"Our target is that our negative buoyancy pellets will majority sink under typical/common aquarium conditions. When we launched in 1996 this was the case, and it is the case now. In tanks with a moving water column and surface movement, this should be enough to overcome surface tension for most of the pellets."
My results over the years are in line with what Ian stated above.
Just to repeat what I actually posted previously ……..
I just completed some tests, under calm still water, with no agitation, using randomly chosen pellets from a pre Naturox formula (2mm AlgaeMax) and a post Naturox formula (3mm Large Fish), and in both tests approx. half of the pellets floated.
With the Large Fish formula I used 80 pellets, in a bucket containing approx. 4 gallons of water. I placed the pellets in my hand, and flipped my hand over from approx. 6-8" above the pail. They were not shot from a cannon. lol While many pellets immediately sunk, 38 remained floating, for several minutes. The same result with the 2mm AlgaeMax. After just seconds of dropping the pellets in a slight swirl of the hand sent the rest plummeting down. After giving a short swirl in the water 2 floaters remained in the AlgaeMax group, none in the Large Fish.
Just for the record, Alex, my experiment results did not match what you just stated. No bad batch here. See above in pink.
If my experiment took place in one of my tanks, even with all filters off, and my fish thrashed the surface as you stated, that would have caused 98.9% of the pellets that I tested, to sink immediately.
I was testing in the calm water of a 5 gallon bucket. In my experiment a light swirl from my fingers caused all but two of the 180 pellets tested, to sink. So 2 pellets out of 180 tested with movement applied, floated back up, or at least didn't sink right away. I didn't time how long those two pellets took to sink, because I honestly didn't care. 158 sank. If that's a fail, it is an acceptable failure rate to me. If my math is correct 1.1% failed in my test, 98.9% worked exactly as I would expect them to work in the vast majority of aquarium settings, including mine.
In my tanks the surface agitation from an AC filter causes my NLS pellets to pretty much all sink immediately, which is why I have personally never experienced any issues with feeding any NLS formula, big or small, over the 15 or so odd years that I have been feeding this brand. Also, I tested with a pre Naturox formula, and a post Naturox formula, for whatever that's worth to anyone. The newer, post Naturox formula did slightly better, but two pellets out of 180 doesn't even make a blip on my radar. In a tank, with typical hungry fish feeding activity, and/or surface agitation, personally I would never notice.
My results over the years are in line with what Ian stated above.
Just to repeat what I actually posted previously ……..
I just completed some tests, under calm still water, with no agitation, using randomly chosen pellets from a pre Naturox formula (2mm AlgaeMax) and a post Naturox formula (3mm Large Fish), and in both tests approx. half of the pellets floated.
With the Large Fish formula I used 80 pellets, in a bucket containing approx. 4 gallons of water. I placed the pellets in my hand, and flipped my hand over from approx. 6-8" above the pail. They were not shot from a cannon. lol While many pellets immediately sunk, 38 remained floating, for several minutes. The same result with the 2mm AlgaeMax. After just seconds of dropping the pellets in a slight swirl of the hand sent the rest plummeting down. After giving a short swirl in the water 2 floaters remained in the AlgaeMax group, none in the Large Fish.
Just for the record, Alex, my experiment results did not match what you just stated. No bad batch here. See above in pink.
If my experiment took place in one of my tanks, even with all filters off, and my fish thrashed the surface as you stated, that would have caused 98.9% of the pellets that I tested, to sink immediately.
I was testing in the calm water of a 5 gallon bucket. In my experiment a light swirl from my fingers caused all but two of the 180 pellets tested, to sink. So 2 pellets out of 180 tested with movement applied, floated back up, or at least didn't sink right away. I didn't time how long those two pellets took to sink, because I honestly didn't care. 158 sank. If that's a fail, it is an acceptable failure rate to me. If my math is correct 1.1% failed in my test, 98.9% worked exactly as I would expect them to work in the vast majority of aquarium settings, including mine.
In my tanks the surface agitation from an AC filter causes my NLS pellets to pretty much all sink immediately, which is why I have personally never experienced any issues with feeding any NLS formula, big or small, over the 15 or so odd years that I have been feeding this brand. Also, I tested with a pre Naturox formula, and a post Naturox formula, for whatever that's worth to anyone. The newer, post Naturox formula did slightly better, but two pellets out of 180 doesn't even make a blip on my radar. In a tank, with typical hungry fish feeding activity, and/or surface agitation, personally I would never notice.
