# Meatless Diet



## Us And Them (Dec 4, 2008)

I've stopped feeding Fish to my Red shoal regularly. Right now , I only feed them fish once a week , soaked in Vitachem. and now im thinking of just stopping feeding them fish all together. I noticed my Reds are much more active while consistently being Fed Pellet food , in this case Hikari Cichlid gold pellets . This method can become expensive while buying all those pellets , and very messy. But it's made the color come out very strong , I've also observed Aggression levels drop , even with my temp at a consistent 82 Degrees.

The Vitachem has become a very important part in my Piranhas' diet , adding all the essential Omega 3's and nutrients which cannot be found in the foods aquarists commonly feed them.

Im going to be soaking my Pellets with Vitachem and completely cut out the meat and ,hopefully this strict diet will help them maintain their healthy colors all through adulthood.

Thoughts?


----------



## Rugged Child (Oct 3, 2006)

Jon87 said:


> I've stopped feeding Fish to my Red shoal regularly. Right now , I only feed them fish once a week , soaked in Vitachem. and now im thinking of just stopping feeding them fish all together. I noticed my Reds are much more active while consistently being Fed Pellet food , in this case Hikari Cichlid gold pellets . This method can become expensive while buying all those pellets , and very messy. But it's made the color come out very strong , I've also observed Aggression levels drop , even with my temp at a consistent 82 Degrees.
> 
> The Vitachem has become a very important part in my Piranhas' diet , adding all the essential Omega 3's and nutrients which cannot be found in the foods aquarists commonly feed them.
> 
> ...


Hey Jon,

I think the fact that you have your Piranhas eating pellets on a regular basis is a good thing. The blend of ingredients and added nutrients in pellets are very beneficial to your fish and in my opinion are more balanced and nutritous that just fish fillets alone.

With my rhom getting it to eat pellets is a bit of a challenge. I basically have to stuff some pellets inside a piece of fish but thats probably no where near the amount that it would be eating if I could get it to eat pellets alone. One thing I have been doing is rotating 4 different pellet types that I stuff the fish with to kind of get more of a variety. I've been doing this for less than a week so I don't know how much benefit that there is but it may be something you want to consider. I also forgot to mention that all of fish I feed is presoaked in Kent Zoe and then frozen as per Blacksunshine's food preperation post.


----------



## Rugged Child (Oct 3, 2006)

I aslo wanted to note that even though you are feeding your fish a mostly pelleted diet, that doesn't mean that it is meatless. fish meal, shrimp meal, and squid meal made from whole fish are often used as ingredients in high quatlity pellets. But you probably already know that. The thing I think that makes them messy are the other ingredients that the fish don't necesarily use. The flour, wheat meal, corn meal ...fillers in my opinion that allow the food to bind and be formed into a pellet but are not necessarily part of the fishes diet. You've probably compared the ingredients on prepared fish foods before and noticed for yourself that high quality brands have less of these.

cheers


----------



## PELIGROSO PYGO (Aug 27, 2008)

I applaud you for not feeding your P's Pellets, instead of meat flesh diet.. many of us on here know that their diet can make the difference with how they turn out.. I have a friend that just bought p's so he can watch them kill? I honestly think there should be restrictions with what certain ppl can purchase.. anywho good job


----------



## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

I personally would cut it out altogether, but i would maybe minimize it and add in a couple different types of pellets instead. Make sure you keep up with water changes as pellets can mess water quality up


----------



## Johnny_Zanni (Nov 8, 2009)

Omega 3 is found in fish. lol


----------



## Us And Them (Dec 4, 2008)

Johnny_Zanni said:


> Omega 3 is found in fish. lol


We're talking Vitachem here , yes fish do contain Omega 3 but I couldn't imagine it being as effective as vitachem.


----------



## shiver905 (May 27, 2009)

I fed my P's HGold pellets for awhile.

I swiched to a 99% meat diet with zoe.

If I notice any differences.
from pellet to meat diet. I'll let you know
Give me a month or 2.

So far - they are far more agressive towards food.


----------



## BRUNER247 (Jun 2, 2010)

IMO you should be feeding a wide range of food! beefheart, nightcrawlers, krill, shrimp, crawdads, leeches, several kinds of pellets, ect. The more the better! You think soaking their food in manmade omega is good for them? What else is in that??!! N retain their awesome colors into adulthood?? Have you seen many adult rbp?? Everyone I've ever had(n I've had many) all turn dark grey almost black n loose 90% If not all their red on their bellies! Hate to break the bad news to you but those pellets don't contain everything your fish needs!n I highly doubt your manmade omega does either! I feel sorry for your fish to never chase/hunt/kill for any of its food.how boring of a life that must be!


----------



## Soul Assassin (Nov 21, 2006)

BRUNER247 said:


> IMO you should be feeding a wide range of food! beefheart, nightcrawlers, krill, shrimp, crawdads, leeches, several kinds of pellets, ect. The more the better! You think soaking their food in manmade omega is good for them? What else is in that??!! N retain their awesome colors into adulthood?? Have you seen many adult rbp?? Everyone I've ever had(n I've had many) all turn dark grey almost black n loose 90% If not all their red on their bellies! Hate to break the bad news to you but those pellets don't contain everything your fish needs!n I highly doubt your manmade omega does either! I feel sorry for your fish to never chase/hunt/kill for any of its food.how boring of a life that must be!


I agree with the wide-range of food BUT that would also include pellets and vitachem. As far as live it's not necessary but I do feed platies once every 2-3 months just too see my sanch hunt.


----------



## ___ (Feb 19, 2006)

Not sure how I feel about this... On one hand that's great you got your Ps to eat all the good stuff on thier own without being tricked lol. But on the other hand meat is a very large part of thier everyday diet in the wild.

If you were asking, I would say keep Feeding the pellets, alot of them. But I would say keep feeding meat there is nothing wrong with meat and with all the info you can get from this site alone you know the right and wrong meats and I'm sure it provides certain things manmade chems can't.

Good luck with everything


----------



## Us And Them (Dec 4, 2008)

What's wrong with a meatless diet ? and pellets do contain meat. So technically , i havn't stopped feeding them meat lol.
I just found it made them very lean and strong. Perfect amount of meat in pellets sufficient for Piranha.


----------



## Soul Assassin (Nov 21, 2006)

Pellets are man made and not really raw meat, not that your P will not be healthy if you only feed pellets but it is still my view to mix it all


----------



## ___ (Feb 19, 2006)

Soul Assassin said:


> Pellets are man made and not really raw meat, not that your P will not be healthy if you only feed pellets but it is still my view to *mix it all*


X2


----------

