If your prepping your fish for a competition in a month or two...Ching Mix, Sumo, and XO. If your just raising and growing them out - New Life Spectrum and Hikari Excel or Hikari Spirulina for Koi.
what are the best pellets for your FH
- Thread starter BTK
- Start date
what is the difference in price i can get for $20 for both 125g chingmix headbooster sp100pro and 125g chingmix maxima sp100pro...grand sumo cost $15 250g---$27 550g...and Chingmix Superior Pellet $20 500g.... so how much is NLS????
Im feeding Hikari Chichlid Gold right now and some Hikari frozen blood worms and brine shrimp
but really I'd like to know what is the most healty pellet because I am aware that genetics plays a huge factor....
Im feeding Hikari Chichlid Gold right now and some Hikari frozen blood worms and brine shrimp
but really I'd like to know what is the most healty pellet because I am aware that genetics plays a huge factor....
Is this what you do when you are prepping your fish for competitions?
This hybrid section is as entertaining as ever.
The so called specialty flowerhorn foods are nothing more than overpriced generic cichlid food.
@water Whole fish, whole shrimp, whole insects and such. They may be included in some pellet foods, but by the time they make it into the finished product, i suspect they have probably been processed at least once if not more times and reconstituted into meal and so on, each step of which removes some of the nutrients that would have been there if fed whole. Much like human food nowadays is so over processed that we have to eat higher volumes than we would if it was unprocessed, to get the same nutrition from it...
As i said before i am not saying that pellets are bad, they make up a good part of my FHs diet, im simply saying i believe that they should be supplemented not replaced with either whole or live food items.
And again, it gives them that thrill of the chase i mean in the wild they wouldnt have someone dropping pellets infront of their face ya know.
On the flip side, if you feed too much whole items and overfeed them it can be very harmful as well.
So in conclusion water...i do it that way because it seems to work well for me and my particular fish loves the whole (and especially live) foods, im not saying that anyone else is wrong for doing something different.
As i said before i am not saying that pellets are bad, they make up a good part of my FHs diet, im simply saying i believe that they should be supplemented not replaced with either whole or live food items.
And again, it gives them that thrill of the chase i mean in the wild they wouldnt have someone dropping pellets infront of their face ya know.
On the flip side, if you feed too much whole items and overfeed them it can be very harmful as well.
So in conclusion water...i do it that way because it seems to work well for me and my particular fish loves the whole (and especially live) foods, im not saying that anyone else is wrong for doing something different.
As far as the extrusion process causing nutrients to be destroyed........
As long as a manufacturer takes into account that a certain percentage of some vitamins will be lost during the cooking process, and formulates their vitamin supplementation with this in mind, adjusting the ratios accordingly, this is a non issue.
Think of it this way, if one poaches an egg in water, does that mean that the amino acid (protein) of that egg has no value? Of course not, cooking the egg may change the structure of those amino acids, but those amino acids are certainly still bio-available. I don't know anyone that eats raw eggs, usually due to the fact that uncooked eggs can contain various pathogens. The same applies to "cooking" fish food, it kills various pathogens and can greatly improve overall digestibility of many of the raw ingredients.
Seeing as the diet of "wild" fish are being compared to FH, while a fish may not eat pellets in the wild, they do in fact consume all of these same nutrients (amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals,etc) they are simply bundled up in a different package. For that matter, if one is going to compare the wild diet using the species of fish that make up the bulk of most FH genetics they should probably be supplemented with aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates (not bloodworms), which nutrient wise doesn't offer anything that's not already found in a quality pellet. Unless someone knows something that I don't?
I don't have a problem with those that feel the need to supplement with frozen/live food, but IMO if one chooses their pellet food wisely there is no need to do so. The reality is that a high quality pellet will offer FAR more nutrients per ounce than any foodstuff these fish would ever consume in the wild.
As long as a manufacturer takes into account that a certain percentage of some vitamins will be lost during the cooking process, and formulates their vitamin supplementation with this in mind, adjusting the ratios accordingly, this is a non issue.
Think of it this way, if one poaches an egg in water, does that mean that the amino acid (protein) of that egg has no value? Of course not, cooking the egg may change the structure of those amino acids, but those amino acids are certainly still bio-available. I don't know anyone that eats raw eggs, usually due to the fact that uncooked eggs can contain various pathogens. The same applies to "cooking" fish food, it kills various pathogens and can greatly improve overall digestibility of many of the raw ingredients.
Seeing as the diet of "wild" fish are being compared to FH, while a fish may not eat pellets in the wild, they do in fact consume all of these same nutrients (amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals,etc) they are simply bundled up in a different package. For that matter, if one is going to compare the wild diet using the species of fish that make up the bulk of most FH genetics they should probably be supplemented with aquatic and terrestrial invertebrates (not bloodworms), which nutrient wise doesn't offer anything that's not already found in a quality pellet. Unless someone knows something that I don't?
I don't have a problem with those that feel the need to supplement with frozen/live food, but IMO if one chooses their pellet food wisely there is no need to do so. The reality is that a high quality pellet will offer FAR more nutrients per ounce than any foodstuff these fish would ever consume in the wild.
Well my FH does love ghost shrimp when i add them to her tank so she does get at least some invert in her diet. But i do feed pellets as well.
So i look at it as my FH getting the best of both worlds as long as i dont over feed. My guy gets the pellets, and the frozen brine shrimp, and blood worms, and some guppies and ghost shrimp now and again. And for the most part no worries about parasites/disease coming from the feeders due to the fact that i breed all my feeder guppies for him. I would never feed store bought feeders to my FH lol (not from the stores around here anyway lol) and when i need ghost shrimp i place an order through my work just for me so they go straight from breeder to my feeder tank so very little worries there as well.
However i did not know that they added extra raw nutrients to make up for those lost in extrusion. Very informative RD.
So i look at it as my FH getting the best of both worlds as long as i dont over feed. My guy gets the pellets, and the frozen brine shrimp, and blood worms, and some guppies and ghost shrimp now and again. And for the most part no worries about parasites/disease coming from the feeders due to the fact that i breed all my feeder guppies for him. I would never feed store bought feeders to my FH lol (not from the stores around here anyway lol) and when i need ghost shrimp i place an order through my work just for me so they go straight from breeder to my feeder tank so very little worries there as well.
However i did not know that they added extra raw nutrients to make up for those lost in extrusion. Very informative RD.
Some of the higher quality pellets have already been mentioned in this discussion, I've been using the brand that Water mentioned for all of my fish, exclusively, for the past decade or so. (NLS, cough-cough)
FYI - more important than the nutrients being added, are the nutrients being utilized from the raw ingredients themselves. As an example, at post-extrusion levels brand ABC may contain as much as 500 mg/kg of Vitamin C, from just the raw ingredients. To that is added another 250-500 mg of a stable form of ascorbic acid at pre-extrusion levels, just to ensure even more Vitamin C in the final product, and to allow some loss over time that may take place during storage.
Brand XYZ on the other hand has only 75 mg/kg of Vitamin C at post extrusion levels, which appears to be a total from both the raw ingredients themselves, and additional supplementation. (as listed on their label)
We know that fish must have Vitamin C supplied via their diet as they are not capable of producing their own. We also know that fish unders stress, any kind of stress, be it from less than ideal water quality, inadequate tank size, aggression from tank mates, breeding, low 02 levels, too bright of an environment, too dark of an environment, a weak immune system from injury or illness, etc-etc-etc ...... require more Vitamin C than a fish kept in a totally non-stress environment. These are plain and simple facts.
Keeping the above in mind, which brand do you think would contain more ideal nutrient levels (in this example Vitamin C) for a fish kept in captivity, brand ABC, or brand XYZ?
And that is just one teeny tiny part of the BIG nutritional equation, that only involves a single vitamin.
From a nutritional standpoint, all pellets are certainly not created equally. While some may require additional supplementation to fill certain voids or nutrient levels, there are others that offer more than enough nutrients on their own.
Variety is not a nutrient.
FYI - more important than the nutrients being added, are the nutrients being utilized from the raw ingredients themselves. As an example, at post-extrusion levels brand ABC may contain as much as 500 mg/kg of Vitamin C, from just the raw ingredients. To that is added another 250-500 mg of a stable form of ascorbic acid at pre-extrusion levels, just to ensure even more Vitamin C in the final product, and to allow some loss over time that may take place during storage.
Brand XYZ on the other hand has only 75 mg/kg of Vitamin C at post extrusion levels, which appears to be a total from both the raw ingredients themselves, and additional supplementation. (as listed on their label)
We know that fish must have Vitamin C supplied via their diet as they are not capable of producing their own. We also know that fish unders stress, any kind of stress, be it from less than ideal water quality, inadequate tank size, aggression from tank mates, breeding, low 02 levels, too bright of an environment, too dark of an environment, a weak immune system from injury or illness, etc-etc-etc ...... require more Vitamin C than a fish kept in a totally non-stress environment. These are plain and simple facts.
Keeping the above in mind, which brand do you think would contain more ideal nutrient levels (in this example Vitamin C) for a fish kept in captivity, brand ABC, or brand XYZ?
And that is just one teeny tiny part of the BIG nutritional equation, that only involves a single vitamin.
From a nutritional standpoint, all pellets are certainly not created equally. While some may require additional supplementation to fill certain voids or nutrient levels, there are others that offer more than enough nutrients on their own.
Variety is not a nutrient.
