what are the best pellets for your FH

[BIG_ONE]

My apologies Big_One, I stand corrected, it appears that it's been less than 2 years.

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?311672-School-me-all-about-FH!

You must have done a heck of a lot of reading since Feb. 2010.

I don't even think it matters how many years you been keeping flowerhorn. So does that mean someone who has 10 years of flowerhorn experience has more knowledge than someone who has been into flowerhorn in a year or so? That's like saying someone that has fought a war overseas will know about wars better than someone who has studied the art of war itself. So what matters is how much you've been studying them with your own testimony. What are you trying to say here, I'm trying to sugar coat myself here? Test all the things I've said with these flowerhorn food product, and then we'll talk. If you can prove me wrong, then I must be the worst guy trying to sugar coat and you must be the god's of all flowerhorn experts...LOL. Good night.

 

[ECW]

I don't even think it matters how many years you been keeping flowerhorn. So does that mean someone who has 10 years of flowerhorn experience has more knowledge than someone who has been into flowerhorn in a year or so? That's like saying someone that has fought a war overseas will know about wars better than someone who has studied the art of war itself. So what matters is how much you've been studying them with your own testimony. What are you trying to say here, I'm trying to sugar coat myself here? Test all the things I've said with these flowerhorn food product, and then we'll talk. If you can prove me wrong, then I must be the worst guy trying to sugar coat and you must be the god's of all flowerhorn experts...LOL. Good night.

FUNNY! BIG_ONE. I think you should stop worrying about food for now and do some more research on how to keep fish. You have been interested/keeping flowerhorns for less than two years and you say you have done experiments against specialty flowerhorn foods and other diets and the ones not fed on specialty diests live longer? Your flowerhorns live less than two years!? My dad has a 6 year old flowerhorn he fed on specialty foods until he got Hex a little while back and I converted him to NLS... Guess what... he's still alive. What do you do? Feed the hell out of them in 10 gallon tanks with no filtration and never change the water?

I think someone who has 10 years of experience raising and even breeding flowerhorn has much more knowledge than someone who has been into flowerhorns for a year or so. Just think of the personal experience, research, and tried and true knowledge he has gained in the past 10 years... Where do you think you get all your reading/research/base of knowledge material from? You really think you can catch up with true experience and research that a 10 year flowerhorn keeper has done/gone through in a year or so?

About your comment on someone who fought oveseas vs someone who studies the art of war. Get a tried and true vet and pit him against someone who just studies the "art of war" in the field and see who gets killed first. Doesn't matter how much you study and research if you don't actually go out there and experience it for yourself. People with real experience teach the people who only read and study all the time. I had a teacher in college who had been studing about marine life for longer than I was born. I took a trip to china and through first hand experience saw a pink dolphin. When I came back i told her about the pink dolphin and she dismissed me as a liar and that I was imagining things. I even told her about the huge foot long mantis shrimp in the fish market and she had the same reaction telling me that they only grew to a couple of inches or so. If you don't actually go out there and have an experience you are IMO still in the dark. That example is rediculous. So you are supposed to be the guy who studied the art of war and RD is supposed to be the vet? LMAO. RD is the tried and true vet who has studied the art of war and you are a guy who just signed up for the army... You can learn A LOT from RD.

Only you can prove yourself whether it is a fact or not that they contains hormones in the hand of your own experience. No videos or pictures will change crap about a person's mind. Who's going to win in court with one's self re-acting a self experience situation and one other with pictures? I don't know...you decide upon yourself.

In court a video and pictures (hard evidence) will always trump just words and re-enactment. Video's and pictures make a big difference in court. I have a hard time following you analogies... just stop using them they make no sense. I'd think hormones don't have a part in foods like grand sumo who specifically say they don't contain hormones. I think its the fact that the protein level is high and most people who use flowerhorn specific pellets "pump" their fish and over feed them which leads to a premature death. But less than two years. LOL. That's over feeding and horrible care.

 

[ECW]

If your prepping your fish for a competition in a month or two...Ching Mix, Sumo, and XO.

Everything about competitions is all enhancement and how you prep your fish. Those "hormones" food does make a difference when your prepping for a show/competitions. There's a big difference between having high nutrients food and needing food to jump your flowerhorn to it's extreme that those high nutrition food didn't bring out.

How about you give me some proof of them not having any hormones?

Just so there's no further misunderstandings, I wasn't the one that stated those products contained hormones, you did. Nor did I state that they didn't. In my mind that leaves the burden of proof on your shoulders, not mine.

So you never stated them of having hormones, yes neither have I stated that you mentioned about them having hormones. But yet you didn't mention about them not having hormones either, so what's the point of bringing this up? Where does this lead into now? Pointless statement...

Cough Cough... This sounds like you are saying Chingmix, Sumo, and Xo are "hormones" food... and then asking RD if he can give you proof of them not having hormones. He is saying that if you want proof of hormones in your food it is up to you to find out not his... Since he wasn't the one to say they had hormones.

 

[RD.]

Big One - What I am trying to say here, is that there are a lot of smack talking kids on this site who talk a big talk, yet in reality have very little hands on experience to back any of that talk up. You refer to your own "testaments" with regards to feeding FH, and longevity, yet thus far you haven't been keeping FH long enough to even grow one out to its full potential. lol

The fact that some of your fish died while being fed FH specialty food in no way proves that it died due to the feed, especially when the fish in question are hybrid crosses that are overall known to have weak genetics. Your fish could have died from almost anything, but somehow you have determined that it/their death was from their diet? Did you have a necropsy performed? Of course not.

You previously stated;

Nothing else else is explainable besides any chemical based hormones food that we all know which lead to liver cancer...UNLESS they had something else in the product that is designed for your fish to die at a certain age. In return you buy more fish overseas? Possibly...

Nothing else is explainable? Are you serious? So in your world when a fish dies with no outward symptoms that can be readily seen with the naked eye its death must be diet related? And/or, some of these specialty FH manufacturers are adding some ticking time bomb element to their food in order kill everyones fish prematurely?

This discussion has gone from mildy entertaining, to downright absurd. If you actually believe any of the above, then you probably shouldn't be recommending any of these products to fellow hobbyists on this forum, even for short durations.

 

[Undertheradar]

Its all a bit tense over fish food! I thought most FH's apperance came from breed any way. Nls hikari all seem to have equal amounts of supporters with good results across the board. It would be interesting to get tow FH's feed one standard pellet for fish farms and one high end tropical pellet eg nls document the rate of growth and overall colour,build etc .

Im feeding hikari and frozen because nls isnt sold here locally

 

[ECW]

Hikari works fine for FH. My dad has another FH that is lesser quality so he chose to feed it Hikari instead of his "flowerhorn specialty" foods. TBH they both look good and about the same, as they were from the same shipment. I really didn't like FH that much early on and thought their KOK was grotesque. His two big male FH both got hex and HITH that I had to help him cure recently. Not blaming the food as much as the lack of water changes and overfeeding his fish had to endure. I think a year or so later than he got into flowerhorns, I started to appreciate them and got my own. Mines are nicer and have NLS based diets for the most part (all NLS later on in its life), but I think mines look nicer and are definitely healthier mainly because of the water quality and even just better quality fish. TBH though I prefer NLS .

 

[RD.]

I think its the fact that the protein level is high and most people who use flowerhorn specific pellets "pump" their fish and over feed them which leads to a premature death.

Agreed. That and many of the newer strains of FH have weak genetics & are prone to immune disorders. Pumping them up may be all that's required to push some fish over the edge.



As far as hormones, there is a very quick & simple way to determine if hormones are being used in a commercial feed. Take some female African (Aulonocara ) peacocks & feed exclusively for 30 days. If at some point the typical plain drab looking females begin to color up, and take on male coloration then you will have your answer.

http://www.idosi.org/wjfms/wjfms3(5)11/13.pdf

These types of sex hormones discussed in the link above are actually quite commonly used on commercial farms in Asia, so much so that most of the juvenile African cichlids being imported from Asia will all arrive in full color, appearing to be sexually mature males even at 2". Of course as the hormones begin to wear off, so does their sexually mature adult coloration, and many fish suddenly revert back to normal (drab) female coloration.

All this talk about conspiracy theories, and hormone use in some of these FH foods, yet no one has ever performed any type of simple feed trial involving female fish from species such as mentioned above? Seriously?

I've been in the fish game for a while, and there is only 1 brand of food (made in Thailand) where I have seen drab female fish turn into what a appears to be a fully colored sexually mature male fish. For more info on this product & hormones, google is your friend. I would never feed the stuff so it's a non issue for me personally.
http://www.whitecraneaqua.com/food_menu_English.htm


Cheers!

 

[Fengshui Aquatic]

No offense guys, but the pellet does matter, I highly stand by the XO Humpy head product 1000%, It does give me quick results on my Flowerhorn, and I have tried 30 different pellets over my period of time keeping Flowerhorns, it's a bit more pricyer then other pellets, but I pay for the results, and it works... I also love the results I get from the Okiko line of Flowerhorn pellets... Yes it's mostly genitcs of your fish wich will be the end results, of KoK Size, Fish Size and form, but giving the fish the proper diet to keep him that way at all times is what matters... Not just that but my farms are well heated 24/7 which is very important, and a mix of Live foods and Pellets on a daily basis make major results, proper water changes and ph test also show great results, Ive handled thousands of FH in my time, and my tests and experiences with the fish and their reactions to differnt types of food is real... I once doubted the pellet factor until I took a batch of flowerhorn fry from my breeding pair and tested them only with Dragon FH Pellets, and the next batch I got from the same pair used only XO, and the results were amazing, Fry batch #2 increased growth and color much faster then the fry batch #1.... Over my time of raising and farming Flowerhorn, Ive had many fish that lived to an upwards of 7-8 years on a FH Pellet diet, most die earlier do to the inbreeding, and bad genetics of the parent fish...I feel it has nothing to do with the pellet ingrediants itself, the pellets alone help with the strengthening of the fishes immune system itself, but either way it doesnt matter what you feed your fish as long as he's happy eating it, and it keeps him healthy...

Dave
Fengshui Aquatic

 

[ECW]

From what I hear... XO has hormones in the food... Would watch out for that one.

Here's a link from this site where another member suggests (actually he says he is 100% sure) that XO is hormone ladden:
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...y-please-help-to-cure-a-sick-flowerhorn/page3

Other research done on a quick bing search has many people asking if XO has hormones in them and suggesting that it indeed does contain hormones.

If it does contain hormones, I can see why you get such amazing results. Kinda scary and shady if you ask me... I personally wouldn't want to chance it, but whatever works for you. I'm guessing it works pretty well for you in a strictly business sense... seeing that you actually sell FH's. No offense but you are from one of the countries that are well known for their use of hormones in ornamental fish. You got some really nice FH on your site BTW.

 

[Water]

From what I hear... XO has hormones in the food... Would watch out for that one.Here's a link from this site where another member suggests (actually he says he is 100% sure) that XO is hormone ladden:http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/f...y-please-help-to-cure-a-sick-flowerhorn/page3Other research done on a quick bing search has many people asking if XO has hormones in them and suggesting that it indeed does contain hormones.If it does contain hormones, I can see why you get such amazing results. Kinda scary and shady if you ask me... I personally wouldn't want to chance it, but whatever works for you. I'm guessing it works pretty well for you in a strictly business sense... seeing that you actually sell FH's. No offense but you are from one of the countries that are well known for their use of hormones in ornamental fish. You got some really nice FH on your site BTW.

You sir, are one of the most level headed people on this site LOL. I'd like to say this last thing because this thread is becoming ridiculous. Below you see a picture of my former RT from CjBarth(Who has great quality RT for an affordable price). You can see he is not really red when he was younger. Then look at the now picture. He is actually red. I honestly believe that NLS is so superior that if the genetics are present, NLS can do more than what "FH foods" "promise" to do. Now, I don't fully believe NLS is behind my RT amazing colors, the genetics had to be there. But from comparing my RT to the rest of his siblings that Chris has bred, mine has the best red IMO(This is not an attack on Chris's methods, because my RT came from Chris afterall). Chris feeds a variety while I feed nothing but NLS. Can the same results be achieved from a different pellet? Possibly. However, if you compare the quality of ingredients used in NLS to ANY other pellet, you will find that NLS trumps most, if not all.