Unpopular opinion- NLS not impressed...

[RD.]

If it was truly REPLICATING the diet in the wild. Giving it all possible vitamins and minerals it need if a fish species only fed on alage its so easy to say NLS alagemax is perfect. Its not. In the wild those tiny tiny lifeforms we overlook goes into their mouths as well as alage and all of that jazz. Different species of alage it feeds off on.

Which is precisely why that formula is not just made up from algae. You might want to actually read the label.
Green algae, brown algae, red algae, but also krill, squid, fish, and fish oil.







Pet owners have been humanizing their pets since the beginning of time. Using terms such as happy, and bored. All good and well with me, until one attempts to extrapolate those feelings to a fish, and their feeding.

We feed them the same stuff season after season dont we when they have different things even during rainy seasons dry periods?!?! How is that humanzing a lifeform? We as fishkeepers are increasingly more acute and aware trying to replicate their true environments.

Have you ever seen fish drying up in the dry season? Fish wriggling around in a mud puddle, watching their world shrink, and hoping that a larger fish, or bird, or other predator doesn't snatch them out of the shallows? Add in a little climate change, drought, and MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of fish die under those conditions each & every year. Not exactly something that I want to recreate in my home. In fact, I do my very best to give my pets a better life, than what they would ever experience in the wild, where feast or famine is the norm, and the vast majority of fish never make it past the first few months of their life.



A complete and balanced diet does not necessarily need to be gleaned from 10 different sources. A food composed from a wide variety of high quality raw ingredients can be as nutritionally complete, or more so, than a mix of 10 different foods of lower nutritional content. I will argue that point no matter the brand. It can be done, it has been done, for many years, by many people that have successfully raised and bred countless number of species. Myself included. A one off by Ryan doesn't prove anything to me. An unfortunate situation, but over countless years of being in the food game as a wholesale distributor who supplied countless retail outlets, not to mention my many years of being on forums such as this - Ryan's story is a single event for me. Apply some common sense please. I'm sorry that Ryan had that experience, but it certainly isn't a platform that I would attempt to use to lobby against the logic of feeding a single brand (any brand) of food to a fish, or dog, cat, etc.

It's fine & dandy to feed a variety of whatever, it's even ok (gasp) if you don't feed NLS as part of that variety, just don't use terms such as boredom, and happy, because it's just plain silly. Unless the fish in Africa that follow the Rhino's to eat their fresh dung, are happy when eating sheet, or only do it out of boredom. Hmmmm.

 

[xraycer]

Adding variety is not humanizing the animal.

That's not what the members, whom have chimed in, are saying. What is the humanizing factor, is the belief, by some keepers, that their pet fish will get tired of the same diet even though there no clear evidence of such.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a varied diet. It's probably beneficial, depending on what's being fed to what species of course.

 

[RD.]

That's not what the members, whom have chimed in, are saying. What is the humanizing factor, is the belief, by some keepers, that their pet fish will get tired of the same diet even though there no clear evidence of such.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a varied diet. It's probably beneficial, depending on what's being fed to what species of course.

Exactly.

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

Hold on people: another stream of thought:

its funny you guys are using the word "humanizing" when other people said its because the fish can get bored of the food, they said VARIETY in their diet. Still attempting to replicate that condition. Just stop with that BS on throwing that label around and instead address that persons comment asking what specific species diet in the wild was to find out why they said variety and boredom and bring up X food meets that diet instead of telling that fish keeper its "humanizing" your argument is not valid and do not know that fish keepers species specifically and what exactly did they feed those fish.

Stop saying @RD does this and that ?. We all know his love of NLS and knowledge here is priceless I have been poring hours of written advice from this dude for years? I hold RD to high esteem here. I also hold my other fellow fishkeepers to high esteem here IRL with their successes and failures.

Dry season in my definition means the water level gets lower and lower waiting for that next rain, thats where more fish are congregated in a smaller body of water the food competition is increased. Grew up off a lake, fished and collected fish from variety of water conditions all of my life seeing seasons change, micro organisms change. Fishing off the great lakes in the US, and their rivers and many lakes/creeks in Illinois, wisconsin, Michigan and 2 years in New York and reading on micro lifeforms being the indicator to the waters and the fish health. Ebb and flow of the water in my part of the world is not the same. Ive seen my Lake being drained to be dug to add more depth due to it being more and more shallow. Its a one in a lifetime experience for me when i was a kid.


Collecting seasons and availability of fish in this worldwide fish trade is not the same either. Fish move and migrate.


Alage from all over the world is not created equal IMO. You can tout NLS alagemax all day long those alage are farmed in controlled conditions at the end of the day. Its not going to change my mind that it is the 100% substitute you guys are touting it to be. Someone ALREADY had a failure in their fishroom on this thread already. I think those micro lifeforms and water column nutrients hold the key to alage diets being better on wild fish vs ours.

I know NLS is great out there. Their company values I love 110% like I have been saying the entire time its not 100% substitute and I have explained why too many times though but how much of that percentage is it? 50% 65%? 80% 90% for my various specific fish species? Its up to me to try to meet that missing link.

 

[RD.]

But farmed insects such as BSF is better? Lol And not all algae is farmed, nor is all kelp. A good portion is collected from the natural environment. But even then, natural foods from the wild, including fish, does not make them a perfect food. Fatty fish from the ocean contain various levels of mercury, PCB’s, dioxins, etc. This is why the government recommends low portions for pregnant women, and children. Bad stuff accumulates, and Au natural doesn’t always = best.

No one here as an issue with the term variety. I also grew up and fished on the Great Lakes, and later fished, hunted, and butchered my own deer, elk, moose, in the Rocky Mountains and their foothills. This is how I fed my family for many years. We also canned a lot of our fruit and vegetables for over the winter months. So what? What does that have to do with the rainy/dry seasons that make up the environment where most of our tropical fish in this hobby originate? We live in NA, not the tropics. Like I said, MILLIONS of fish die every year during from starvation/predation during the dry season, not exactly environmental conditions that I want to replicate in my aquariums. Food wise, or otherwise.

I also never said that Algaemax was exactly the same as what various herbivorous species consume in the wild. But it’s a lot better than most herbivore foods on the market, and as I pointed out previously, it also covers all of the various amino and fatty acids that these fish would glean from their wild diet. That, and 9 different forms of aquatic based plant matter. Fish require certain nutrients, these foods cover that, obviously or we wouldn’t have domestic as well as wild specimens living long healthy lives in glass boxes. Longer than most in the wild.

I’m not even sure what your point is?

 

[Ruturaj]

Stop saying @RD does this and that ?.

I would have never done that, showing 1 person's result as a dataset to prove a point, if you had not stuck with one case as well.

What is concerning is there is already someone on this thread that clearly made the association that feeding NLS exclusively caused stunting and runting of their cichlids in their fishroom.

Someone ALREADY had a failure in their fishroom on this thread already.

 

[RD.]

Well DrownedFishonFire I wish you luck on your search for the missing link.


The following is a re-post of mine from several years ago here on MFK, and again just recently in another food related discussion. At least at my age I can generally just copy & paste past comments. It's the same **** over & over, until eventually everything come full circle again. lol



To be honest, from a nutritional aspect the average hobbyist typically has no idea what the exact nutrient levels are of the various raw foods that they feed their fish, or how each species will assimilate those various nutrients. You can't simply feed a fish that in the wild is predominantly a frugivore, such as Heros efasciatus, slices of apples & oranges, and assume that this is in any way a more natural form of food for the fish, than a well-balanced pellet. In the wild a frugivore will seek out the fruits & seeds that contain the highest level of protein/fat, not the ones that mostly consist of starch. Add to that the nutrient requirements of most species change as they mature, so what might be ideal for a fry/juvenile, could be (and often is) completely different compared to a mature individual.

The reality is, for the vast majority of ornamental species of fish no one (including myself) has the slightest clue what the optimum dietary requirements are, as the vast majority of these fish have never been studied long term with regards to dietary requirements. Most haven't been studied on even a short term basis. You might be able to mimic a fishes natural feeding behavior by feeding live foods, but most hobbyists will never mimic the seasonal variations of a natural diet that take place in the wild. Raising your own live bearers, fresh water shrimp, crickets, and worms generally won't even come close to matching what a cichlid in the wild consumes on a regular basis. The nutrient profile of each foodstuff is dependent on what each of those foodstuffs in turn consumes, which in captivity is usually nothing remotely close to what those live fish, insects, crustaceans, nymphs & larvae would consume in the wild.

This is why if one refers to the nutrient profile of say an earthworm, one can only ball park that data as the protein/fat/mineral content will be entirely based on the environment of where that worm originated, as in what that worm consumes on a regular basis.

What works best for each species is a bit of a guessing game, which is often only determined from long term experience with that species.

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

NLS has highly varied ingredients. Even algaemax not only has 9 types of alages but also has some krill, giant squid, fish oil and many more things.

RD. fed all his fish NLS exclusively, American and African cichlids and all were stunning (I have looked at pictures of few).

I would have never done that, showing 1 person's result as a dataset to prove a point, if you had not stuck with one case as well.

I dont count how many times people say RD does this and that. Hes been mentioned across the boards. He copied and pasted what was written validating what i have been saying on post #67 after your post by the way.

Its my decision on dietary choices and brands. I am making for my own fish. RD already knows it. He also is aware of its pitfalls. We are humans and strive to be great hobbyists and breeders worldwide and to preserve fish species thats someday going to be extinct in the wild. Plenty of fishkeepers do not touch NLS for their personal reasons. Try to google NLS and every single site is selling it. Negative complaints were cloudy water or fish not touching it thats just from first page im skimming not even want to dig any further when im already validated in my theory.

But this guy is making me think to attempt to find northfin.

 

[Cardeater]

I
But this guy is making me think to attempt to find northfin.

Jay Wilson worked for Northfin as a promoter of their product so you should factor that in. Don't know if he still does but definitely did at one point.

Northfin has good ingredients. There was a controversy with some of their claims and preservative levels a few years ago. There's a rely long thread about it.

Since then, Northfin changed their website and retracted the dubious claims they were called out on. That's why some don't like Northfin. I use both companies because I found a deal on some Northfin products (Kelp wafers, Carnivore wafers, and bug pro).

 

[Ruturaj]

I dont count how many times people say RD does this and that. Hes been mentioned across the boards. He copied and pasted what was written validating what i have been saying on post #67 after your post by the way.

Its my decision on dietary choices and brands. I am making for my own fish. RD already knows it. He also is aware of its pitfalls. We are humans and strive to be great hobbyists and breeders worldwide and to preserve fish species thats someday going to be extinct in the wild. Plenty of fishkeepers do not touch NLS for their personal reasons. Try to google NLS and every single site is selling it. Negative complaints were cloudy water or fish not touching it thats just from first page im skimming not even want to dig any further when im already validated in my theory.

But this guy is making me think to attempt to find northfin.

Northfin is sponsoring lots of youtube fish channels, including him. Not saying it's a bad food, it's actually a great food. I don't like their veggie forumla pretty much that's the only negative opinion I have on them, as per the ingredients I think NLS Algemax is best in veggie pellets. Other formulas I think are very similar, some might be better or worse.

It's your decision and you are free to feed whatever you want. You are also free to interpret RD.s comment as you like.

Good luck.