kamika - I have clearly stated, several times at this point, that everyone here is free to feed their fish what they please. I have also stated (a few times now) that gel foods can have their applications under certain circumstances. There is no argument there, nor am I holding a gun to anyones head & forcing them to do anything that they don't want to do.
And I completely agree with what Cory just stated, it doesn't matter how premium a food is or isn't, if your fish won't eat it. Not every species of fish kept in captivity will eat pellet food - and I reckon some won't eat gel food either. I've seen a few that will only eat crickets, to the point that they would probably starve to death before accepting anything else.
And as Cory previously stated, for some folks time, money, and the fact that they can't always be there to feed fry/juvies is also a factor, one that you have also referred to - which is why I posted the youtube videos a few posts back. There are other options available for those that that can't always "be there", or for those who prefer to save time, or want more convenience for their personal time schedule. If one feels that gel food will provide more optimum results than those other options, no problem, feed gel food.
I also have no problem when a hobbyist makes assumptions, or posts certain factoids without any real foundation, or merit, I don't expect the average layperson to understand all of the various things that factor into nutrient levels, and the various types of foods on the market. Having said that, I feel that professionals that work within this industry should be held to a higher standard, including myself. My concern is how some of the so called "facts" in this discussion have been presented.
I don't need to name brand A, B or C when it comes to using the term nutrient dense pellets, clearly there are lower quality pellets on the market, and I would think that it would be obvious that those types of feed wouldn't fall under the category of "nutrient dense premium food". The phantom as you refered to it, is "any" quality pellet, how one defines quality is up to the end user.
As far as powder vs pellets, amigo you honestly have no idea what you are talking about. Talk to some professionals within the industry, perhaps a few feed mill reps, and you might begin to understand some of this. On a DMB the ash content in the "herbivore" gel mix is listed higher than what's in the pellets that I feed. Not that I have a problem with that, I'm just sayin ....
I also didn't "attack" the dry powdered food. LOL As previously stated, there are "dry powder" fry foods already on the market, including one by the company that I deal with. Please re-read my previous comment about this so that I don't have to keep going in reverse. I'm not sure what kind of imaginary "powder process" you have created in your mind, but that's the only place that it exists. Not all feed mill operations have the machinery to make fine micron sized food, but some do. Either way, it's "manufacturered" in the exact same manner as a pellet food, so nutrient values are retained, or lost, in the exact same manner as well. It's simply ground into a finer particulate size.
Knowing a couple of vitamin reps doesn't qualify you to understand or speak on the values, or bioavailability of vitamins in dry fish food. C'mon now. There are decades of research available on this subject with regards to fish, and what you have stated with regards to much of the integrity of the vitamins being sacrificed is simply not true.
Certainly the ideal situation is to have the vast majority of the vitamin & mineral content coming directly from the raw ingredients themselves, which in a quality food will be the case. The key factor regarding vitamins is their bio-availability to the fish, so a smart manufacturer will make sure that the raw ingredients themselves contain an ample amount of all of the various vitamins & minerals known to be required by all species of fish that we currently have data available for, and will supplement beyond that to maximize the total potential bio-availability to the fish. Think of the latter as a safety net.
It is a common misconception that the majority of vitamins are destroyed during processing, which simply is not true. Some certainly, which is why it's a good idea to have a safety net in place. As long as a manufacturer takes into account that a certain percentage of some vitamins will be lost during the manufacturing process, and formulates their vitamin supplementation with this in mind, adjusting the ratios accordingly, there will be no problems. If there was, we would all have a lot of malnourished & sick fish swimming around in our tanks.
As previously posted;
Amino acids, several vitamins, and inorganic nutrients are relatively stable to heat, moisture, and oxidation that occur under normal processing and storage conditions. Some of the vitamins are subject to some loss, however, and should be used in excess of the requirement." (NRC Nutrient Requirements of Fish 1993)
<------------ which is pretty much the bible when it comes to commercial feed mill operations.
I've read nutritional analysis reports on various pellets at post production levels, performed by non-biased 3rd party accredited institutions, so I'm well aware of what I am talking about. How bioavailable those nutrients are when fed to a fish is difficult to argue, as again it will vary from species to species.
Which leads me to my next point.
Carbohydrates are not "lost" on fish as you put it, but how much carbs a fish can assimilate or fully utilize will be species dependant. Some fish can clearly utilize higher inclusion rates of carbs than others, some as much as 30-40%, others probably less than 10%, but I don't know of a single ornamental species of fish that cannot utilize
anycarbohydrate. Even the carnivores & piscivores that have been studied in aquaculture have been shown to produce enzymes such as amylase, and proven to be able to assimilate certain quantities of carbs in their diet. That doesn't mean that all carbs are equal in nutrient value, or that one should use excessive amounts of carbs in a fishes diet, but it also doesn't mean that one should throw the baby out with the bath water. In fish foods, carbs have a few basic roles, one as a binding agent, and the other to supply a source of energy. They have also been shown to help synthesize both lipids & protein.
To think that anyone can simply look at a label, crunch some numbers, and somehow come up with exact inclusion rates, the bioavailability of nutrients, or quite frankly have any idea what is taking place behind the scenes is a bit naive to say the least. Some manufacturers hold certain cards very close to their chest for a reason, and aren't handing anything out on a silver platter for the competition to see.
As far as grazers, and nutrient absorption & utilization of nutrients. Again, this is highly variable among species of fish, and what they are being fed. Carnivores/piscivores don't "graze", and most fish in the wild are opportunistic feeders. When feed is abundant they gorge, when feed is not abundant, or when they are spawning, they are in a state of semi-starvation. In the wild it's a constant feast or famine cycle that repeats itself from season to season, and year to year, and most fish are constantly adapting to those changes.
The following link is to a post that I made about the causes & myths surrounding bloat, which appears to have been made a sticky in the Rift Lake Cichlid folder, you may find it an interesting read.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?456034-Bloat-Causes-Cures-and-BIG-Myths
In that thread I posted the following, which you may also find interesting...........
For decades Tropheus keepers felt that due to the intestinal length & long digestive process in that species, it should only be fed low protein "green" food, and that any amount of animal based protein could cause bloat. Yet science has proven that in captive bred species of Tropheus the intestinal length can be half of what's found in wild specimens.
"Intestinal prolongation, although indicative of specialization on diets with low nutritional value, such as those of epilithic algae and detritus, has been shown to be highly plastic (Sturmbauer et al.1992). In Tropheus moorii the intestinal length of domestic fish measured only 50% of the length found in wild individuals (Sturmbauer et al. 1992)."
A more recent study that was published in 2009 demonstrates just how great intestinal plasticity can be in response to the diet quality of various species of fish found in Lake Tanganyika.
http://limnology.wisc.edu/personnel..._Functional-Ecology-LT-cichlid-gut-length.pdf
The above paper clearly demonstrates just how adaptive wild Rift Lake cichlids can be when it comes to their diet. As long as one feeds a quality food, diet will generally be a non issue, and will not cause any type of major gastrointestinal stress. These fish were born to adapt.
Most of the "grazers" don't eat foods of low nutritional matter in the wild because they want to, they do so because during certain times of the season, or in some certain locals, that's all that is available. That does not equate to them not being able to fully absorb & assimilate foods that are more nutrient dense. Again, something that I have been stating for many years, which is now supported by the most recent research performed by the scientific community.
