Food experiment?

[Incredulous_Ed]

Ive been thinking of doing a food experiment for a while. I Mainly want to test NLS vs Hikari, and maybe if I have room, another brand, maybe Omega One. I have a 5gal tank with filter and heater. Im thinking to put a divider so I can 2 compartments with one fish in them, 3 if I decide to. What fish would be a good candidate for this, and what type of NLS and Hikari Omega One?

[Rue]

...I'd stick with the same formulation - either pellets or flakes.

I'd be tempted to try flakes, to see if the food colouring factored into visible results...but I don't know that NLS has flakes?

[jbeining75]

There are too many variables as each fish may react differently to each food..... Hikari makes Bio-Gold. That is their best food sources.. I'm unsure of Omega One though........You'd have to do the same fish same tank same feeding schedule, same everything to get anything valid.......Good luck though...

[Levi]

what are you trying to determine?

[Rue]

...do you mean the same type of fish? You don't need to use the same fish.

You don't need to use the same tank either, although it does help min. variables...

But yes, light, water quality, decor, substrate, temperature, all need to be the same.

[RainMan]

Interesting idea... because you are keeping the fish in the same tank and only dividing it... then that should be easy to control the environment.

one thought I had.... the divider has to allow for water to be shared with each side... like a screen. But, that will make it hard to keep the food from traveling to the other side. Unless the screen is smaller than the food.

I'ld like to know what you find out. If the food is comparable. (nutrition and ingrediants) I bet very little difference is noticed.

Good luck!

[AABatteries]

Sorry for spam but. If any1 is viewing this plz read my gourami thread!!!! I have a dying fish.

[Incredulous_Ed]

I plan on doing it to see which fish has the most color, which ismost active, which is healthiest, etc. I will not be using flakes because they are inferior to pellets. I plan on feeding what the fish consume right away so the pellet cant get through the dividers.

[Nautilus291]

Thats a good experiment considering all of the battles that go on here. Although whatever result you get people will still argue that one or the other is WAY BETTER. lol

[Nautilus291]

The only problem is that a 5g is pretty small for most fish and then your cutting it in half. you could try dwarf gouramis unless that is too smalll for them.

Also you might want to take pictures or videos of your experiment that way you can show what you did.

[Tolley]

Hmm jus got any idea, maybe rummynoses? there red noses show there happiness right? Gonna be a cool experiment!

[Fishguy2727]

Experiments like this are hard to run. What if one food has extra trace elements and micronutrients that could get to the other fish through the water. What if you happen to get an unhealthy indivdiual that messes up the results. What if the difference is health five years down the road. It should also be repeated many times and with many types of fish.

Use the highest quality from each brand. This will be the proper sized pellet for NLS and Bio-gold or Bio-gold+ for Hikari.

Usual setups for this type of experiment are two 10 gallons, same filtration, pre-cycled, same water change schedule, water parameters monitored, etc.

If this is done in a 5 that really cuts down the options for fish. You definitely need the same type of fish on each side. White clouds are a good option.

[Incredulous_Ed]

Thanks. Im still nto sure If i m going to do it though. What about platies?

[Tolley]

they could be good all im thinking is tht, females = babies and males = aggresion If the males could see each other one could naturally be stronger and could show of more colour and the other might back down and get dull.

[Rue]

I think platies would be fine. I'd use the brightly coloured ones, vs. the grey ones...if overall colour is something you're measuring.

There are experiments...and then there are experiments...

If you're doing this for fun, you don't have to be as strict as if you were doing this for a grad. degree...

You have to decide what your question is (your hypothesis) and go from there...

[Tolley]

its upto you really its nothing serious, you could not feed one and he might look better because he jus does. Go with whatever you want.

[Fishguy2727]

Platies could work but to be good they should all be the same color and pattern.

[RainMan]

From some of the responses... I think people will be sketpical regardless of your results. As fishguy and other have pointed out... there are a lot of non-related issues to consider. And not every fish is created equal. It would have to be repeated over and over again. Or have many tanks setup. You would have to compare your results over many subjects in-order to come up with concrete evidence. Unless you are going to be committed to this study for years, long term results would be near impossible to predict. You would also have to measure/weigh food doseages down to the miligram to ensure equal distribution. Yeah... this could get really complicated.

That being said, I think a non-scientific attempt would still be interesting. Eventhough, the results wouldn't fully prove anything, I'm sure we would have a lot to talk about. :)

[Incredulous_Ed]

Yeah, thanks rainman. It definetly would not be a real scientific experiment, I dont have the time or money to invest in that sort of thing. More of a fun experiment. We'll se ehow it goes.