Good marine food

Aries360 · Feb 12, 2023

Hello everyone. I’m sure this question has been brought up a million times but I’m not doing frozen food anymore because I don’t feel it’s necessary other than every once in a while for a treat but does anyone have objections to my variety for health reasons of the fish. Main problem would be the Queen angel. The rest I’m sure can eat whatever. Pic is what I feed now plus nori. THOUGHTS?

Zach B · Feb 12, 2023

I think some of the better frozen foods have a greater variety of ingredients and possibly nutrition. I try to feed frozen and different pellet foods.

Zach B · Feb 12, 2023

The foods you are feeding are very good but I prefer to feed either LRS or Rods when I can. My auto feeders are filled with a mixture of different pellet food. Best of luck

ISpeakForTheSeas · Feb 12, 2023

Zach B said:
I think some of the better frozen foods have a greater variety of ingredients and possibly nutrition. I try to feed frozen and different pellet foods.

This is an important point - it’s not so much the kind of food or the variety of food as much as it is the nutrition of the food. From what I’ve seen, most marine species need a ton of protein (~60%; anything over 50% is probably decent, anything less then 50% and I would consider it to need supplemental protein) and relatively little fat (~10-15%) to get into peak physical condition (i.e. breeding condition), but the protein and fat contents alone aren’t enough to make a food healthy, as they don’t guarantee the food has all of the right vitamins, minerals, fatty acid profiles, etc. So, going with a food that has a wide range of ingredients in it is a relatively safe way of ensuring proper nutrition beyond just the protein and fat.

So, that said, I completely agree with Zach B’s points above - the foods you’re offering are good foods, but (from what I’ve seen) LRS’s frozen foods are pretty much the best foods available on the market (by dry weight, ~63% protein, ~14% fat, and a broad range of healthy foods included in the frozen).

As far as pellet foods go, NLS and TDO seem to be the best (at least out of the ones I’ve looked at), but even these aren’t quite (IMO) as good as the LRS line.

ISpeakForTheSeas said:
With regards to the moisture and protein content, when looking at foods for pets (fish, cats, dogs, etc.), it's a good idea to look at the dry matter basis of the guaranteed analysis. To state it simply, frozen foods and wet foods show super low protein and fat contents on their guaranteed analysis labels when compared to dry foods - this isn't because they're lower quality or less healthy, it's just that they have more moisture in the mix. To compare apples to apples protein and fat of frozen/wet vs dry foods, you take the dry matter basis of each factor (protein on its own and fat on its own once you've accounted for moisture).

For example, San Francisco Bay Brand Frozen Spirulina Brine Shrimp lists the following guaranteed analysis:
Crude Protein (Min): 3.7%
Crude Fat (Min): 1.2%
Crude Fiber (Max): 1.6%
Moisture (Max): 94.8%
Ash (Max): 0.2%
Phosphorus (Min): 0.1%

Looks very not nutritious. But, when you account for the moisture by taking the dry matter basis, you realize that that 3.7% protein is 3.7 out of 5.2 (the actual amount of food in the pack; i.e. the percent of the food that isn't moisture like the water used to hold the frozen food together or to keep the meat in the cat food can fresh). So, looking at the dry matter basis, 3.7/5.2 = 0.71 (rounded for simplicity's sake) - times this by 100 to get the percentage and you get a dry matter basis of 71% Crude Protein content. So, while it looks unhealthy at first glance, when you look at just the food in the food packet and not the moisture plus the food, you find out that the food is actually fairly healthy.

Because of this, a lot of frozen/wet pet foods look worthless at first glance, but some of them are actually top of the line foods when compared to dry foods this way. The only real downside of frozen/wet foods is that - because of the high moisture content - you might not always be getting as much food pound for pound as buying dry (i.e. one lb of dry food is going to have a lot more actual food in the container than one lb of frozen/wet food because of the lower moisture content). This really just means that frozen/wet foods are generally more expensive.

TLDR: Frozen/wet pet foods look unhealthy, but, accounting for moisture, they're usually high quality. They're just expensive too.