My fish don't like NLS...

...they LOVE it! I just switched them over to the Thera A formula (6.5mm) and they pound it so hard the frenzy actually cleans my sand a little in the process lol. The 17'' pacu sucks down 10 pellets before my 10'' flowerhorn or 7'' achara find one though so I have to wait for the pacu to check the other end before dropping a few in for the others. I think the fh just doesn't understand the concept of sinking pellets yet after being raised on floating foods for the last 3 years cuz he caught a few more last night than the day before.

I was gonna order a 300g bottle from Kensfish to start because petsmart and walmart are the only stores left in town that carry fish food and don't have nls, but before I placed the order I discovered petco sells it for the same price after shipping so I just drove 20mins to the nearest one. They only carry the 300g size tho so I'm gonna order the biggest one online in a few weeks because it's half the price.

I also noticed a new formula called Ultra Red which sounds awesome because all my fish have a red base (red belly pacu, red dragon fh, festae, motas), but it only comes in 150g 1mm pellets and is the same price as 300g of the thera a ($20). I decided to buy it anyways as a secret weapon for my fry tanks, but do you guys think it's really worth twice the price as regular nls? I'd like to keep them on the same staple as they get bigger so I emailed New Life and they said larger sizes are scheduled to hit the market later this year, but the festae are 3-5'' so 1mm won't work for long.

Also, how many of the 6.5mm pellets should I feed to the bigger fish? The pacu catches 75% of the food I drop in and still acts hungry but I don't want to overfeed her (or underfeed the other two). Does anybody have any recommendations on how to feed slower fish and bottom dwellers?

Lol believe me man I would but I doubt I could pay someone with a tank bigger than my 240 to take it. My friend keeps saying I should eat it but that's not gonna happen either, I do regret buying a pacu but thats what u get for believing the labels at walmart. At least its a female and wont get quite as big but she's definitely getting hungrier

The ultra red sounds pretty good tho, it has a ton of red fruits and vegetables that are supposed to stay in their system longer and make them look more red. I'm just not sure if it's worth double the price because I noticed a big improvement in my fh after feeding the thera A. What size do you feed yours? I know with the ultra red you're supposed to feed less but the 6.5mm is twice as big as I used to feed and I still seem to be going thru it pretty quick

The ultra red only has 5% fat but besides having more algae the ingredients look exactly the same. It doesn't show soybean or squid meal on the label but doesn't list the specific fruit/vegetable extracts either, so they're probably in there unless there were other proprietary changes made. I thought I saw a wider range of extracts in a list somewhere but just checked my browser history and it turned out to be a customer review on amazon (copied from new life's site with the primary ingredients all formulas have lol). I'll probably go with the regular 3mm formula next time, I'm not a big fan of all the garlic in the thera A. U can't really smell too much from the container but I did a water change last night and it smelled super strong with my face above the tank

I noticed the fat is listed in min values too, which was kinda surprising because it seems like max values would be more useful. Either way 2% wouldn't make a big difference or effect my decision between nls formulas, I was just pointing it out in case endo thought the regular formula guaranteed a lower min.

I would love to hear what RD thinks about the ultra red. The thera A still lists squid and soybean meal so I'm pretty sure the other formulas have them too. The ultra red doesn't actually say meal after the krill, herring, or algae like the thera A does, but also lists the additives separately so I'm pretty sure it's just a difference in the newer labeling.

That sounds like a good guideline, I thought the 1mm might already be too small for the festae but they catch almost every piece before it hits the bottom and the 1.5'' rtm's eat it in one bite. I can't imagine giving them 1mm at much bigger than 5'' tho.

The pacu inhales the 6.5mm pellets but the fh makes a pretty big mess while chewing (dust comes out thru his gills) so next time I might step them down to the floating 4.5mm jumbo fish formula. Does anybody else use the thera A? I like how its anti-parasitic without using medications, and the fish seem to like the garlic, but it smells so strong above the water it kinda burns my eyes lol