Just pellets..

[ReeferHi]

Would it be possible once you trained your fish to eat pellets, to switch to a pellet only diet?
It just seems to me that pellets are way more nutritious than frozen food.

 

[AAAReefing]

Would it be possible once you trained your fish to eat pellets, to switch to a pellet only diet?
It just seems to me that pellets are way more nutritious than frozen food.

Yes but it's better to feed a variety of foods or at least a variety of pellets for nutrition, as one pellet can't have every single little thing the fish needs.

 

[Doctorgori]

that “juice” / particulates given off by frozen cubes has some benefit: to a point …
Also soft stuff is sometimes more palatable than hard lil pellet balls….
I think you are gonna find the consensus will be a mix

 

[Duane family]

Would it be possible once you trained your fish to eat pellets, to switch to a pellet only diet?
It just seems to me that pellets are way more nutritious than frozen food.

It depends what fish you are referring to. If you referring to tangs then absolutely yes, formula 2 pellets are fantastic at providing a tang with all its nutritional requirements. For large angels again formula 2 is going to do 85% of the job. But there are some species where this won't work.

In general for a mixed group of fish perhaps the right pellet can see you reduce the frozen feed by a significant amount possibly by 90% but there are benefits in the protein which frozen foods provide, this doesn't mean that the pellet formulas don't have proteins.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Would it be possible once you trained your fish to eat pellets, to switch to a pellet only diet?
It just seems to me that pellets are way more nutritious than frozen food.

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

Yes, it is possible. Whether a pellet is more nutritious than a frozen food or not depends on the specific pellet and frozen food involved - generally speaking, though, frozen foods are more nutritious. (Though are certainly some good pellets on the market.)

For part of why frozen is generally more nutritious (it also preserves some nutrients that get destroyed by the heat involved in the pelleting process):

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.

For the short version of determining if a feed is good or not:

TLDR:

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).

-A variety of good ingredients (things like salmon, clams, Ulva, etc.).
-High protein (50%+ minimum by dry weight, preferably closer to 60%+).
-A moderate amount of fat (10-15% by dry weight, preferably closer to 13 or 14%).
-Avoid excess starches, grains, and carbs (important with pellets and flakes).

For the long version:

Personally, I look at data available on successful aquaculture and rearing diets for a variety of different species (including some fishery fish) and compare their info to find the commonalities between them. From doing that, I reached the conclusions below (the big picture is relatively easy; the small details get tricky even when working with a single species):

Given that most aquaculture places use one, stable diet (using one feed and not switching feeds) for the broodstock of each species they work with and that fish need to be in basically peak physical condition to breed successfully, I'd say that a variety of feeds isn't always the best nutritionally.

One, good, quality feed is likely going to be better in a lot of situations.

That said, the best feeds for fish generally do have a good variety of ingredients (typically containing things like fish, crustaceans like shrimp or krill, bivalves, and different kinds of algae); the key is using ingredients that meet the various nutritional needs for most fish in the right quantities - as mentioned, some fish will need more/different kinds of meaty foods, some need more algae or a wider variety/different kind of algae, some may need sponges in their diet, etc., but in a reef tank setting with a wide range of fish, it's probably easier to feed a good quality "general/carnivore" fish feed and supplement it as needed for those fish with special dietary requirements (this is most commonly seen here when people feed frozen/pellets and supplement it with algae by offering nori to accommodate herbivores).

As a quick note here, not all ingredients (fish, crustaceans, bivalves, algae, etc.) are equally good - each species of fish, crustacean, bivalve, algae, etc. has its own nutritional profile/makeup; some fish will benefit more from some species than others (lion king discusses this in a few of their threads on predator nutrition here on R2R and Jay touched on this a bit above), but a few generalizations can be made (for example, salmon is almost always a good choice, same with clams of just about any kind, and with Ulva and Graciliaria and Halymenia macroalgae from what I've seen). The ingredients can also have a noticeable impact on the coloration of fish (which is why a lot of companies like to note that their feed contains astaxanthin and spirulina).

So, when considering feeds, as Jay said:

The diet must also have the proper balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates, as well as the proper amount of vitamins and minerals.

From what I’ve seen, for the best health in fish, you want a variety of good ingredients, high protein (50%+ minimum by dry weight, preferably closer to 60%+), and a moderate amount of fat (10-15% by dry weight, preferably closer to 13 or 14%).

You want to consider the dry matter basis analysis for the protein, fat, etc. content of a feed (i.e. you want to look at how much protein, fat, etc. is in a feed once you get rid of the moisture in the feed - this is especially important for evaluating frozen feeds), and you want to consider the ingredients of the feed (too many grains and/or carbs is a no go - fish aren't designed to handle grains and carbs like humans do - and you want a good variety of ingredients to try and ensure that the feed contains the vitamins and minerals your fish need).

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).

*Source:
https://www.researchgate.net/public...growth_glucose_metabolism_and_hepatic_enzymes

Unfortunately, foods that have good amounts of protein and fat rarely contain good amounts of algae (algae isn't really high in protein or fat, so adding a significant amount to the meaty feeds really lowers the percent totals). Personally, for best health, I would take a really high quality meaty feed and add a good variety of algae to supplement it/add an algae heavy feed to supplement it to get a good balance for any herbivores in the tank.

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).

LRS has a higher protein content while Rod’s has higher fat (~59% protein and ~13% fat for LRS Reef Frenzy, ~53% protein and ~15% fat for Rod’s Original).

As a side note here, I'm actually quite impressed by Hikari's Mega Marine line there; I haven't looked at that line in depth before, but it says it has a 75% dry protein content and - depending on the specific blend in the line (regular, angel, and algae) - a 10-15% dry fat content with solid/good ingredients. The only thing that I see that I wish they had in the mix is some kind of fish (LRS Reef Frenzy has Ocean Perch and Whitefish, for example) and, for the algae blend, some kind of bivalve or two. For comparison, LRS Reef Frenzy - according to their lab test results on their site - has 59.1% dry protein and 12.7% dry fat.

(There are some other good feeds on the market too - I'll need to update my above list at some point.)

Edit: Just to add as a final note - herbivorous fish (like some tangs, for example) and predatory fish (like lionfish or eels, for examples) will need different diets than most fish.

 

[ReeferHi]

wow guys thank you all for taking the time to answer a nooby (me) on the forum.

@ISpeakForTheSeas I will check out all the links you provided.

I am willing to buy the best quality pellets and I will feed frozen food as well. To answer @Duane family questoin, it's for goby's, blenny's, jawfish and clown fish. And the reason I ask this is not because I don't want to give them a mixed diet. It's in case I am going an holiday for a couple weeks. In that case it's way more convenient to be able to set up an autofeeder than to ask someone to come over. Unfortunately we don't have caretaker services here as well and I wanted to be sure they can actually survive a couple weeks on pellets.

 

[Duane family]

wow guys thank you all for taking the time to answer a nooby (me) on the forum.

@ISpeakForTheSeas I will check out all the links you provided.

I am willing to buy the best quality pellets and I will feed frozen food as well. To answer @Duane family questoin, it's for goby's, blenny's, jawfish and clown fish. And the reason I ask this is not because I don't want to give them a mixed diet. It's in case I am going an holiday for a couple weeks. In that case it's way more convenient to be able to set up an autofeeder than to ask someone to come over. Unfortunately we don't have caretaker services here as well and I wanted to be sure they can actually survive a couple weeks on pellets.

That's a challenging mix and I don't believe 1 pellet will work. For those guys you will have to mix the feed and also live food in the tank will also play a big role in their nutrition

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Would it be possible once you trained your fish to eat pellets, to switch to a pellet only diet?
It just seems to me that pellets are way more nutritious than frozen food.

Fisheries scientists raise some fish through their entire life cycle on just pellets. A high quality pellet is going to be more nutritious than any single frozen food item. Pellets are not as palatable/attractive to some fish though.

A little story: I have a Darwin clown that is going on three years with NLS pellets as the sole food and it’s doing great.

 

[ReeferHi]

That's a challenging mix and I don't believe 1 pellet will work. For those guys you will have to mix the feed and also live food in the tank will also play a big role in their nutrition

Multiple different pellets would be fine. After your comment, I have done some more research and it seems that the gobies and blennies can survive a couple of weeks on pellet food but the firefish would be the problem. So I will leave that one out.

So far on my 55-gallon stocking list:

1 pair of clown fish
1 watchman goby/ pistol shrimp pair
1 Orange spot blenny
1 diamond goby

and a bunch of invertebrates/crustaceans.

If there is any other fish that is reef-safe and known for eating pellet food (and can survive for 2-3 weeks on solely pellet food a year) please feel free to suggest any.

Fisheries scientists raise some fish through their entire life cycle on just pellets. A high quality pellet is going to be more nutritious than any single frozen food item. Pellets are not as palatable/attractive to some fish though.

A little story: I have a Darwin clown that is going on three years with NLS pellets as the sole food and it’s doing great.

Thank you! I will look into these.

 

[Duane family]

Multiple different pellets would be fine. After your comment, I have done some more research and it seems that the gobies and blennies can survive a couple of weeks on pellet food but the firefish would be the problem. So I will leave that one out.

So far on my 55-gallon stocking list:

1 pair of clown fish
1 watchman goby/ pistol shrimp pair
1 Orange spot blenny
1 diamond goby

and a bunch of invertebrates/crustaceans.

If there is any other fish that is reef-safe and known for eating pellet food (and can survive for 2-3 weeks on solely pellet food a year) please feel free to suggest any.


Thank you! I will look into these.

Well done for taking the time to do research and ask before you commit.

As for the fire fish, I currently have a pair in quarantine and although I kept/sold these in the shop years ago this is the first time I am adding them to a tank of my own. Through the observations so far I can see that they are 100% water column feeders and not likely to feed off sunken pellets. But small sized flakes they eat from the water column at nearly the same pace as a chromis. This is common with fish that in their natural habitat basically remain more or less stationary in their position above the reef structure and pick off food particles which pass by in the current stream. Just last night I was at the QT tank observing the fish now in QT and I realized how incredibly beautiful these fire fish are.

As for suggestions towards the stock list I'm not much of a small fish person so I really don't know what to suggest. It seems like you have figured out what will work best for your system and livestock in a very sensible way and I'm sure you will make it work for you.

 

[Paul B]

A little story: I have a Darwin clown that is going on three years with NLS pellets as the sole food and it’s doing great.

Good Morning Jay. I have two clownfish that have never ate any pellets or dry foods and they are going on 35 years old.

I personally would not feed any pellets to any fish. Of course they will keep your fish alive but pellets, no matter how "good" they are supposed to be all have preservatives, most are baked and none have any living gut bacteria that controls a fishes immunity.

They may have more nutrients than some frozen food but all fish in the sea eat fish or fresh seafoods, none of them lived on pellets.

 

[ReeferHi]

Well done for taking the time to do research and ask before you commit.

As for the fire fish, I currently have a pair in quarantine and although I kept/sold these in the shop years ago this is the first time I am adding them to a tank of my own. Through the observations so far I can see that they are 100% water column feeders and not likely to feed off sunken pellets. But small sized flakes they eat from the water column at nearly the same pace as a chromis. This is common with fish that in their natural habitat basically remain more or less stationary in their position above the reef structure and pick off food particles which pass by in the current stream. Just last night I was at the QT tank observing the fish now in QT and I realized how incredibly beautiful these fire fish are.

As for suggestions towards the stock list I'm not much of a small fish person so I really don't know what to suggest. It seems like you have figured out what will work best for your system and livestock in a very sensible way and I'm sure you will make it work for you.

That's good to know! Flakes are also something that can be provided through an auto-feeder in case I go on holiday. I keep freshwater fish now but recently bought an aio reef tank and before I begin I want to know everything I need to know. Starting with small fish and who knows maybe one day bigger fish like you

Good Morning Jay. I have two clownfish that have never ate any pellets or dry foods and they are going on 35 years old.

I personally would not feed any pellets to any fish. Of course they will keep your fish alive but pellets, no matter how "good" they are supposed to be all have preservatives, most are baked and none have any living gut bacteria that controls a fishes immunity.

They may have more nutrients than some frozen food but all fish in the sea eat fish or fresh seafoods, none of them lived on pellets.

For me personally this is only for the 2-3 weeks a year I need my holiday. So that I know my fish can survive on pellets and flakes for a couple of weeks. Although you are right and they don't eat those in nature, they are of course also not as advanced as humans and maybe we have learned to create better food for them in the progress. In comparison, If you compare dog food from 50 years ago to some of the superfoods today, they have progressed significantly. Maybe human research has the same effect on fish food.

 

[Paul B]

For a few weeks, any food is fine. Most fish will eat and live on tissue paper soaked in clam juice. (for a few weeks anyway)

Most fish (but not all) can go without eating anything for a month or many months.

 

[ReeferHi]

For a few weeks, any food is fine. Most fish will eat and live on tissue paper soaked in clam juice. (for a few weeks anyway)

Most fish (but not all) can go without eating anything for a month or many

Thank you, noted!

 

[Spare time]

Most of my fish have lived primarily off of ocean nutrition prime reef flakes. My current fish eats PE pellets.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Good Morning Jay. I have two clownfish that have never ate any pellets or dry foods and they are going on 35 years old.

I personally would not feed any pellets to any fish. Of course they will keep your fish alive but pellets, no matter how "good" they are supposed to be all have preservatives, most are baked and none have any living gut bacteria that controls a fishes immunity.

They may have more nutrients than some frozen food but all fish in the sea eat fish or fresh seafoods, none of them lived on pellets.

Well, you are in disagreement with fisheries scientists then about prepared foods! I'll side with their research though.

 

[Cool tangs]

I feed mostly pellets and Nori for the tangs. Some times they gets some frozen or live treats. My fish are fat. I lose track of time, oldest fish might be like 5 years now maybe more

If I could get a picture of my blue tang, the tank garbage disposal. He/she is one wide fish

 

[JayM]

That's good to know! Flakes are also something that can be provided through an auto-feeder in case I go on holiday. I keep freshwater fish now but recently bought an aio reef tank and before I begin I want to know everything I need to know. Starting with small fish and who knows maybe one day bigger fish like you

Just keep in mind that flakes rarely dispense consistently in auto feeders due to the size and shape variations of the flakes. Worst case scenario is that a big flake will block the hole and not dispense anything at all.

I personally only use pellets in the auto feeder when I'm on vacation.

 

[Paul B]

Well, you are in disagreement with fisheries scientists then about prepared foods!

LOL, that is certainly true Jay, But I disagree with a lot of people, scientists included.

I would like to ask the fish if they would rather eat dry pellets or fresh seafood.

I would also like to speak to the scientists who have "very" old, immune fish who don't have to worry about diseases. Scientists don't impress me when it comes to fish keeping.

Maybe rocket scientists, surgeons, metallurgists, computer technicians or Taylor Swift, but not something as variable as fish keeping where experience counts way more than sitting in a classroom for 4 or 5 years listening to a professor who may never have had a fish.

(Scientists thought the world was flat for a thousand years before we learned it is square)

I also disagreed with those guys we refer to many times, Burgess and that other guy.

They knew all about parasites but as far as I know, didn't have an old or any fish tank besides the 6 week old ones in their lab where they probably listened to Rap music and drank herbal tea.

If a scientist told me rabbits could live on just carrots for 15 years, then I met a guy with 35 year old rabbits that only ate bananas, and I wanted to keep rabbits, I would be stocking up on bananas. ,

I'm not that smart. Certainly no scientist, but, I didn't have to go to college, I was wise enough already But I have 2 patents, wrote 2 books and have a really old, immune fish tank. If I went to college I may only have only 1 patent and only wrote one children's book, but the spelling would be correct.

I still love and respect you Jay. Scientists also, but not in an icky way.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

LOL, that is certainly true Jay, But I disagree with a lot of people, scientists included.

I would like to ask the fish if they would rather eat dry pellets or fresh seafood.

I would also like to speak to the scientists who have "very" old, immune fish who don't have to worry about diseases. Scientists don't impress me when it comes to fish keeping.

Maybe rocket scientists, surgeons, metallurgists, computer technicians or Taylor Swift, but not something as variable as fish keeping where experience counts way more than sitting in a classroom for 4 or 5 years listening to a professor who may never have had a fish.

(Scientists thought the world was flat for a thousand years before we learned it is square)

I also disagreed with those guys we refer to many times, Burgess and that other guy.

They knew all about parasites but as far as I know, didn't have an old or any fish tank besides the 6 week old ones in their lab where they probably listened to Rap music and drank herbal tea.

If a scientist told me rabbits could live on just carrots for 15 years, then I met a guy with 35 year old rabbits that only ate bananas, and I wanted to keep rabbits, I would be stocking up on bananas. ,

I'm not that smart. Certainly no scientist, but, I didn't have to go to college, I was wise enough already But I have 2 patents, wrote 2 books and have a really old, immune fish tank. If I went to college I may only have only 1 patent and only wrote one children's book, but the spelling would be correct.

I still love and respect you Jay. Scientists also, but not in an icky way.

But if you ignore research, you cannot move ahead or incorporate new or refined methods!

There is a risk of “over-extrapolation” with research, where a person reads an abstract from a paper and then misapplies that information.

In this case though, nutritional results from research are already being applied to formulate diets in fish husbandry. Look up Mazuri fish diets.