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Old 04/18/2006, 11:42 AM
leebca leebca is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: So. CA
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Your IF assumption is correct Triggerfish, BUT we humans can't attain that requirement. A fish in captivity can't get all the nutrients it needs from the foods we supply. It needs other nutrients.

A fish in the wild has access to many square miles of reef and ocean and sea to acquire even the rarest of food to supply even the simplest of nutrient in its diet. We can't duplicate that as yet. A fish in captivity only lives on what we put in the tank and we can't put all of nature's diversity in our aquaria (either as food or as inhabitants). That is why, fundamentally, we as aquarists CAN'T supply all the needed nutrients through a 'proper' diet in captivity.

It ISN'T the same as humans. Humans can go everywhere and anywhere, whenever they want to to find and decide on what foods they eat. Fish in our tanks can't do that.

There are three general groups of trace elements: The mandatory, the essential and the non-essential. We can't supply them all in our tanks, in the proper quantities, nor can we supply them all, in the proper quantities, in our aquariums unless we add them as supplements. If you will study this closely, review articles about fish nutrition in both aquaculture periodicals and technical journals, you'll see that supplements are necessary. We have removed the fishes from their natural environment and although we can simulate the reef in our aquariums, we really can't provide the food and nutrient diversity the fish find in their natural habitat.

You'll find that professional and 'long term' aquarists and public and private aquariums use supplements routinely because they have found that even with the optimal foods they provide, the fish slowly looses its resistance to even the simplest of microbes that would not affect a physiologically (just caught) prepared fish.