Best pellets for my baby giant gourami

[Capten_Munch]

I've been reccomended by a user that the NLS algaemax would be the best food to give for my fish. But here where i live those pellets cost a fortune. I can afford them but, i'd rather stick to a cheaper alternative. The other reccomendation is hikari's cichlid excel, those are cheaper and readily available. Though i'm not sure whether or not they would be a good staple diet.

I need some reccomendations on which pellet i should go for and preferably some advice on what to look for in the pellet's listed ingredients and nutritional analysis.

 

[Capten_Munch]

And if possible, some reccomendations on pellets when my fish gets bigger

 

[Rocksor]

Make your own food with agar fish recipes. That will be cheaper for you in the long run.

The main take away for ingredients (this is an all around generalization):

1. only 1 starch mentioned, e.g. wheat or potato as a binder (Look at Northfin and New Life Spectrum ingredients as an example)
2. no to corn
3. no to soy (cause inflammation of the intestines in some fish)
4. no to pea protein (missing full pea and used to cheaply increase protein content, okay for fish destined as food)
5. first ingredient should not be a starch (some manufacturers split the ingredient into multiple parts to provide the illusion of it being lower on the ingredient list, for example having pea fiber and pea protein would put pea ingredient lower on the list because it's been separated)

If there are no food that meets the criteria above, then try to find food that meets as much above as possible. If that's not possible, then just try different brands and do not overfeed. A 12" fish does not need to eat every day, unless it's a herbivore eating detritus from the substrate and algae off of rocks. With pellet fed 12" fish, you can go to every other day or every 3 days because pellets tend to have a meat based protein like fish meal.

Recommendations will be hard if you cannot provide us with what brands you can buy, and what types from those brands.

brand: Hikari
Type: excel

 

[tlindsey]

I've been reccomended by a user that the NLS algaemax would be the best food to give for my fish. But here where i live those pellets cost a fortune. I can afford them but, i'd rather stick to a cheaper alternative. The other reccomendation is hikari's cichlid excel, those are cheaper and readily available. Though i'm not sure whether or not they would be a good staple diet.

I need some reccomendations on which pellet i should go for and preferably some advice on what to look for in the pellet's listed ingredients and nutritional analysis.

What brand of food do you have in Malaysia?
A brand with Spirulina in the ingredients will be good.

 

[duanes]

While it still has a small very pointed mouth, a decent pellet made for omnivores will do.
When it gets older and its mouth starts to change, I'd start using a pellet made for vegetarians.
When I had them, I gave trout chow (high protein) when young, and moved to catfish chow (lower in protein),
We have a similar situation here in Panama with only a few brands available, so with my omnivores leaning toward the vegetarian side, I use pellets made for salt water vegetarian species, that have a higher concentration of algae. (i.e. foods meant for salt water reef species like yellow and blue Tangs)
A high quality food made for Koi would also be good.

 

[Capten_Munch]

What brand of food do you have in Malaysia?
A brand with Spirulina in the ingredients will be good.

The popular ones are hikari and tetra. Most of the others are some chinese or japanese brands

 

[Capten_Munch]

Make your own food with agar fish recipes. That will be cheaper for you in the long run.

The main take away for ingredients (this is an all around generalization):

1. only 1 starch mentioned, e.g. wheat or potato as a binder (Look at Northfin and New Life Spectrum ingredients as an example)
2. no to corn
3. no to soy (cause inflammation of the intestines in some fish)
4. no to pea protein (missing full pea and used to cheaply increase protein content, okay for fish destined as food)
5. first ingredient should not be a starch (some manufacturers split the ingredient into multiple parts to provide the illusion of it being lower on the ingredient list, for example having pea fiber and pea protein would put pea ingredient lower on the list because it's been separated)

If there are no food that meets the criteria above, then try to find food that meets as much above as possible. If that's not possible, then just try different brands and do not overfeed. A 12" fish does not need to eat every day, unless it's a herbivore eating detritus from the substrate and algae off of rocks. With pellet fed 12" fish, you can go to every other day or every 3 days because pellets tend to have a meat based protein like fish meal.

Recommendations will be hard if you cannot provide us with what brands you can buy, and what types from those brands.

brand: Hikari
Type: excel

The lfs near me sells a brand called "Taiyo". Most of their fish food products are based around that and a couple of tetra products

 

[Capten_Munch]

The lfs near me sells a brand called "Taiyo". Most of their fish food products are based around that and a couple of tetra products

The lfs near me sells a brand called "Taiyo". Most of their fish food products are based around that and a couple of tetra products

this particular pellet is made for malawi cichlids. So far it seems to have the best ingredients for herbivores other than their algae wafers

 

[Rocksor]

Cereals sounds like multiple grains, hence the reason why it's in the beginning of the list of ingredients. In the US, we would probably see that split into multiple ingredients and each individual ingredient would bring it lower on the list after the protein. It's promising that it has spirulina algae, and different variations of animal/insect proteins. I would feed that if it's affordable for you.

So I found a list from Taiyo http://www.taiyogroup.in/product/fish-food/taiyo-premium-fish-food/

Jumbo Horn is decent for a more protein based pellet if you want to add that to the mix. I can't comment on the Tanganyika since it doesn't show the ingredients.... not sure how much it differs from Malawi. If you had too, Complete Discus would work, but, I'm betting the GG would get big real fast before you could use it. But then again, you could add the food to agar, plus other things, for a gel based food.

 

[Capten_Munch]

Cereals sounds like multiple grains, hence the reason why it's in the beginning of the list of ingredients. In the US, we would probably see that split into multiple ingredients and each individual ingredient would bring it lower on the list after the protein. It's promising that it has spirulina algae, and different variations of animal/insect proteins. I would feed that if it's affordable for you.

So I found a list from Taiyo http://www.taiyogroup.in/product/fish-food/taiyo-premium-fish-food/

Jumbo Horn is decent for a more protein based pellet if you want to add that to the mix. I can't comment on the Tanganyika since it doesn't show the ingredients.... not sure how much it differs from Malawi. If you had too, Complete Discus would work, but, I'm betting the GG would get big real fast before you could use it. But then again, you could add the food to agar, plus other things, for a gel based food.

Is the high protein content something to be worried about ?