Thank you. Could you explain why you all prefer TDO so much? I'm not an expert obviously but over the years keeping freshwater tanks, the emphasis on nutrition was on whole foods over meals, starches, etc.
Looking at something like TDO, the ingredients are fish meal, krill meal, squid meal, fish oil, red algae, wheat flour, potato starch, brewers yeast, etc.
Isn't this far inferior to something like NLS Marine, with ingredients: whole antarctic krill, giant squid, whole wheat flour, whole menhaden fish, chlorella, ulva, wakame, kelp, etc?
Am I missing something? Thanks!
TDO is one of those that has a lot of good results backing it (as described above), and, nutritionally, it is one of the best pellet feeds on the market. That said, the pellet feeds available leave a bit to be desired.
With regards to the whole foods vs. meals and starches: whole is generally ideal, but meals may be made using the whole fish/squid/etc., depending on how it's processed. If it is made with the whole item, then the meal could be just as good as the whole (though it's not necessarily, which is why I say whole is generally ideal). The real issue with meals is that you don't know what all goes into them - it could be the whole fish and a bunch of healthy fish species, it could be basically all the trash parts of nutritionally worthless species, or it could be anything in between.
The flours and starches basically provide calories that the nutrient dense meals, oils, etc. in the feed may lack while helping the pellets stay together in the water (so it's meant to provide the energy while the rest of the food provides nutrition), but you're right that these are not healthy in excess. The excess carbs from too much starch have been shown to cause a variety of different health issues and weakened immune systems (dependent on fish species, natural diet, etc.).* So, starches in moderation are fine, but when overdone, they definitely can cause issues. Whether or not TDO and similar pellets have enough starch to cause these issues is a fair question that would require some pretty intensive research to figure out. Based on the results TDO gives, I would assume that, if it has too much starch, it only has slightly too much (meaning that real issues likely wouldn't be seen for years).
My understanding is that newer (superior) pelleting methods don't require as much starch to keep them together as older methods do, but I've heard that older methods are still largely the norm for the fish keeping industry.
For the other aspects of good nutrition in feeds, look at dry matter basis protein and fat contents; the kinds of fats in the feed; and other nutrients, micronutrients, vitamins, minerals, etc. in the feed, such as thiaminase and vitamin B1 (these two examples are particularly important to be aware of when dealing with predatory fish).
With regards to TDO vs NLS pellets: TDO has a better protein and fat content, but NLS - having so many types of algae in it - is likely somewhat superior with regards to micronutrients and such. Personally, I've taken to recommending both, with the TDO (or Otohime pellets) being the main feed to get the big picture nutritional profile from the protein and fat, but supplemented with the NLS pellets to cover the minute details (micronutrients and such) side of things.
From what I can tell, the best feeds on the market are currently as follows:
Personally, my suggested feeds would be as follows (I apologize, I haven't looked into frozen algae-heavy feeds enough to have one that I would suggest at this point; I'll have to remedy that):
Frozen (Meaty) - LRS Reef Frenzy, Hikari Mega Marine, then Rod's Original.
Pellets (Meaty) - Otohime, then TDO Chromaboost.
Pellets (Algal) - NLS Marine Fish Pellets (has 8 types of algae and one terrestrial plant).
If you want more info, I can drop some links, but this feels unnecessarily long at this point, so I'll hold off unless requested.
*Source:
