for an alternitive food is due to my angels. They wont take flake/pellet, tried frozen foods, they eat it but only in small amounts. I had a little beef heart mix in the freezer. I gave them a small bit and they went nuts!

My mix is beef heart, raw prawn, raw white fish and flake. This will be binded with jelotine.

But you have given me something to think about.
 
Just feed frozen brine shrimp at the same time as the beef mix (need fibre, if you will - hopefully you included the shell from your raw prawn), fish will begin to realize that it's all food, & then you can taper off the beef & feed more of the flake/frozen BS etc

Juvenile angels should be willing to try anything that remotely resembles food, adult angels can be more difficult to convince that all is as it should be ...
If these are juveniles that are reluctant to eat, I'd suspect health issues & do daily water changes, depending on plants, you an also add 1-2 Tablespoons salt/10 gal

Note that once you have angels established in a tank, it's generally advised to quarantine any new fish, or at least add fish rarely to the tank.


I had a little beef heart mix in the freezer. I gave them a small bit and they went nuts!
this may indicate that they've been fed beef previously, again if juveniles less of an issue, but if adult & fed constantly on beef, not fish I'd buy ...
 
The reason for an alternitive food is due to my angels. They wont take flake/pellet, tried frozen foods, they eat it but only in small amounts. I had a little beef heart mix in the freezer. I gave them a small bit and they went nuts!

That's weird how your angles won't eat dry food. Are they wild caught or something? If so then I can understand them being picky.
 
Bit's of black worm's,red worm's,earthworm's.
Have yet to see any cichlid's that did not readily eat them.
Let fishes go without food for four or five day's and they will eat near anything that hit's the water that look's edible IME
Assuming they aren't sick.
 
These are captive bred.

The problem is that they do eat, but spit most of the food back out. So say one fish eats five blood worms, it spits 4 back out.

I will leave it a few days to feed them.
 
The problem is that they do eat, but spit most of the food back out
this is a symptom consistent with internal parasites so consider other signs behaviour/demeanour etc
Have medication on hand but just "treat" with daily water change & see how they improve ... I'd just feed them whatever they will eat for a couple weeks before trying to generate food acceptance via "starvation" techniques - if they do have parasites, it's a very bad idea to withhold daily nutrition, instead you want optimum conditions to minimize any stressors.

Adult?
or juvenile angels?

Photos would help
 
These are small juvies

I will try for better photos later

image.jpg
 
Beautiful fish!

are you in contact with the breeder? if they've been raised on beefheart mix, then they are pretty much acting as expected re food behaviour

Get them eating your homemade mix consistently, eg, 5 day at least, they eat any time you offer food - are ravenous about it (angels are food piggies :D )
Be careful with BH mix as it fouls the tank quickly, expect to do daily water changes with this type of food, if tank were bare bottom, you could just syphon out any leftover food ~10 min after each meal, in a planted tank this is impossible, so just go with daily 25-35% water changes
If you're good at matching tank vs tap, you can easily do 90% daily water changes with angels (like discus), if your tap is inconsistent etc, then stick with smaller daily water change

Then begin mixing whatever alternate you choose - & choose only one - maybe 10% at first feeding, 20% day 2, 30% day 3 etc ... if they begin to get picky, then go to previous day's food ratio
At this point you can let them be a little hungry, eg only offer 70% at each feeding compared to previous week when you were just getting them settled & well fed

Once they are completely transitioned over to the new food, ie they race across the tank & eat madly - feed only this for a week or two; then begin introducing your next chosen food, same method as above.

In time, they should be willing to eat/try anything offered, regardless of it being a completely new food
Some breeders feed a wide variety of foods to juveniles, this begets a fish that will eat/try pretty much anything once sold on, some breeders feed only 1 or 2 foods & neglect to get their juveniles on "ordinary" pet shop fish food before selling on ... when buying angels (or discus) ask when shop feeds fish & return at that time to observe that fish are feeding well - this omits a lot of what if's about new fish

Angels (& discus) can be incredibly stubborn about foods they will/won't eat, of course at the same time they are stressing which means a lessened immune system which can then lead to disease level parasites/bacteria etc. Angels can be very sensitive to water column medications so it's always better to start treating them with medicated food - wait until they are no longer eating & it can be very disheartening.
Seeing how voracious they are (when eating), it's easier to understand how disturbed they are in order to NOT be eating.

Look at the thickness of their bodies from above, they should have some depth even at fairly small juvenile age, if they are "knife" thin, don't but them (or buy realizing it can take considerable effort to bring them around)

Often just daily water change, some salt (I like to use a marine mix or natural salt rather than NaCl but anything is fine - BUT check any table salt for anti-clumping agents, Kosher usually has none as it's coarser) & increased temperature (up to 90F) can be effective "medication" with angels - if you go to TAF there will be many many posts on angels not eating ;)
Note that increased temp means considerable decrease in dissolved oxygen levels in water column so you need to be very conscious of optimizing aeration (most air pump/stones are not as effective as optimized filters) & some salt if generally advised as well.

I'm not a fan of Melfix or Pimafix as both can be very distressing to angels (& other fish) - while both may reduce water column bacteria etc, neither has been shown to inhibit actual fish active bacteria ie the types of bacteria which are identified as disease agents in either external or internal fish infecttions :(
 
I am not a fan of blood worm's that OP mentioned, and merely offered alternatives to beef heart and or bloodworm's as title of the thread suggest's.
Fish poop should look well formed and segmented as opposed to white/grey/stringy looking, which would indicate intestinal parasite's IME
For what it's worth the Angelfish in the photo appears to be a healthy specimen.
I had all manner of intestinal parasite issues(year's) with feeding blood worm's on regular basis until I ceased with them altogether and began offering the afore mentioned alternatives.
Agree with much of what alto posted also.
I
 
Why dont you try Beef Heart Sticks from TA-Aquaculture ? Its good stuff
 
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