Loaches Online Forum

For clown loaches feeding COOKED or RAW frozen shrimp (prawns)
Which is better? Or does it matter?



Bill

anyone know?

both ways work just as good.

mick

I think both should be fine, cooked may lose some of the quality of the food

thank you

While it is true you do lose a number of heat labile nutrients via cooking, it improves protein digestibility and has a higher caloric content per gram, so given that you're supplementing with various commercially available dried/prepared foodstuffs, you should be okay.

cool replay cup, thanks.

I have no advice, only my observation, that my fish prefer it blanched, which actually surprised me. So I blanch after dicing, that also removes the salt water. I even do that with frozen seawater fish, which I cut off the frozen piece with the potato peeler, that makes nice flakes.

I appreciate the positives of blanching, boiling or micro-waving (parasites, pesticides etc..), but for shear loach freak-out factor prawns should be raw and fresh. With the shell on, remove the digestive bits from inside the head/face (not the fatty-meat along the shell) and along the tail-line, open em' open a bit and let at 'er. Break the prawn into a couple of bits so everyone gets some. Legs, chest, gills, swimmerets etc... are interesting for the fish to pick at: habitat enrichment.

I think raw and fresh is till the best (they don't eat cook in the wild:) )