FOOD AND FEEDING 



Starchy Foods. Of the farinaceous foods, vermicelli, egg noodles, 

 and the breakfast cereals are all to be recommended and when varied with 

 those containing animal substances, all sparingly fed, will not only nourish 

 the fishes but produce growth and vigor, and furnish the necessary variety 

 of diet. 



Many combinations may be prepared from the foregoing list; the 

 best being those which contain animal, crustaceous and starchy ingredients, 

 together with some digestible form of lime, preferably, the cuttle-fish bone 

 used in bird cages, or finely powdered egg-shells, table and epsom or 

 glauber salts; which, in combination, will furnish all the chemical constitu- 

 ents necessary to the health, growth and full development of animal life, 

 together with a mild laxative necessary to animals in confinement and 

 deprived of the laxative salts abundant in the natural environment. Some 

 successful fish culturists supply the salts and lime to the aquarium water 

 by adding an occasional pinch of a powder composed of y^ table salt, ^ 

 epsom salt and ^ plaster of pans. 



A considerably used German goldfish food consists of these ingredients: 

 5 ounces of pea flour; 4 ounces of rice flour; 1 ounces of dried and pow- 

 dered fish flesh, (herring) ; ^ ounce of finely dessicated dried meat fibre, 

 (beef heart); i ^ ounces of ant-eggs (pupae); i ounce of dried powdered 

 prawn, (shrimp) or lobster; 2 ounces of dried daphnia; two raw eggs, to- 

 gether with the powdered shells; y^ ounce of table salt; J^ ounce of 

 epsom salt and sufficient gum arabic in boiling water to bind the mass; 

 thoroughly kneaded into a thick dough, dried at low temperature, and 

 crushed into convenient small particles. This makes about a pound 

 of dried food. In feeding, the granules are steeped in lukewarm water 

 and immediately fed; or they may be forced through a colinder, or other 

 device to produce a vermicelli form. In the opinion of the author this 

 food has rather an excess of animal substances. 



It must always be kept in mind that a variety of food is beneficial, 

 fed only in sufiicient quantity to sarisfy the hunger of the fishes, and 

 none left over after the meal to cause contaminations in the water, or to 

 form a culture medium for the ever-present spores of Saprolegnia, the fun- 

 gus which produces the most general external disease of fishes, or breeding 

 places for other external and internal parasites. 



When Daphnia can be obtained they should be fed to the exclusion 

 of any other form of live or artificial food, not only to the goldfish but to 

 almost all the other freshwater fishes that can be kept in the aquarium. 

 By their use the most vigorous growth will be obtained and the least 

 trouble had with the aquarium and its contents. This is the unanimous 

 opinion of expert aquariists. 



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