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Post by sushithegoldfish on Dec 6, 2005 23:49:30 GMT
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Post by Paul on Dec 7, 2005 1:19:50 GMT
It doesn't make sense that page, unless it is just ambiguously written.
It says:
"Calcium deficiency is a major dietary problem of captive reptiles and amphibians. Maintaining a proper calcium:phosphorous (Ca:P) ratio in the diet of 1.5:1 is believed to be just as important nutritionally as an adequate Ca intake. The problem in most cases is an improper Ca:P ratio, not too little Ca.
Ca:P ratios of common cultured food items are shockingly poor.
Using a calcium supplement that also adds phosphorous makes no sense as an adequate Ca:P ratio can never be achieved. Bone meal contains phosphorous. Rep-Cal contains only 100% Natural phosphorous-free oyster shell Calcium Carbonate for its calcium source."
if paragraph 1 is correct (which I believe it is) then surely there IS an advantage to adding phosphorus as well as calcium contrary to what paragraph 3 says. When you are adding calcium to a diet that contains very little of both calcium and phosphorus, adding calcium alone is gonna make the ratio too rich in calcium very quickly. Essentially any powder you are adding is gonna massively increase calcium so surely phosphorus needs to be increased in a similar way to maintain the perfect ratio?
I think the answer lies in how they use it. They dust insects with it so that is only gonna add a little, perhaps bumping the calcium amount up to the ratio they require. They seem to suggest 1.5:1, humans need 2:1 apparently, I wonder what snails actually need? What we do know is they are gonna need a lot more than reptiles, so it is probably advantageous to us to ensure phosphorus is also increased. The only way to do this would be to calculate what you're feeding and that is a little difficult!
What perhaps is a good suggestion is to find some phosphorus-rich, calcium-deficient food, free of oxalates that is good for the snails. If such a food exists, you could add it regularly to a diet to help get the right balance.
Perhaps that could explain the bad shells on some snails, though they differ on the same diet. I might have a dig through and try and find something that balances. Allowing 10% of the weight of cuttlefish as impurities and unusable waste, that leaves:
Assuming the ratio is based on atomic weight
1 Ca atom = 40 1 C atom = 12 3 O atoms = 48
So, in weight terms 60% of the calcium carbonate is Carbon and Oxygen, meaning about 40% of the cuttlefish powder is actual calcium.
So by rights, assuming a 2:1 ratio is perfect for snails, which we have no idea about, we need to be adding about 10g of phosphorus for every 50g of cuttlefish bone powder. That still seems a little high.
One last thing to mention, that S.African book explains that too much calcium is bad, it can crystalise internally and block things, like gall stones etc. 12% is suggested as optimum, I assume they mean calcium carbonate and not pure calcium. So for every 100g of food, 12g of it would be cuttlefish powder meaning we'd need about 2.4g of phosphorus. Now that starts to sound a little more reasonable.
Just need to assess if the foods I feed will make up that magic 2.4g of phosphorus. And that is not simple since phosphorus is usually listed as parts per million and I'm not sure what that means in terms of weight or overall content in a food. I'll let you know, I've been wondering about this for a while, hence the post.
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Post by fredrik on Dec 7, 2005 7:24:57 GMT
Animals need phosphorous as well as calcium. But when feeding crickets to reptiles, the crickets themself are very high in phosphorous. If you powder the feeder insects with a calcium/phosphorous supplement, the Ca:P ratio would be incorrect. Bananas are rich in in phosphorous with a Ca:P ratio 1:4 . More Ca:P ratio of fruits and vegetables can be found here: guinealynx.info/diet_ratio.html
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Post by Paul on Dec 7, 2005 7:42:42 GMT
That's what I figured.
I noticed that but have you any idea what sort of weight content (in phosphorus) bananas actually have? Or any other food for that matter? I can't get past the parts per million.
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Post by fredrik on Dec 7, 2005 17:56:02 GMT
1 medium banana contains:
Protein - 1gram Dietary fiber - 3gram Potassium - 467 mg Magnesium - 43 mg Phosphorus - 27 mg Calcium - 7 mg Selenium - 1.3 mg Iron - 0,4 mg Also contains trace amounts of zinc, manganese and copper.
Vitamin A - 95 IU Vitamin C - 11 mg Folate - 22.5 mcg Vitamin B6 - 0,7mcg Niacin - 0,6 mg Pantothenic Acid - 0,31 mg Vitamin E - 0,67 IU
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Post by fredrik on Dec 7, 2005 17:56:23 GMT
Was that what you were looking for Paul?
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Post by fredrik on Dec 7, 2005 17:57:52 GMT
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Post by Paul on Dec 9, 2005 4:14:13 GMT
I've been doing the maths and researching lots of phosphorus-rich foods. With the recommended 12% CaCO3 in a cereal mix which is very high in phosphorus, more so than any fruit, the ratio is Ca:P 5:1. The following chart is put together as best as I can because you get varying answers from different nutrition sources. The figures for chicken mash are averaged out from the cereals it contains and the ash content and constitute a bit of a guess. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Calcium Phosphorus Magnesium --------------------------------------------------------------------- 120g CaC0³ 48000.00mg 430g Hemp 722.40mg 4828.90mg 1939.85mg 150g Oats 81.00mg 784.50mg 265.50mg 100g Pumpkin Seed 43.00mg 1174.57mg 535.00mg 100g Chicken Mash 100.00mg 1500.00mg 300.00mg 100g Sunflower Kernels 98.68mg 1355.07mg 150.66mg --------------------------------------------------------------------- 49044.00mg 9643.04mg 3191.01mg 49.05g 9.64g 3.19g --------------------------------------------------------------------- Considering snails use a massive amount of calcium to make a shell, that mix sounds pretty reasonable to me. I tried to find something to increase phosphorus, a super-phosphorus source but they don't exist. Even Lecithin which is natural and looked promising doesn't render as much as the other ingredients. Other sources like Kelp contain loads of calcium so they don't help the balance. Also, to match the phosphorus against the calcium level at a 2:1 ratio would require possibly toxic or detrimental amounts. It'd be incredibly hard to get the ratio up to 4:1 or 3:1 so I suspect either the ratio must be quite high for snails because they are suited and developed for extracting and using calcium. Assuming the snail farms found the magic 12% which is likely, we know they use cereals, mainly wheat which is actually lower in phosphorus than the cereals listed above so their ratio is even higher. I did find a statement that I have not verified: "Phosphorus from nuts, seeds, and grains is about 50% less bioavailable than phosphorus from other sources. If this were true it would reduce phosphorus even further, to try and balance this is impossible without adding practically pure phosphorus or phosphates, both of which are pretty toxic. They don't eat the mix for every meal and I leave cuttlefish available at all times also. So, to sum up, I think our snails get more than enough phosphorus, more than animals eating meat, certain fruit and veg and dairy products for every meal, all of which are rich in phosphorus. * Tread is locked, because there's too many same named treads around here about calsium. Let's write here next time we have some question or something else to say.. -> petsnails.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=feeding&action=display&thread=8421 - CroSSLeSS *
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