# Uneaten fish food for substrate?



## Aplomado (Feb 20, 2013)

Well, fish poop helps too!


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## fishyfishy101 (Nov 12, 2014)

Add more food about a hour after you turn the lights off.


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## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

Substrate will replenish with fish waste. You do not want fish food in the substrate it will quickly rot and release ammonia in water, it is poisonous and trigger algae blooms.

Michel.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

fishbone11 said:


> The substrate is supposed to be re-nourished with excess fishfood.
> When I feed my fish they gobble EVERYTHING up.
> If I were to add more food, my fear is that the fish will be overfed way before anything made it to the substrate.
> Is there a solution?


Where the heck did you get that idea.


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

Seriously, where did you see that put in writing? I'd love to read the theory behind it. Understand that the sarcasm isn't directed at you. It's directed squarely at the origin of that train of thought. Every hobby suffers with bad information. But this one is REALLY bad.


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## fishbone11 (Sep 11, 2014)

Bushkill said:


> Seriously, where did you see that put in writing? I'd love to read the theory behind it. Understand that the sarcasm isn't directed at you. It's directed squarely at the origin of that train of thought. Every hobby suffers with bad information. But this one is REALLY bad.


 Well, that's a little harsh.
I read this in Diana Walstead's book on dirted tanks. She recommends adding extra fish food (beyond what the fish consume) as a way of feeding the substrate.
I have read about this elsewhere too.
If I am miss interpreting what I read, please explain.
Thanks, Ron


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## fishyfishy101 (Nov 12, 2014)

fishbone11 said:


> Well, that's a little harsh.
> I read this in Diana Walstead's book on dirted tanks. She recommends adding extra fish food (beyond what the fish consume) as a way of feeding the substrate.
> I have read about this elsewhere too.
> If I am miss interpreting what I read, please explain.
> Thanks, Ron



exactly, it's the walstead method


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

micheljq said:


> Substrate will replenish with fish waste. You do not want fish food in the substrate it will quickly rot and release ammonia in water, it is poisonous and trigger algae blooms.
> 
> Michel.


I meant no harm. The written word has limitations. Michel's post here, pretty much sums up what the hobby has been centered around for as many decades as I've been in it (More than I'd care to admit to, lol!). By the same token, I certainly make no claim to knowing everything there is to know about this hobby. So all I was trying to do is to better understand where you'd read of such a theory, since it's new to me and at least one other here.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

You mean where she talks about fish eating the food which is then turned into something usable for the plants via fish waste? I don't see any reference from her to over feed so the uneaten food goes into the substrate.


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

OK, maybe we can just discuss this and educate me in the process, lol!

From the scant little I know of the Walstad method, it does in fact recommend letting things be; including fish poop and uneaten food. Not having read the book, nor tried it myself, I don't think there's a recommendation to purposely overfeed to the point that there's excess food being created simply for the sake of creating fertilizer. That's the part I'm having trouble wrapping my simple little mind around, lol! I'm really hoping that someone who has actually tried it or read the book will chime in on this aspect.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

Well, I've read the book and did not see the that. If I missed it what page might it be on?


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## fishbone11 (Sep 11, 2014)

I guess I'm being pinned to the wall, and so I should be.
I looked it up in her book.
Here is a quote from page 183.

"Fish feeding-
Despite warnings in the hobbyist literature, I always feed my fish well plus a little extra for the plants. True overfeeding is evident by cloudy, smelly water or fishfood rotting on the tank bottom. (In my tanks, there are never any traces of leftover food or water cloudiness.)"

She goes on elsewhere in the book about what trace elements are available in fishfood that plants benefit from (not having passed through a fish first).

Assuming this overfeeding is a good thing, I was just trying to figure out how to do it without overfeeding the fish. My food floats well and is completely consumed by my swimming pigs.


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## brooksie321 (Jul 19, 2014)

I think there is more to be lost with overfeeding than gained.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

You need to read that again. She is talking about feeding the fish more that they normally eat, not excess going to the bottom. "True overfeeding is evident" etc. But then she says she does not have food left to rot. All her food is being eaten by the fish and its the fish waste that is used by the plants.


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## Diana (Jan 14, 2010)

While it is true that fish food can rot and become fertilizer, I do not overfeed for the reason that it is not healthy for the fish to over eat. I suppose if I sequestered the food where they could not get it, I could let it rot and become fertilizer. 

The other concern is the price of the food. 
If you priced the 'fertilizer' aspect of the fish food you would be paying a certain price per pound of each fertilizer. If you compare that to the price of KNO3, KH2PO4 etc. I think you would find the price is much higher to use fish food as fertilizer. 
I would rather use fertilizer as fertilizer. 

Lets see... 

Omega One fresh water flakes at PS. 5.3 oz. is $11.99
45% protein. "... the average nitrogen content of proteins is about 16%." (Wiki)
So... 5.3 oz x 45% x 16% = 1.097 oz nitrogen.
$11.00 per ounce is just a bit high. 

1 lb KNO3 at aquarium fertilizer is $4.00.
About 1/7 by weight of the KNO3 is actually N. so you are paying $28 per pound or $1.75 per ounce of N. 

The other problem with this concept:
When an element passes through an organism the organism takes a certain amount of that element, keeps it in their own body. Fish food has to be broken down, and this may involve more than one decomposer, perhaps several. So a little bit of the 'fertilizer' is lost each time. So that $11.00 per ounce has to go up some more.


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## crazy4fids (Dec 3, 2014)

fishbone11 said:


> I o consumed by my swimming pigs.


Now thats funny! Sounds like my angelfish!


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## fishbone11 (Sep 11, 2014)

jrill said:


> You need to read that again. She is talking about feeding the fish more that they normally eat, not excess going to the bottom. "True overfeeding is evident" etc. But then she says she does not have food left to rot. All her food is being eaten by the fish and its the fish waste that is used by the plants.


What do you think "a little for the plants" means? Just asking.


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## jrill (Nov 20, 2013)

fishbone11 said:


> What do you think "a little for the plants" means? Just asking.


That she feeds the fish more than they need to eat so they produce more waste than they normally would.


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## TheAnswerIs42 (Jul 10, 2014)

jrill said:


> That she feeds the fish more than they need to eat so they produce more waste than they normally would.


Agreed. There is some vagueness to her wording.


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## Mariostg (Sep 6, 2014)

On page 81 of the Q&A of Walstad book:
"...I add fishfood to each of my tank based on the size of the tank, not the number of fish in it".

Note that she counts on snails too. I love my snails.


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## Bushkill (Feb 15, 2012)

Guck said:


> On page 81 of the Q&A of Walstad book:
> "...I add fishfood to each of my tank based on the size of the tank, not the number of fish in it".
> 
> Note that she counts on snails too. I love my snails.


If there's one thing snails are REALLY good at it's eating excess food. I gotta tell ya, if there's snails in there in numbers, there's no fertilizer being produced via rotting food. There's a nice mixture of fish and snail poo. The more you feed snails, the more of them you have and the more snail poo you have. That's not a slight on snails. I love them as well. It's just the way they work.


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