Did you read through the entirety of the article? A few very sensitive salt fish that have a hard time living on any of the other foods on the market in fact thrive when fed NLS.
Why New Life Spectrum???
- Thread starter fishman09
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Did you read through the entirety of the article? A few very sensitive salt fish that have a hard time living on any of the other foods on the market in fact thrive when fed NLS.
I forget whom had that great read about how frequently fish in the wild were found to have empty stomachs essentially implying we over feed our tanks. And all probably true. But look at fish in the wild, their diets' diversity isn't all that to right home about. We all go hog wild for wild caught specimens and our tank raised and current stock probably have a much deeper diet. It's ironic, really. I have used NLS just for the sake of trying it. And guess what, my fish poop the same with that as with a massivore pellet, and just same if they eat a rosey-minnow. Not that I don't care about my fish, that couldn't be farther from the truth, but frankly I'm concerned with my dogs food much more than my fishes. Why? For one it's a dog! and I can visibly see how my dog reacts to the food. I can tell if his coat improves, or he has an irritated stomach. You can simply change the background of your tank, or lighting, and your fish will look brighter or their colors will pop more.
I think NLS is a good food, but to sit here and read a promotional brochure for them and not to think it's of course going to push them in a better bracket is foolish. Informative yes, but designed to promote their brand, mores-so. Other brands likely don't opt for that because its not their branding campaign. Or they don't have the budget. Some of the best dog foods on the market DO NOT have any ads let alone an informative 11 pg. brochure.
And just to be a jerk =) If i take earth worms from my veggie garden treated with miracle grow, are they superior to NLS haha.
I think NLS is a good food, but to sit here and read a promotional brochure for them and not to think it's of course going to push them in a better bracket is foolish. Informative yes, but designed to promote their brand, mores-so. Other brands likely don't opt for that because its not their branding campaign. Or they don't have the budget. Some of the best dog foods on the market DO NOT have any ads let alone an informative 11 pg. brochure.
And just to be a jerk =) If i take earth worms from my veggie garden treated with miracle grow, are they superior to NLS haha.
I don't think anyone is claiming YOU MUST FEED NLS ONLY!
It is a lower fat food compared to most things on the market. This is done on purpose. Fat is not expensive to manufacture in a food... Some of the cheapest foods like farm feeds are the highest in fat. You will no doubt see faster growth on a fattier food. I don't see growth as a race (although I have experienced easy 1" a month with just NLS with some species). But let's not forget fatty deposits on the liver are probably the main killer of aquarium fish that don't die from other causes like disease, aggression, equipment failure, etc.
Want to supplement? Then go for it. There's lots of fresh, frozen, and freeze dried food out there and Hikari massivore or something similar won't make your fish drop dead a couple times a week. No doubt you can pump up growth with this stuff. Necessary? Not exactly. And I wouldn't over do it.
If I was to make a staple pellet myself, what would I put in it? High quality marine proteins like Antarctic krill and ocean fish with good amino acid profiles (herring), various types of algae, maybe a little garlic, fruits, veggies, vitamins, and minimal starch. Sounds familiar...
Anyone wanting to know more about studies of various foods with fish feed, look at something like this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=o9P5F2mviioC&printsec=frontcover&vq=1&output=html_text
Pretty much breaks down every thing anyone has fed a fish. Most of the hardcore studies (including this one) you find will be in the aquaculture industry.
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It is a lower fat food compared to most things on the market. This is done on purpose. Fat is not expensive to manufacture in a food... Some of the cheapest foods like farm feeds are the highest in fat. You will no doubt see faster growth on a fattier food. I don't see growth as a race (although I have experienced easy 1" a month with just NLS with some species). But let's not forget fatty deposits on the liver are probably the main killer of aquarium fish that don't die from other causes like disease, aggression, equipment failure, etc.
Want to supplement? Then go for it. There's lots of fresh, frozen, and freeze dried food out there and Hikari massivore or something similar won't make your fish drop dead a couple times a week. No doubt you can pump up growth with this stuff. Necessary? Not exactly. And I wouldn't over do it.
If I was to make a staple pellet myself, what would I put in it? High quality marine proteins like Antarctic krill and ocean fish with good amino acid profiles (herring), various types of algae, maybe a little garlic, fruits, veggies, vitamins, and minimal starch. Sounds familiar...
Anyone wanting to know more about studies of various foods with fish feed, look at something like this:
http://books.google.com/books?id=o9P5F2mviioC&printsec=frontcover&vq=1&output=html_text
Pretty much breaks down every thing anyone has fed a fish. Most of the hardcore studies (including this one) you find will be in the aquaculture industry.
Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
you have examined poop from your fish at a nutrient level when fed NLS, Massivore and a rosy minnow and it comes out exactly the same every time??? I would like to see the write up from that study.
Lots of good pet foods have nutrition articles on their website. This is what I feed my furry pets:
http://www.championpetfoods.com/library/
It's really to your advantage as a pet food company to explain why your food is different than the alternatives and why someone should feed it. Spending thousands and thousands of dollars on advertising that just makes claims on glossy pages and websites doesn't speak as well in my book.
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NLS poop probably has more nutrition in it than an actual rosy minnow.
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Wow, MFK goes down for a few days for me & look what I come back to. lol
About that - while in the past some of the raw ingredients were listed differently on some of their labels, as in the term "meal" wasn't included, that was a SNAFU and was corrected rather quickly. Nothing on the NLS labels is listed as "wet weight", nor has it ever been. Every last ingredient used in ALL formulas is & always has been listed as dry weight, which according to AAFCO must be listed in order of predominance by weight, on an "as formulated basis". The ingredient that makes up the highest percentage of the total weight as it goes into the product is listed first. Again, New Life does not and never has, used any "wet" ingredients in any of their formulas. They also no longer use any form of soy in any of their formulas - something that will be reflected as their labels are updated.
The rest of this is simply cut & paste from a comment that I made last year.
With regards to feeding a variety ........
Almost any decent food on today's market will give you pretty good results with freshwater fish. But try feeding some of these foods long term to some of the more nutrient sensitive marine species, such as Rock Beauty, Moorish Idol and Achilles Tang. Most commercial foods won't even keep them alive, let alone thriving. This is exactly the reason that marine people tend to feed a 'wide variety' of food to their fish, because in the past, if they didn't, their prized specimens would waste away within a few months. Freshwater fish keepers followed the same path, sort of a hit & miss type of feeding in the hopes that all of the fishes dietary requirements are being met. What's lacking in one formula, will hopefully be found in the next container on the shelf.
Feeding a random collection of fish foods does not equate to supplying any more "variety" in nutrients than feeding one food that already consists of a wide variety of high quality raw ingredients. Variety is not a nutrient.
It is with these types of fish mentioned above that NLS becomes superior at an unrivaled level. No other commercial food will give you the same type of results as NLS, none. Try feeding fish such as the one shown below (which was raised on NLS) Hikari Gold, Or Omega, or Xtreme, or whatever, exclusively, and get back to me in a few months.
Kieron Dodds, from Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine wrote an article on the Moorish Idol in 2008, titled; "Still Impossible After All These Years - Keeping Moorish Idol". He clearly admits that the main intent of his article was to discourage anyone from acquiring this species, as he feels this species has almost no chance in being kept alive in captivity beyond a very short duration. At one point in the article he states "Pablo Tepoot is perhaps the single individual who has had the most success with this species" - unfortunately Pablo lost his last group of Moorish Idol to an electrical failure during a hurricane, at that point Pablo had kept them thriving in captivity for 5 years.
Something that most people would have considered impossible 15 or 20 yrs ago.
Even today, many marine keepers will highly discourage the collection or keeping of this species due to its poor survival rate once in captivity. Yet today, those that have got these & many other nutrient sensitive species of marine fish eating NLS have found that these fish are almost easy to keep, even for beginners. The Moorish Idol shown above was from a beginners marine tank, this was his very first SW tank!
The true acid test of any fish food is with some of these hyper nutrient sensitive marine species, not with fresh water fish.
Show me another manufacturer that has maintained some of the nutrient delicate marine species that Pablo Tepoot has, for many years, on an exclusive diet of their commercial dry pellet or flake formula. You won't find any, quite honestly I believe that you would be very hard pressed to find any seasoned marine keepers that even feed brands such as Hikari, to their fish. Why is that?
If you keep marine fish, especially some of the more difficult to keep in captivity species, this is where the nutrient levels in a food begin to play a much larger role beyond just color, and/or growth. You can't simply jack up a low grade food with astaxathin, marigold meal, and spirulina, and expect that it will keep that fish thriving in captivity. It's not that simple, and with the more difficult species you best provide them with the best of the best raw ingredients, or you can kiss that $200-$300 fish good-bye.
With many marine species, it's a matter of life & death.
Unlike most freshwater species, you simply can't keep species such as Moorish Idolor even Cleaner Wrasse on a mediocre starch laced food & keep them alive, let alone thriving, let alone colorful. Most cleaner wrasse in captivity die within weeks, at best they survive a few months, yet many marine keepers have found that if their cleaner wrasse will eat NLS, they will live for years in captivity. Again, I don't know of any other commercial food on the market that has produced these types of results. None. Most of these species will die in captivity even when fed a "wide variety" of pellets, flakes, and fresh/frozen.
This is precisely why a commercial hatchery such as ORA feeds NLS to their captive bred marine fish, including their mandarin gobies. For anyone that has ever kept mandarin gobies in captivity you will understand how difficult this genus can be to get on to a pellet food, and then keep healthy long term.
Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY (a 20 MILLION dollar facility) has been feeding NLS (daily) in his reef tanks for the past 10+ years. His 20,000 gallon reef set up is the largest in North America, and 4th largest in the world. Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded Aquarium authorities. He has consulted with many public Aquariums worldwide, and has also presented reef-keeping lectures throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. You can view Mr. Delbeek's bio in the following link.
http://www.jcdaquariumdesign.com/Pages/about_us.html
The gentlemen mentioned above are not only highly respected, very experienced long term reef keepers, they also hold one or more degrees in the various related sciences, and certainly no what to look for in a high quality food - beyond just growth, and/or color. They also don't have any type of vested interest in New Life.
As previously posted in another recent discussion, NLS is also the only food that I'm aware of that has been used in studies performed by 3rd party accredited institutions as the control diet in HLLE/HITH studies, due to it's nutrient levels exceeding most/all other commercial products on the market. NLS is the food that the nutritional experts use as their control diet, when studying various nutrient induced health issues in finfish. There's a reason for that.
For myself I look for the best of both worlds, a food that will keep even the most difficult to keep species in captivity thriving in a glass cage, as well as provide great color, growth, and breeding. As I recently told Tom (Aquanero) via PM, as nice as his RD looks on an exclusive diet of NLS, I suspect that he could feed that fish rabbit pellets & it would still look very nice. Ditto to Balton's female festae, and most of Mo's fish. Those fish look great because they are genetically great specimens, and have been well taken care of by experienced fish keepers, not because some brand of food made them into show quality fish.
To a large extent this hobby is very much about visual impact and most hobbyists want to see eye popping color, and for some hobbyists that's all they care about.
Personally I want to see color that matches the best looking specimens found in the wild, good solid growth, and breeding, but at the same time I want to provide the most nutritionally sound diet that I can offer my fish in the hopes that they reach their maximum potential health wise as well. If I can get 10 yrs out of a fish, vs 7 yrs, that too is important to me. If I can keep a fish healthy even when under the stress of captivity, aggression from rival tank mates, the introduction of various pathogens, or improve the rate of healing when injured, for myself that's just as important as great color. A carefully selected number of bioactive compounds, at levels that have been proven to have a probiotic effect on fish including biological effects such as growth promotion, immunostimulation, anti-stress, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral are some of the key reasons for the success of NLS. Things that aren't always broken down individually on the ingredients list, and handed to the competition for a reason.
Sometimes it's the little things that separate a good food, from a GREAT food, and yes, even a superior food.
About that - while in the past some of the raw ingredients were listed differently on some of their labels, as in the term "meal" wasn't included, that was a SNAFU and was corrected rather quickly. Nothing on the NLS labels is listed as "wet weight", nor has it ever been. Every last ingredient used in ALL formulas is & always has been listed as dry weight, which according to AAFCO must be listed in order of predominance by weight, on an "as formulated basis". The ingredient that makes up the highest percentage of the total weight as it goes into the product is listed first. Again, New Life does not and never has, used any "wet" ingredients in any of their formulas. They also no longer use any form of soy in any of their formulas - something that will be reflected as their labels are updated.
The rest of this is simply cut & paste from a comment that I made last year.
With regards to feeding a variety ........
Almost any decent food on today's market will give you pretty good results with freshwater fish. But try feeding some of these foods long term to some of the more nutrient sensitive marine species, such as Rock Beauty, Moorish Idol and Achilles Tang. Most commercial foods won't even keep them alive, let alone thriving. This is exactly the reason that marine people tend to feed a 'wide variety' of food to their fish, because in the past, if they didn't, their prized specimens would waste away within a few months. Freshwater fish keepers followed the same path, sort of a hit & miss type of feeding in the hopes that all of the fishes dietary requirements are being met. What's lacking in one formula, will hopefully be found in the next container on the shelf.
Feeding a random collection of fish foods does not equate to supplying any more "variety" in nutrients than feeding one food that already consists of a wide variety of high quality raw ingredients. Variety is not a nutrient.
It is with these types of fish mentioned above that NLS becomes superior at an unrivaled level. No other commercial food will give you the same type of results as NLS, none. Try feeding fish such as the one shown below (which was raised on NLS) Hikari Gold, Or Omega, or Xtreme, or whatever, exclusively, and get back to me in a few months.
Kieron Dodds, from Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine wrote an article on the Moorish Idol in 2008, titled; "Still Impossible After All These Years - Keeping Moorish Idol". He clearly admits that the main intent of his article was to discourage anyone from acquiring this species, as he feels this species has almost no chance in being kept alive in captivity beyond a very short duration. At one point in the article he states "Pablo Tepoot is perhaps the single individual who has had the most success with this species" - unfortunately Pablo lost his last group of Moorish Idol to an electrical failure during a hurricane, at that point Pablo had kept them thriving in captivity for 5 years.
Something that most people would have considered impossible 15 or 20 yrs ago.
Even today, many marine keepers will highly discourage the collection or keeping of this species due to its poor survival rate once in captivity. Yet today, those that have got these & many other nutrient sensitive species of marine fish eating NLS have found that these fish are almost easy to keep, even for beginners. The Moorish Idol shown above was from a beginners marine tank, this was his very first SW tank!
The true acid test of any fish food is with some of these hyper nutrient sensitive marine species, not with fresh water fish.
Show me another manufacturer that has maintained some of the nutrient delicate marine species that Pablo Tepoot has, for many years, on an exclusive diet of their commercial dry pellet or flake formula. You won't find any, quite honestly I believe that you would be very hard pressed to find any seasoned marine keepers that even feed brands such as Hikari, to their fish. Why is that?
If you keep marine fish, especially some of the more difficult to keep in captivity species, this is where the nutrient levels in a food begin to play a much larger role beyond just color, and/or growth. You can't simply jack up a low grade food with astaxathin, marigold meal, and spirulina, and expect that it will keep that fish thriving in captivity. It's not that simple, and with the more difficult species you best provide them with the best of the best raw ingredients, or you can kiss that $200-$300 fish good-bye.
With many marine species, it's a matter of life & death.
Unlike most freshwater species, you simply can't keep species such as Moorish Idolor even Cleaner Wrasse on a mediocre starch laced food & keep them alive, let alone thriving, let alone colorful. Most cleaner wrasse in captivity die within weeks, at best they survive a few months, yet many marine keepers have found that if their cleaner wrasse will eat NLS, they will live for years in captivity. Again, I don't know of any other commercial food on the market that has produced these types of results. None. Most of these species will die in captivity even when fed a "wide variety" of pellets, flakes, and fresh/frozen.
This is precisely why a commercial hatchery such as ORA feeds NLS to their captive bred marine fish, including their mandarin gobies. For anyone that has ever kept mandarin gobies in captivity you will understand how difficult this genus can be to get on to a pellet food, and then keep healthy long term.
Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY (a 20 MILLION dollar facility) has been feeding NLS (daily) in his reef tanks for the past 10+ years. His 20,000 gallon reef set up is the largest in North America, and 4th largest in the world. Joe is one of the world’s most highly regarded Aquarium authorities. He has consulted with many public Aquariums worldwide, and has also presented reef-keeping lectures throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. You can view Mr. Delbeek's bio in the following link.
http://www.jcdaquariumdesign.com/Pages/about_us.html
The gentlemen mentioned above are not only highly respected, very experienced long term reef keepers, they also hold one or more degrees in the various related sciences, and certainly no what to look for in a high quality food - beyond just growth, and/or color. They also don't have any type of vested interest in New Life.
As previously posted in another recent discussion, NLS is also the only food that I'm aware of that has been used in studies performed by 3rd party accredited institutions as the control diet in HLLE/HITH studies, due to it's nutrient levels exceeding most/all other commercial products on the market. NLS is the food that the nutritional experts use as their control diet, when studying various nutrient induced health issues in finfish. There's a reason for that.
For myself I look for the best of both worlds, a food that will keep even the most difficult to keep species in captivity thriving in a glass cage, as well as provide great color, growth, and breeding. As I recently told Tom (Aquanero) via PM, as nice as his RD looks on an exclusive diet of NLS, I suspect that he could feed that fish rabbit pellets & it would still look very nice. Ditto to Balton's female festae, and most of Mo's fish. Those fish look great because they are genetically great specimens, and have been well taken care of by experienced fish keepers, not because some brand of food made them into show quality fish.
To a large extent this hobby is very much about visual impact and most hobbyists want to see eye popping color, and for some hobbyists that's all they care about.
Personally I want to see color that matches the best looking specimens found in the wild, good solid growth, and breeding, but at the same time I want to provide the most nutritionally sound diet that I can offer my fish in the hopes that they reach their maximum potential health wise as well. If I can get 10 yrs out of a fish, vs 7 yrs, that too is important to me. If I can keep a fish healthy even when under the stress of captivity, aggression from rival tank mates, the introduction of various pathogens, or improve the rate of healing when injured, for myself that's just as important as great color. A carefully selected number of bioactive compounds, at levels that have been proven to have a probiotic effect on fish including biological effects such as growth promotion, immunostimulation, anti-stress, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-viral are some of the key reasons for the success of NLS. Things that aren't always broken down individually on the ingredients list, and handed to the competition for a reason.
Sometimes it's the little things that separate a good food, from a GREAT food, and yes, even a superior food.
lol more than likely. Ive noticed how much more solid the NLS poop appears. To me that means better nutrient absorbtion and less waste. Easier to clean too.NLS poop probably has more nutrition in it than an actual rosy minnow.
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