Lets talk about food.

For years I have been feeding hikari staple and gold to my c/s americans untill someone pointed out that there is msg in it I swore by there products. Since I found there was msg in it I started to look around at other foods. One of the places I came across was kens fish foods. So I did a bunch of reading on the stuff and I found a lot of good recomendations for his foods so I made a large purchase that included his cichlid pellets in a few diffrent sizes, his tropical flakes, and his vegetable flakes. I will first go on a price bases here. I figured that half a pound of his pellets when ordered in bulk is less then 4 dollars, shipping isent bad at all and I was satisfied when it showed up only 4 days after I put in the order rather then the expected 7. The food comes in individually sealed half pound bags to retain there freshness. Also the ingredients are listed on the bags so you know what your feeding your fish. Now the real test is how do the fish like it. Well I have a pair of firemouths that have been on hikari along with frozen for almost 5 years and they were the hardest ones to get to eat the pellets. It was like they thought that food was intended for someone else. But after the other fish went for them they followed suit. The fish would grab there first mouthfull and spit it out instantly, I think this was beacuase it was unfamilliar to them after doing this a few times for the first couple of feedings they took to it with no problem. As far as the flake goes my boxers really liked the first half pound of tropical flakes and my fish only had about three feedings of this before my dogs got ahold of it (man it made there farts smell so bad). Its a good thing I got a few pounds there was no hesitaion from any of my fish when eating these, they come in standard flake for at the bottom but at the top they are in sheats that are crushed down for smaller fishes. From my sun cat and pictus cat to all the cichlids (even the big guys) to my tetras and livebearers this food is loved by all (and with the exception of my catfish, never hits the bottom of the tank). The next product was the vegetable flakes. It came pakaged in the same fashion as the tropical flake. I got this one for my viejas and other like cichlids that need large amounts of vegetable manner in there diet. Just like the tropical flake it is love by all with the exception of the few sole carnivores who don't care for it much but still pick at it a little. I am pleased with the product and will be ordering from him again in about 6 months. I will add to this if I notice any real changes in my fish: color enhancement, eating more or less etc. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have questions.

I've heard pretty good things about Ken's food, although I haven't used it myself. I've had good luck with NLS - grow for the fry, 1mm pellets for the smaller fish and the dwarfs, and 3mm pellets for the mature fish. Plus algae wafers - while most of mine like the pellets, they also like to snack on the wafers afterward.

I thought about trying nls, and kensfish.com actually sells it. I might order some on my next order along with the pellets I got this time just to give them some more variaty. I hear good things about nls as well. It seems that I read its really good for color.

I have been using Omega One and have been very satisfied with the results. I use the medium Cichlid floating pellet and Algae Wafers. I notice very little mess with these products. They hold together very well and the fish readily accepted them. On line sales and pricing make this an easy choice.

I have tried Hikari Gold & Bio-Gold and my fish did not like it even after a little "fasting" time. This is odd to me because Ive used it in the past and have always had success with it. My fish were all raised on Omega One so they just seem to like it better.

I recently purchased some NLS large sinking pellet and was not very happy with it. 1st - The whole color improvement with 10 days of exclusive feeding - not even a smidgen of change. And yes I followed the "exclusive" instructions. 2nd - The stuff reeks! It stinks to high heaven; maybe that's why my pleco would come out of hiding as soon as the stuff hits the water. 3rd - Falls apart and makes a mess in water; NLS tells you its because the pellets are too big, use smaller pellets. Nonsense, my fish swallow whole a larger Omega One pellet with no problem. They just dont like the taste/texture of the food and create a big mess of it. 4th - As you drop the food in, look for the surface scum off the food as it floats for a second. Wow that is gross, I need a protein skimmer just to feed this stuff! Needless to say I dont like this product. The fish are not even that excited by it; except the pleco who just love the stink of it.

Nice info, great review of the product. I still have to try it to see if my fish like it. But I will keep my protien skimmer at the ready. Thanks for making a contribution to the topic. I thought " well I guess there are two people who care about what they feed there c. Americans. Lol

I use Ken's Fish food exclusively, my fish love it. As the OP stated it ships fast and the prices are really good.

i only give ADA food to my fish, but i dont recomend it because of the price, admittedly i spoil my fish.

just as long - variety of foods are supplied, no need to choose a name brand nor main ingredients. A single source of any food cannot suppliment a proper diet, unless its mixed with a blender and prepared, accordingly.

but

feeding fishes or a fish different foods based on the time of feeding; i think is acceptable.

+1 protocl i do feed my fish ADA as a staple, but i also feed other pelets and 1nce week bloodworms.

Ok, my tropheus are vegetarians, and it was hard to find a good vege pellet.. I was previously using HBH Spirulina Super Soft vege pellets, but now have found dainichi baby pellets... my fish LOVE IT!!! They devour every drop before it hits the ground, which Ive never had them do that before..... also, after I just started using it 4 days ago, I already got my kasanga breeding... I know it comes in several different types, not just vege only, would recommend it to everyone
Other than that HBH vegeflake has worked well too. Not sure if either of my food choices have MSG, but I eat MSG, so I figure they can have some too.

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protocl wrote:just as long - variety of foods are supplied, no need to choose a name brand nor main ingredients. A single source of any food cannot suppliment a proper diet, unless its mixed with a blender and prepared, accordingly.

but

feeding fishes or a fish different foods based on the time of feeding; i think is acceptable.

True. I was referring to pre packaged foods I use. I do a lot of blender work to give a good variety of foods.

I love ken's food. When I had my African tank they got the spirlina flake, fresh veggies, some frozen foods and I hardly had any issues. My saltwater fish also love it. My corals even enjoy the golden pearls... My plecos enjoy a good mix of his food as well. All I have to do is place one big order a year and I am set. The food stays fresh in it's half pound bags so it is always good to go. My cats love it too, don't ever leave it open. One day I did and then found them eating this nice pile of fish food that was on the floor, it was great, what a mess.

Freya wrote: My cats love it too, don't ever leave it open. One day I did and then found them eating this nice pile of fish food that was on the floor, it was great, what a mess.

My cat got into my bucket of NLS when I left the room to get the smaller jars that I refill from the bucket.
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I've never had any problems with the NLS. I feed it as my main food. I also like to add fresh vegetables for my mbuna.

Ok i will just give a little update on my experiance with kens fish food. To this day my fish still love it very much they, I have been feeding on a very balanced diet and I have seen no major change. Some of the fish have colored up just a touch more but they were all really nice to begin with so I dont think the food is the reason for that. I measured all of the fish and feed them 1 time a day with kens pellets and once a day with any of the following: brine shrimp, blood worms, kens veggie flakes, and live feeders from my breeding stock of swordtails. In the last 2 and a half months my jag, black belt, and nic have all grown 3/4 of an inch. My friedrichsthallii has grown 1 inch. And my fenestrautus has grown 1 1/4 inch. I do water change every 2 weeks at 50+ percent. I will be getting some NLS in a week and do a similar project with that and see what happens. I have a new young jag and a young group of cutteri, a young group of panamensis, and a young unidentified parachromis I am going to run the next project on. I will also be mixing some of the nls to my kens fish pelets and feeding that to my larger fish. And will let everyone know if i get the "awesome color up" that so many people claim to get from this product.

When I run the NLS project it will be with fish that have a water change almost every day at 50% so the growth rate will be much faster. Further more I am starting with much smaller and younger fish this time around. I will post some more info when I get my NLS and I plan on putting together a more in depth post for the kens fish food project and giving my own personal and unbiased, fair report of my experiance with it.

I want to make it clear that I am not trying to start a thread about what fish food is better, or worse. Just running my own personal food project to see what my fish like the best and recording the out come in the eye of other fish keeper. for those that have read and contributed thank you, I am going to be putting all of my findings in the "Fish Diaries" section as I complete each project, and will go in depth with my outcome there. but will also post a more simpler version here for those who dont want to read the ingredent list, exact starting an finishing sizes, test results for water quality, water changing schudule and approx. water changed etc etc........

Anyway thanks again for the read and I am sorry if I bore you all to death.

Anthony

Sounds like a fun project! Keep us updated!

Love to hear your observations, Anthony. Do keep them coming!

I'm really interested to see the results also.

I have always fed NLS, but recently ordered some Ken's (veggie flakes and pellets) and something that I've noticed when feeding it to my young plecos is that they produce more waste (poop ) with the Ken's which leads me to assume that there are more unusable ingredients in the Ken's food. I don't know if that's correct or not, but it will be interesting to see if you notice the same thing.

NLS thera A is a staple food in my fish room, I prefer the thera A because of the added garlic, it makes for healthier fish. I also feed spirulina 20 by aquatrol, its the best flake food I have found so far, 20% spirulina and lots of other good stuff in it, everyone eats it.
I also feed frozen blood worms, brine shrimp, daphnia for fry, cyclops-eeze for juvies. Live black worms.
Carnivore pellets, massivore pellets, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, veggie flake, brine shrimp flake... thats all I can remember off the top of my head at the moment, I'm sure that I'm missing quite a few foods.
I know this is for American cichlids and mine are mostly Africans but I thought I would chime in anyways I always have 10-15 different kinds of foods on hand, I believe in variety when it comes to feeding. I know I wouldn't want to eat the same thing all the time

I have always been a big fan of variety as well but for porposes of these tests I am using only one staple, As opposed to the several that I useually use. The only veriaty they see is in frozen and live but that too is just a part of being one of my fish. I feel that I am able to tell if there are any noticable changes in my fish that will directly be related to the staple part of there diet. I rant and rave to people on another forum that I frequent about how variety is the largest contributing factor to great looking fish and that sticking to one staple is just grounds for a dietary defincency. I belive in using three or more brands of staple foods mixed together as well as difrent types of food (ie: veggie, spirulina, shrimp based, fish based) and using this to make up the fish's staple diet. And then changing that too after a while. And that is how I have been feeding my fish for over a decade now.

As far as the amount of waste goes from feeding kens fish food; I did notice something similiar, it just seemed there was an adjusting period after around 3 weeks or so they started to poop normal again, but honestly nobody can sit in front of there tank all day to catch poo before it hits and mixes into the substrate and weight it. So what I noticed was more often not more in mass. But who knows like I said I dident weight it. This too will be mentioned in my journal when I get around to typing it up.

Thanks alot to all those who have shown intrest in this, it is kinda fun to do, and keeps my "need" to set up 1000 more aquariums at bay untill I get a bigger house. Im trying to keep myself busy with fish research, and testing out products. So thank you for your support.