Reading fish food labels..

As most of the brands recommended on the forum a lot aren't available where I live, I thought maybe a discussion on fish food labels and nutrition in general could be quite interesting.
This could help anyone trying to determine the quality of a food by reading the labels and looking for specific things listed.


Analytical contents

What sort of composition should a good food for a HV/OV/CV (herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) have? So how much protein, fat etc?

How much fat is too much?

Are high contents in crude ash and fibre a sign of low quality?


Ingredient list

Besides fish meal or ‘by-products’, what other low quality ingredients are there to look out for in the ingredient list?

Are there ingredients like spirulina, garlic etc. that can signal good quality?



If you have any other tips, found threads I might have missed while searching or articles regarding the topic I would gladly hear about them
Nutrition is a key aspect to keeping fish often overlooked imo, so spending that extra euro to provide my fish with a good diet is something I will happily do.

 

Good question. I hope you get some good answers. I am off to read my fish food labels now.

 

In olden days, we ate a meal. It was presented to me on a plate at precise times. (no one has done that for me for decades)!.

I bought 'normal' ADF food. First four ingredients: Fish meal, soybean meal, fish oil, wheat flour. I have an right now, of an ADF, leaning lazily on a grocery cart, while scouring the baking aisle for wheat flour.

I then bought New Life Spectrum Marine Fish 1mm sinking pellets for the ADFs (cories etc!). First four ingredients: Whole antarctic krill, whole fish, whole wheat flour, ulva seaweed. Note that the flour they use is whole wheat.

I think there must be something that is required to process fish food. That's something to take into consideration. Maybe that's where wheat and soybean come into the picture.

 

For herbivores I feed spinach and zucchini, occasional pumpkin or sweat potato (not much luck on the potato). If I'm really worried I have a bag of spirilina I can roll it around in. A fish food company is not going to make better for me.

For breeding live black worms.

When it comes to fish food I do not like the ingredients lists I see on anything. They all like to include corn, wheat, building supplies, soybeans, linoleum, old reactor shielding, etc. Anything they can get cheap that clouds water and does nothing for your fish.. well nothing good. I have had it float a discus for a few days.

I run Omega One flakes because I can buy them in a 5lb bucket for a reasonable price and the fish seem to like it. I do not buy it because they are made with "whole fish fillets". The "whole fish fillets" has actually been shown to be frames, AKA the waste left after processing, not the yummy fillets you buy at Costco. Omega One pellets floated a discus so I do not use those.
The thing is that many of my fish prefer fish foods over real food, like shrimp I have sent through a garlic press. No idea why they like the junk food better.
Even an expensive top end food like Massivore: Fish Meal, Krill meal, BREWERS YEAST, CASAVA STARCH, SOYBEAN MEAL, WHEAT STARCH, fish oil, WHEAT FLOUR, etc so the super expensive carnivore food is made out of things that are not carnivore food. So kind of like wrapping a Snickers bar in a thin sheet of salmon and calling it "carnivore food". The "as many calories as 1.5 feeder goldfish" says nothing about nutrition, it just says they are sugar loading the food. You want big calories you can start feeding your RTC Oreos (It is an RTC it will love Oreos.).

I feed my corries Wardly's shrimp pellets which are mostly not fish food. I was feeding Purina sinking pellets until I though they were causing the weird slime in the tank. I guessed that it was the chicken in them. I still use Purina fry powder because it has better stats than hobbyist fish food (like 10% more protein). I'm going to try the Purina again as I'm not sure it caused the slime. I'm hoping the next test of the sinking pellets turns up no slime as I like the idea of a 50lb bag for 100$.
I'm also working under the idea that commercial fish farm food is sold based on measurable numbers and Hobbyist food is sold based of of how much it shows you love your fish. "If you do not buy CHJ's Ultra Fish Deluxe ++ Flakes you are abusing your fish!! Now with more corn syrup solids and dog hair!". Both still buffer their weight with lots of fillers.

I'd love to find an affordable fish food that is not mainly filler.

 

I wonder how long fish food can sit on the shelf after it is opened and not lose its nutrients. I won a 2.82 oz can of Tetra Tropical Color Flakes and a 1 oz Tetra TetraMin flakes and They have both been open for over a year. Neither has passed its expiration date.

 

As most of the brands recommended on the forum a lot aren't available where I live, I thought maybe a discussion on fish food labels and nutrition in general could be quite interesting.
This could help anyone trying to determine the quality of a food by reading the labels and looking for specific things listed.


Analytical contents

What sort of composition should a good food for a HV/OV/CV (herbivore, omnivore, carnivore) have? So how much protein, fat etc?

How much fat is too much?

Are high contents in crude ash and fibre a sign of low quality?


Ingredient list

Besides fish meal or ‘by-products’, what other low quality ingredients are there to look out for in the ingredient list?

Are there ingredients like spirulina, garlic etc. that can signal good quality?



If you have any other tips, found threads I might have missed while searching or articles regarding the topic I would gladly hear about them
Nutrition is a key aspect to keeping fish often overlooked imo, so spending that extra euro to provide my fish with a good diet is something I will happily do.

The first thing I thought of when thinking about fish food is how much these brands recommend to feed! It’s insane. I personally think it is so you run out of food faster so you have to buy more product. I personally just toss the food at its expiration date. I think the best thing to do for a fish is give them a variety of pellets, freeze dried, live, etc.

 

In my opinion, the %s of the different macros aren't that important. Remember, all food is made up of protein, fat, and carbs. Most dry fish food, regardless of which type of animal it's for (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore) is about 30-40% protein, 6 to 10% fat, and the rest will be carbs. That's pretty standard across the industry, for high quality food like NLS as well as low quality food like Tetra.

I buy dry food based on the first 4 to 5 ingredients. You want to buy food with as much whole and natural ingredients as possible.

For example, a good food uses whole krill, whole squid, whole salmon, seawead, garlic, etc. A poor food uses fish meal, and a lot of fillers like flour, yeast, wheat gluten, potato protein, etc. All fish food uses fillers, but it should be low on the list.

Garlic, spirulina, and other marine algaes are good. They give good nutrients that fish won't get from eating low quality foods.

Also, give them a range of foods. A few types of dry food, frozen food, veggies, etc.