I don't really know if you guys realize this, but I kept hearing over and over and over NOT to use canned peas because of the salt or sugar added.

Well, for the first time yesterday I bought a bag of FROZEN peas. I checked 5 bags, all different brands...and they ALL had salt in it! I finally found one with no salt added.

So just because its frozen, dont assume it contains no salt. Read the ingrediants. I have seen so many people suggest using frozen peas over canned because of the salt issue and this is just not accurate to tell people. Point is frozen peas have salt too so read read read! :

OMG, thanks for sharing that! I never looked. Always assumed that frozen had no salt. I checked my bag and it did not, thank goodness.

Wonderful, helpful info gia!

Thanks for sharing!

i have my peas in front of me. Americas Choice brand. It says ingredients peas but the nutritional info says sodium 8%. Is that natural sodium or is it added.

oo thank you for letting us know. i will have to keep a look out next time i go to buy some more for my fish.

Throttlethumb, that 8% sodium is added. I buy Freshlike brand frozen peas... No salt added, no sodium on the nutrition facts label.

Isnt tnat against the law? I know for a fact that people with heart conditions read labels because of their condition. I thought it had to be in the ingediants section of the label beacuse of people with health conditions. Maybe it just has to be in the nutritional info? who knows.

well are you in the US? I dont know where you are from but yes I thought that was required to have on the packages. I dont know for sure. Sometimes its not though. I know some food can be sold without nutritional information and its up to the consumer if they want to risk it or not.

I really was stunned though. I had thought that most of the bags of peas would NOT have salt, but it was the other way around.

I always check the ingrediants of food before I feed it to my fish anyway. I make gel food a lot and I use canned stuff. Its ok if you just read the ingrediants and make sure its pure.

I am in the US. New Jersey to be precise. The only reasson I could think that as far as human consumption goes would be that the salt is added as a natural preservative. Most of the salt I would think would be dissolved in the cooking process for humans but maybe not enogh for fish. What about fresh peas? You could basically get fresh and prep them yourself and then freeze. Alot less waste I would think.

Throttlethumb, I do exactly that every year during the season. I've raised an organic garden for the past 21 years, and snow peas (edible pod peas) are one of my favorite vegetables. When the pods get a little too big to eat as snow peas, I pop the peas out of the pods, and feed them to my fish... They just LOVE um. I freeze any extras at the end of the season, and when I have to switch back to regular old grocery store frozen peas the fish act like... What's this crap you're trying to feed us.

You know Bak2it, Too bad you are in IL. From your posts, we have alot in common.... Gardening is one of my most relaxing hobbies. I also love learning about tank equipment, water qualities and the challenge of making the "perfect tank" I will definately do the pea thing this year in the garden.

that is a great idea! I am going to be growing some snow peas in my garden this spring. I wonder if my fish will like that?

Im trying my hand at vegetable gardening for the first time. I have a 20' by 20' plot all fenced in, tilled, and ready to go. I was just waiting for the last freeze and I think we had it about a week ago. I may plant this weekend. I would love to hear any advice you have on vegetable gardening. You can PM me if you wish.

My biggest first time problem was over planting and over fertilizing chemically. Like a fish tank overcrowding created problems for me with veggies not having the room to grow correctly. I also learned that chemical growth enhancers not only make the plants grow like nuts, You should have seen the size of the zucchini! but it drastically alters the flavor of them as well. Personally, I do better with flowers than veggies.

Gia, in Texas, snow peas seeds should have been in the ground a month ago. A good rule of thumb for planting peas is; get them planted as soon as the ground can be worked. I live in northern Illinois and we try to have snow peas and spinach in before the end of March and our last frost date is 5/13. That doesn't mean that it's too late, but the heat you'll have in Texas at the beginning of July, when the peas are ripening, might cut down on your yield.

Throttlethumb, I agree that chemical fertilizers drastically change the flavor of vegetables. Someday, I hope you get the opportunity try an home grown organic tomato still warm from the sun... After that... You'll think store bought tomatoes have about as much taste as wax fruit. We enjoy good vegetables so much, that we actually still can them.

It just froze here two weeks ago, Im planing on planting this weekend. I know Im disapointed that I could not plant earlier but we will se how it goes. If it does not work out then oh well. At least I tried and its just for fun.

Well one thing is for sure... Both you and your fish will love the results, whether it turns out great or not. You really don't have to worry about a freeze with crops like snow peas, spinach or Brussels sprouts. Heck, they don't call them snow peas because they need weather in the mid 70's

GOOD INFO!

Hi just wanted to say that I tried feeding peas to my fish, but they wont eat it at all, even if I fasted them for a day! Is the gel food with peas in it a good way to get your gf's to eat peas? And can anyone tell me the best recepie for gel food, i've never tried it before and really want to, flake food seems to constipate my gf's but they wont eat anything else! But I havent tried fruits or anything like that yet!

Well if your fish arent eating the peas Id be willing to bet you dont squeeze the insides out. You need to shell the peas. if you just drop them in its a little harder for them to eat it. I just take one and squish it between my fingers and pop the inside out into the tank.

This is what I do for gel food, although Im sure others do it differently.

Choose which foods you want to use. I have used:
pumpkin, kale, mustard greens, red bell pepper, paprika, zuchinni, green beans, peas, salmon, tuna, fish flakes, blood worms, dried baby shrimp, lima beans, etc........

You name it I probably threw it in there. My fish love it and I give it as a treat, not a staple.

Choose which ones you want to throw in there, then prepare the vegitables by cooking them slightly. Blend everything in a blender till very smooth. Add water as needed, I reccommend using the water you boiled the veggies in. Add just enough until everything is able to blend well, I keep mine kind of thick.

I suggest only doing 1/4 blenderful of food. This will last you awhile. I have done a whole blenderful of gunk before and with my 15 fish it lastes FOREVER. Not good because it really shouldnt be stored that long. I kept mine in the freezer and just threw in a cube at feeding time.

Anyways, if you are only doing 1/4 of the blender, use 1 packet of unflavored plain gelatin. Found near the Jell-o. Do not use flavored jell-o. 4 packets is good for a whole blender so adjust to how much you want to make.

For floating food, add the gel to the blender and mix, sor sinking food, stir the gel powder in a little bit of hot water to dissolve it, then STIR it into the mix.

Line a baking dish with suran wrap and pour it in. Put in fridge to set, once set cut into cubes, put in baggies and store in freezer.

That was the short version, lol. Im sure I could explain it better than that but if you have questions there are lots of resources out there to help you and I can try to answer anything you dont understand.

Like I said Im sure others do this differently.

There are different recipes out there for color enhancing, etc. I just made a veggie gel with peas, limas, green beans, etc for digestion, one with bell pepper, paprika, pumpkin and other stuff for color, and one that I just basically threw together everything I had. lol. I think the fish like the sinky ones. The stinkier the better. hehehe

I did shell the peas & cut it into bite size for them, but they still didnt like it! I went to buy some stuff to make gel food, I hope they like it! I bought some frozen shrimp to put in there, I wonder if they'll like that?

I'm curious about the difference between salt in the food, salt on the food and salt within the water.

I know some people put a little salt in the water to help with respiration, etc., and I think this just goes through the gills and is not disgested; so, it seems that salt in the water does not go into the digestive track (well, that's the question I have). I would assume a little of the water along with any salt that may have been added to it goes into the digestive system along with the food however (and I assume this would be a trace amount).

The reason I ask is that I see a LOT of discussion and hand-wringing in many, MANY forum threads about the possible damaging effects of salt that's on food like peas (remember, it's not in the pea; it's on the pea). Keep in mind that when the pea is put into the water, the salt (or some of it) may be "washed" off. Besides, if the pea is shelled, guess where the salt that's on the shell goes?

However, when we make our gel foods, anything that may be on the ingredients goes into the digestive track of our fish, and so feeding peas individually to our GF may be quite different than using them within our gel foods.

Some say in these discussion that salt's bad for GF and others say it's OK. Are we talking about human nutrition here or GF nutrition not related to human nutrition. I saw one remark in these forums that salt makes the goldfish retain water (again, is this in the human or GF system?...and is this based on what happens to people or to GF?). I'm interested in both scientific information and forum observations on this (if people see their GF swell up as a result of feeding them something that has salt in it, I'm very interested in these observations too)

I don't see salt or sodium listed in its simple form in commercial fish foods like I do in food designed for human consumption, and I assume that's because in nature salt only occurs in trace amounts in freshwater environments.

However, has anyone seen any scientific information about salt intake in freshwater fish (by intake, I mean digestion and not respiration)?

Here's a link to a very in depth article about the effects of dietary salt intake on rainbow trout. To get the full article click on the full text (pdf) line in the top right corner.

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/198/11/2359

Here's a link to another one. This one is about the effect of dietary salt on common carp and prawns.

http://library.enaca.org/AquacultureAsia/A...8carpsodium.pdf

And another
http://www.fao.org/docrep/field/003/AC087E/AC087E03.htm

And another
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/1...09.2000.00472.x

There are literally dozens of this type of article, just go0gle "effect of dietary salt on freshwater fish"

Thanks, Bak2it, for the references. The articles are definitely in depth, but they're inconclusive as to short-term or long-term effects of an increase in dietary salt intake on health, though one study suggested a better growth rate with certain types of fish. They sure talked about chemistry and lab results, but the same could be said for our salt intake (there'd be a lot of chemistry and lab results), but what it means is not well addressed in technical reports which are primarily lab-blab. They were surely technical but not very health related. But definitely thanks, Bak2it, for your generous responses!

In relation to our GF friends (which is our real focus here), it'd be interesting to know if there's any negative and long-lasting health result from peas having salt put on the outside of the shell in processing before we get them. Given that we take off the shell when we feed them directly to our GF, IF there's any salt remaining on the shelled pea inside, is it further diluted by the water of the tank when we give the shelled pea to our GF, AND, finally, then does it do anything more than putting some salt into the water does (which some say is beneficial for GF) -- that's the question for me. I think there's only a trace amount in either case and people may be worrying far more than they really need to, but I know it makes them feel good to feel like they're caring for their GF friends and that's definitely good!

A criitcal examination of what happens from the putting on of the salt in processing to what actually gets into the intestines suggests that there's more smoke and a waving of arms than fire here -- but the intentions are very, VERY good!

Remember, if we put salted peas into gel food, THAT's VERY different than if we put peas in water to cook them, pop them out of their shells, then put them in the tank water to feed them directly! However, even the total salt from only the peas in a whole batch of gel food may STILL be only a trace through time on a feeding cycle that doesn't involve gel foods only!

So...do you guys know what to do with peas? Just squish the yucky guck into the aquarium? eww!!! Please give me advice!!! Do goldfish eat spiders???

Yes you just squish the inside of the pea in the tanka nd throw the shell away. I dont know if fish will eat spiders but I wouldnt try it. What if it was alive and bit your fish?

Peas happen to be a good thing on occasion for Goldfish. Most people that use the words "yucky guck",and ask about spider's are 8 years old or so. How old are you?

I notice that when I drop peas into the tank water that a little cloud comes off of them, and I have often wondered what it was...now I am wondering if it is salt? I cook the peas in tank water first, and the peas I buy say Organic, but I never thought to check the label on frozen ones! I don;t have the package because I put them in a ziploc, but I will check next time I go to the store. I am wondering if that could be salt coming off of the peas?

That's not salt coming off the peas, it's just the natural juices in the peas that was released when the peas were heated.

Just because a package of peas claims they're organic doesn't mean that they don't contain sodium. I bought a bag of "Tree of Life" brand organic peas and they contained 200mg of sodium per 2/3 cup. Regular old "Green Giant" brand has 135mg sodium per 2/3 cup. "Fresh Like" brand has 0mg of sodium per 2/3 cup.

One thing about the organic peas, I didn't feed them to my goldfish... But they sure tasted good to me.

I notice that canned peas kind of dissolve in a water a bit..leaving a cloud like you say..but the frozen ones I have used dont do that, and the inside of the pea is firmer.