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Beef Heart Recipes

3K views 10 replies 8 participants last post by  nightowl1350 
#1 ·
Hi Guys,

I'm trying to figure out what to put in a home made beef heart recipe for my discus. I have read many recipes and it seems that there are many options of what to put in with the beef heart. I have read people putting multivitamins into their foods! Also, I have read people putting oatmeal!?

I was hoping that some of the members here would share their recipes and experiences with their home made recipes.

I appreciate the help!
 
#2 ·
I'd like to know where you get the beef heart. I've been trying to find some and have had no success in the local supermarkets. Where did you find it ? I've got a recipe for a clam diet that calls for it.
 
#3 · (Edited)
recipe

hey there i was in a similar situation as u a few months ago .there was so many recipes and stuff out there so what i did was keep it simple kinda read thru all the recipes and see what is most common . add a few of this and a few of that .my reciple was the beefheart,garlic,peas,i added some multivitamins ,dried fish food flakes ,u can add any fish food u have . cant remember what else
but my only reccomendations is to blend every thing dry first cause once the beef heart gets in there it is real pasty .
then ziplock bags thin and laid flat so u can snap pieces off to give to fish .
i went too thick in my ziplock bag hard to break apart .
as for getting the beef heart if u go to a real butcher shop and ask they will either have it or order it for u the place i went to in scarb ordered a full heart but i only bought half as i was not sure how or what to do so i didnt want to waste it .i think i paid around 15 bucks , and it lasted me approx 4-5 months .
 
#5 ·
Hey Thanks for all the replies. The one thing that I have read is to disregaurd any of the recipes that call for eggs in the mix as they commonly foul water- any experience with this?

I also wonder, many of these items are not foods that the fish would actually find in their natural habitat... so why is it that so many non-native foods are being proposed in these recipes?
 
#6 · (Edited)
I think it's usually because the native ingredients are hard if not impossible to source, so people try to find ingredients that are more easily come by that meet the nutritional need. This is big problem for zoos, with species that have very specific diets, like Panda Bears, need bamboo, or Koalas, need certain species of Gum leaves. Even silk worms, often offered as reptile food, can only survive on mulberry leaves or a paste made from mulberry leaves.. nothing else will do.

Fish, for the most part, are a bit more adaptable, with, I am sure, some notable exceptions. Puffers, I've been told, don't do well on artificial diets and must have live food, especially snails.

So alternate ingredients are chosen either for their similarity to something else the animal would normally consume, or because it is easy or cheap to get.

Heart contains high levels of taurine, an amino acid which is far less plentiful in other protein foods. Cats, as an example, have a high requirement for taurine, so if you make cat food, to keep taurine levels high, you have to use heart, or a taurine supplement. So I wonder if beef heart simply has a good supply of particular amino acids that the fish appear to need.

Egg protein is said to be 'complete' in that it contains all the amino acids human beings need that they cannot synthesize for themselves. But that does not mean it's complete for other animals, but I think they are often used because they help bind ingredients and have this reputation for being a complete protein. Again, that does not mean they are the best thing to use. Many recipes are the result of trial and error by whomever publishes them, and may or may not have the best ingredients. They'll have whatever that person could get, or had on hand, that appeared to work.

I'd want to know how long they'd been feeding a given recipe to a given species, and whether the fish were successfully breeding on the diet, and what the life span was.. among other things. Many diets will sustain a life, but may fall short in many areas in terms of the micro nutrients, which are the vitamins and minerals, and often specific fats, such as Omega 3 fats, or specific amino acid components of proteins. Most of us think of flax seed as a good source of Omega 3s.. but many carnivorous animals can't use plant sourced Omega 3s, and must have animal based ones. Krill oil is the latest popular source for these fats.

Most of the research on piscine diets been done for food fishes that are farmed, and may or may not apply to other fish, but you can extrapolate from them as a start. If Discus are carnivorous fish then a diet suitable for other carnivorous fish might suit them too. It's a huge subject, with so much information that might or might not apply to any given species.

While I don't know for certain, I'd bet water problems related to eggs are because of the fats and sulphur compounds, which are found only in the yolks.. the protein in egg is quite good on it's own. You can buy egg whites in powdered form, which may make it easier to use.
 
#8 ·
My simplified recipe

I buy beef heart at our local Fortinos - they always have it (not on the shelves, you have to go to meat department and they'll find and clean it for you). Found 'simplified' recipe:

1 kg of BH trimmed of fat, veins and siners, cubed
500 g of fish (cod or any other white fish)
5 cloves garlic pressed
2 tb spoon of lecitin powder
2 tb spoon of spirulina powder
5 small slices of ripe banana fresh or frozen (optional)
1 tb spoon of gelatin dissolved in hot water(Knox,from food store)

Grind all ingredients, not too fine because discus don't eat 'dust' they prefer sizable (not too big) chunks.
I have 11 discus - medium and very small - all of them go crazy about my BH. I alternate feedings with dried worms from Australia (also everybody loves them) and granules (only 4 discus out of the whole group eat them, others totally ignore).
 
#11 ·
I found beef heart at my local fortino's a few years back when I made some for my growing angel fry. They loved it to, but I did grind it up quite fine for them. If you have problems breaking off pcs, just use a small knife and shave it off.

I added some mixed veggies (removed the corn). Not sure the angels at the ground veggies, but my BN plecos loved it.
 
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