Have you guys tried this brand of foods ( Northfin ) think they are made in Canada???

[Magnum Man]

In my www. reading, the Kelp wafers were very highly rated ( as "the best" ) I think it was a Tilapia breeding site, as food for Fry... the Tilapia Supplier I used this last year ( Lakeway ) only uses Ziegler Algae wafers for their fry, so I have some of those here in preparation for my breeder tanks... in looking at Amazon, they offer ( at least ) 3 different foods

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

OK... I was going to link the 3 kinds, but I see a whole bunch, a dozen or more varieties, including predator pellets even specialty for Arowana's

I typically read the ingredient lists, to determine what to buy, but often the ingredients aren't listed ( bug bites for instance )... just curious if anyone uses these feeds???

 

[AlexT]

Are you looking for specific foods for fry then Mr Mag?

 

[AlexT]

I found the ingredients for the first one

Kelp, Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina, Garlic, Astaxanthin (Haematococcus Algae), Calcium Montmorillonite Clay, Vitamin A Acetate, L-Ascorby-2-Polyphospate (Source of Vitamin C), D-Activated Animal-Sterol (D3), DL Alphatocopherol (E), Vitamin B12 ...

The second link has the ingredients on the site if I got that correct.

My issue would be that for both, most of the main ingredients are "meal" which runs the risk of it being all the cheap leftovers that no one really wants (if they knew what meal was, which most don't). I only found out in the last month thanks to this forum.

I can't slate the food, I don't have enough expertise, but from my learning recently, I won't buy food with "meal" at the main ingredients when I know full well I can get better quality, probably at the same price (usually).

 

[Magnum Man]

always looking at prepared foods, as my schedule runs me from an hour before sun up until too dark to do anything outside... tried doing a few live foods, it didn't go well 1st try, and I was too busy to repeat until I got it, right now

in this case, I started out looking for vegetarian foods, either this time looking for Tilapia fry foods, or I may have been looking for something specific for the silver dollars I recently got, that came in, really small...

 

[Magnum Man]

thanks... I would think Krill meal, would be significantly different, than a generically listed "fish meal" from a source of fish, that humans eat???

perhaps it's what is left, after they extract the Krill oil ( a popular supplement )

 

[AlexT]

thanks... I would think Krill meal, would be significantly different, than "meal" from a source of fish, that humans eat???

perhaps it's what is left, after they extract the Krill oil ( a popular supplement )

You would hope so. I used to just think it was "fish meal" to avoid, but I don't think any meal is great. I mean the fish obviously won't drop dead from it, but I think longer term best nutritional options don't include any meal in the ingredients for fish food. Happy to learn otherwise

 

[Magnum Man]

I've not bought any from them yet, but after the nutrition, the fish have to actually like it...
Ultra Fresh is currently my main feed, with many others for variety

Amazon.com

but still the old fashioned freeze dried brine shrimp cubes ( crushed ) gets everyone in the tank doing the happy dance... It's the favorite across the board

I found that most of my fish prefer the Ultra Fresh to Bug Bites... I still feed Bug Bites for variety, but most seem to prefer the Ultra Fresh right now

 

[Essjay]

Kelp, Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal,

"Whole" is the important word here. It means they use the whole fish not the left over bits no-one else wants. One website which no longer exists rated Northfin as the only 6 star foods.

We can still read the article via Wayback Machine; it takes longer to load than current websites.

Fish Food Ingredients

There are many documents and web sites dedicated to analysis of Dog Foods, Cat Foods, Cattle Feed, and feeds for other live stock. However, when I decided to research the ingredients found in fish foods, I found an absence of information. This article is an attempt to at least partially fill...

web.archive.org

 

[Magnum Man]

@Essjay I found the article full of information, thanks for posting it.... I printed it to put with my fish paperwork

@AlexT ... the linked article clearly defines "meal" and what's good & what's bad

 

[GaryE]

Northfin is one of several quality prepared foods.

 

[joe1778]

I found the ingredients for the first one

Kelp, Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina, Garlic, Astaxanthin (Haematococcus Algae), Calcium Montmorillonite Clay, Vitamin A Acetate, L-Ascorby-2-Polyphospate (Source of Vitamin C), D-Activated Animal-Sterol (D3), DL Alphatocopherol (E), Vitamin B12 ...

The second link has the ingredients on the site if I got that correct.

My issue would be that for both, most of the main ingredients are "meal" which runs the risk of it being all the cheap leftovers that no one really wants (if they knew what meal was, which most don't). I only found out in the last month thanks to this forum.

I can't slate the food, I don't have enough expertise, but from my learning recently, I won't buy food with "meal" at the main ingredients when I know full well I can get better quality, probably at the same price (usually).

The presence of "Meal" is actually preferred if it also includes "Whole". Without "Meal", there's a possibility the manufacturer listed the ingredient according to its "wet" weight (which includes water, before processing). This would heavily inflate its order in the ingredients list, since meat is like 70%+ water