Aquarium Co-op fish food

[cowgirluntamed]

Just curious if anybody has used the small fish/fry food? And what do you guys think of the quality? I will eventually have a lot of glowlight tetrasfor, harlequin rasboras, some pristella tetras, and some endlers. I thought this food may benefit them all and to me it seems good quality. Here are the specs from their website as well as the product page that has a YouTube video about it as well.

• Min. Crude Protein - 55%
• Min. Crude Fat - 18%
• Min. Crude Fiber - 2%
• Min. Phosphorus - 1.3%

Ingredients: Salmon Fish Meal - Dried Yeast - Marine Protein - Spirulina - Kelp - Vegetable Products - Fish Oil - Lecithin - Calcium Phosphate - Vitamin Supplements: A, E, D-3, B1, B12 & Biotin - Stabilized Vitamin “C” - minerals and amino acids

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/aquarium-co-op-food/products/aquarium-co-op-small-fish-food

 

[Byron]

I personally would not consider feeding that to my fish. The "meal" and "vegetable products" are the "bad" ingredients. We had a thread on this a couple months back, you might be able to find it, I'll have a search after I post. The meal/vegetable issue was discussed, and if memory serves me, it was sort of like sticky un-nutritional paste rather than wholesome natural foods.

Good quality foods will have whole fish/shrimp and not meal. I use New Life Spectrum and Omega One foods for this reason.

Byron.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

Thanks Byron. I do believe I read that one and I still have the fish food ingredient explanation up on a tab still on my tablet. Lol. I was mostly curious since it didn't list as many ingredients as some others. I knew about the meal but I wasn't really thinking of the vegetable "products". Who knows what vegetables and such in that now that I think of it.

I think I just got a bit off as I tried omega one right as I started having problems with the parasites. But it probably had nothing to do with the food. I had been feeding seachem nutridiet tropical flakes which the fish loved, but started looking deeper into the ingredients and tried omega one.

Another thing was food for the endlers I eventually will have. They are smaller than the tetras will be so I was wondering what a good food for them would be, though I suppose just crushing the flake food up more would work. Lol.

I do think once the big tank is going I will do frozen foods instead of freeze dried. And I was also thinking of repashy as well, though I haven't looked anything up about that at all so I'm not even sure what's in it when you make it into the cubes you can freeze.

Anyway, thanks for the tips Byron!

And here is the ingredient link if anybody wants to read it! Lots of information!!

http://www.oscarfish.com/fish-food-ingredients.html

 

[Byron]

Another thing was food for the endlers I eventually will have. They are smaller than the tetras will be so I was wondering what a good food for them would be, though I suppose just crushing the flake food up more would work.

Yes, plus natural foods. I was given a pair of Endlers a year ago, and I have them in my 20g QT for new fish acquisitions as it is usually devoid of new fish. It is planted with culls from other tanks, and it runs permanently. A lot of natural live microscopic food will be found in such a tank. My Endler pair obviously spawned, many times now, and I have a dozen or so. I am doing nothing to raise them, just leave it to nature. I feed the fish flake foods daily, just a very small pinch. I have dried oak leaves in the tank, an excellent source of infusoria. The flake food usually has some powder-size bits in it, or you can crush a few with your fingers.

On frozen foods, meaning the purchased ones like bloodworms, daphnia, shrimp...go easy on these. They are best as treats. Worms of any type should only be fed once a week. Daphnia and shrimp are better, but they are extremely low in nutritive value. Prepared foods are much more nutritious. I feed these regularly, with the frozen as a treat after the water changes once a week.

Byron.

 

[AbbeysDad]

+1 on Byron's advice. I'm a 'fan' of Omega One and Almost Natural. Both are made with fresh (or frozen) seafood, not fishmeals.

For fry, simply crush any high quality flake food by rubbing between your thumb and forefinger. Also, you could hatch brine shrimp, but this tends to be a fair piece of work over time. You might get some decapsulated brine shrimp eggs.

I also agree with Byron that the frozen foods that are available should only be used as treats. There simply is not enough nutritional value to depend on these foods alone.

Fish meal, in general, is a dubious concoction, often made from the scrap pieces parts that can't be used for human consumption. It's loaded with preservatives and sits in a warehouse until ordered by a fish food manufacturer. Because it is processed and dried, it requires copious amounts of starch (typically from grains) as a filler/binder. Fish can't process this so it passes through as waste.

Having 'said' all that, I like Cory (Aquarium Co-op) and he's very knowledgeable - I just prefer foods with as little grain fillers as possible.

 

[cowgirluntamed]

Thank you both for the tips!

+1 on Byron's advice. I'm a 'fan' of Omega One and Almost Natural. Both are made with fresh (or frozen) seafood, not fishmeals

Just curious....I looked up the site for Almost Natural and saw the many variety of foods they have, which is amazing. If I decided to try this for tetras, rasboras, endlers, and maybe some cories, which varieties wood you suggest to give them the best diet? Just the regular freshwater formula or would that plus others along with it be good?


I do like watching Cory's videos. I've learned alot about stuff including about plant growth which will hopefully help me out later when I start my tanks again!