Vitamins for breeding?

[coralbandit]

Seems there are a couple different vitamins with various claims on them.
I just got sera fishamin and boyd vita chem today.
Having store credit,a freezer fuller then the LFS of food and going there 'anyways' I had to bring something back.
I know Andy has been exploring some foods having catastrophic results in his breeding efforts and thought 'these can't hurt' and might make a good topic of discussion.

Well almost all reviews said the fish did not like the vita chem in food so with picky fish(GBR) I just added drops after water changes.
I haven't installed the sera in a tank yet.

I want hear what others experience with adding vitamins have been whether breeding or not , and will try to keep some update and possible test going here.
Maybe someone else may try also and post??

 

[Andy Sager]

I used the VitaChem on my frozen brine shrimp and let it soak in before I added water to thaw the shrimp. I didn't have too many issues with fish not eating the shrimp.
This is another thing I stopped doing when I had switched foods tho. Since I wasn't feeding the FD tubifex, I wasn't seeing the fish having any digestive issues. ( Plenty of poo in the tank bottoms )
But the bottom line is, in order to breed fish successfully, they need to be in the best of health in the best of conditions. So if your food varieties are packed with good nutrition and your water parameters are in the best possible shape, your fish shouldn't need the extra vitamins. If your foods are less than "TOP QUALITY", you may find adding the vitamins will help compensate.
That all said, I have had good results adding vitamins to the water in a hospital or QT tank for new fish that wouldn't eat or recovering fish from disease or attack. They seem to work as an appetite stimulator.

 

[brennae]

I didn't realize vitamins for the water column were available. I've added calcium, magnesium and iron to the water for snail she'll growth but didn't occur to me about sick fish in qt and what not. So let me ask this; those tourmaline mineral balls that you can add for your shrimp, do those slowly dissolve and help the fish or are the shrimp munching on them and that's how they get the vitamins. It's one of those things that was recommended to me by trusted sources so I got the mineral balls but never read the science behind them or how they work.
Supplementing the fish for vitamins just isn't something I've thought of and a lot of that has to do with my lfs not carrying any of this stuff.

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[Andy Sager]

I didn't realize vitamins for the water column were available. I've added calcium, magnesium and iron to the water for snail she'll growth but didn't occur to me about sick fish in qt and what not. So let me ask this; those tourmaline mineral balls that you can add for your shrimp, do those slowly dissolve and help the fish or are the shrimp munching on them and that's how they get the vitamins. It's one of those things that was recommended to me by trusted sources so I got the mineral balls but never read the science behind them or how they work.
Supplementing the fish for vitamins just isn't something I've thought of and a lot of that has to do with my lfs not carrying any of this stuff.

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Vitamins and minerals are not the same. Vitamins are organic whereas minerals are inorganic. I am not familiar with those mineral balls but if they are just minerals, then they are not providing vitamins as well. So to just give minerals may not do all that much good for the fish while doing better for the crustaceans, especially for their shells.
One thing to remember about freshwater fish versus saltwater fish is that SW fish drink water while freshwater fish do not. This is why not all medications or supplements can be used similarly in both types of water. In freshwater, fish get their nutrients from the food first then through osmosis through the skin from the water. It IS better to feed the fish foods that have been soaked in the vitamins first ( which is what I was doing to the brine shrimp.) But sometimes you have no choice and when the fish isn't eating, having the supplement in the water will have some effect on the fish and hopefully a better outcome than if nothing was done at all.
For marine fish, they will just drink in the vitamins from the water. In fact, the marine version of maracyn 2 has an appetite stimulator in their product ( which is vitamins ) that the freshwater version doesn't have. I believe this is because maracyn 2 is better for internal issues which can cause a fish to stop feeding making them weaker and unable to fight the diseases being treated. I can't say for sure that that's the reason but it makes sense and I'm stickin with that story. ( Please note: While there are some arguments to the effectiveness of maracyn2 in marine fish, I only brought it up to show the difference between to the versions of the medicine and not as a recommendation for the product over another product. )

If you go to the Cobalt food website, there are videos explaining how they add that blue flake which is packed with a concentration of vitamins. If you are feeding that food and getting good results from your fish, I would think a vitamin supplement on top of that is not necessary. Just my opinion of course.

Hope this helps

 

[brennae]

Yes I do have Cobalt in my rotation. I'll take a look at the website. Thanks.

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[PoppaRyno]

I use the Cobalt Pro Breeder Flake. And after Rusty Wessell spoke to our club, he broke cobalt foods down for us. He or a close friend own or are invested in it. I have been more than happy with it. Since I've used it powdered vits are out.

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[coralbandit]

I am actually adding a drop of the vita chem into the water for fry right now!
probably impossible to tell anything unless these all live!