What is the best food for goldfish?
- Thread starter katschamne
- Start date
I don't like the added preservatives in Omega One, or the artificial colors in every pellet and flake food they make.
I feed my fancies a mixture of TetraFin flakes and TetraFin BioGold pellets, the latter contain carotenoids to bring out their colour more intensely.
I feed them freezedried bloodworms once a week, and live bloodworms or water Daphnia once every two weeks.
I give them fresh veggies 3 times a week.
They are happy little fishies : )
I feed them freezedried bloodworms once a week, and live bloodworms or water Daphnia once every two weeks.
I give them fresh veggies 3 times a week.
They are happy little fishies : )
Do you have anything of higher quality available to you? New Life Spectrum is available in many shops now and online on multiple websites. ProGold is supposed to be just as good. Hikari Lionhead would be quite a step up from Tetra as well.
The thing I don't like about Tetra is their ingredient splitting - I notice they use a ton of starch and split just about everything so it looks as though fish is the first ingredient in the food. Here are the first few ingredients:
Also, they use red, yellow and blue dyes, many of which have been found to be carcinogenic.
The above quote came from this thread, which I found extremely useful. They break down most commercial foods by ingredient, percentage, vitamins...
http://thegab.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3662&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I do wish these were compiled into tables to make them easier to read, though.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "preservatives" in OmegaOne, reptile. They use ethoxyquin like nearly all commercial foods, including New Life Spectrum. In fact, the FDA requires it to be added to all fish meal, unless the company applies for a special permit to exclude it. I'm not sure about the "natural and artificial colors" in OmegaOne, but I suspect that is probably astaxanthin, derived from krill and spirulina, which is added to many other commercial foods, even some gel foods.
I'd love to try the Mazuri gel foods, but I don't have a blender right now. It would be so nice to control exactly what I put in their food, not just supplement their diet. Even the best commercial foods are still... well, commercial and highly processed.
Notice that yeast, corn starch, wheat gluten, brown rice, soybean meal are all up there with the fish meal - by percentage, the food is mostly starch, not mostly fish-derived ingredients. I think you might get more fish in cat food!
Also, they use red, yellow and blue dyes, many of which have been found to be carcinogenic.
The above quote came from this thread, which I found extremely useful. They break down most commercial foods by ingredient, percentage, vitamins...
http://thegab.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3662&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I do wish these were compiled into tables to make them easier to read, though.
I'm not sure what you mean by the "preservatives" in OmegaOne, reptile. They use ethoxyquin like nearly all commercial foods, including New Life Spectrum. In fact, the FDA requires it to be added to all fish meal, unless the company applies for a special permit to exclude it. I'm not sure about the "natural and artificial colors" in OmegaOne, but I suspect that is probably astaxanthin, derived from krill and spirulina, which is added to many other commercial foods, even some gel foods.
I'd love to try the Mazuri gel foods, but I don't have a blender right now. It would be so nice to control exactly what I put in their food, not just supplement their diet. Even the best commercial foods are still... well, commercial and highly processed.
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Omega One includes ethoxyquin and tocopherol. I emailed asking about these. I wanted to know if the ethoxyquin was just in the meals as required by law or added to the food as a whole. I got no response at all (generally means the bad possibility).
In the ingredients it lists "natural and artificial colors". I would consider the extracts named as natural (but I am not sure if the law does) so it sounds like there may be more to it than that (like the ones listed for Tetra possibly). I also asked about that in the email, as stated no response (again may mean the bad possibility).
If it is not the case I would love to know (hence why I asked). But as it stands I have to assume their silence is for a reason and that the food, although better than Tetra and many others, is not as good as many other possibilities.
The ethoxyquin in NLS is only in the meals as required by law, not added to the food in general, they just admit it is there.
In the ingredients it lists "natural and artificial colors". I would consider the extracts named as natural (but I am not sure if the law does) so it sounds like there may be more to it than that (like the ones listed for Tetra possibly). I also asked about that in the email, as stated no response (again may mean the bad possibility).
If it is not the case I would love to know (hence why I asked). But as it stands I have to assume their silence is for a reason and that the food, although better than Tetra and many others, is not as good as many other possibilities.
The ethoxyquin in NLS is only in the meals as required by law, not added to the food in general, they just admit it is there.
It's definitely not objective to assume the worst simply because you get no response from the company.
I would think that ethoxyquin and tocopherol are added to the OmegaOne food itself as preservatives since they use only whole fish, not fish meal. Since NLS uses fish meal, they likely don't add any extra ethoxyquin, as it would already be in the fish meal.
I'm still curious as to the "natural and artificial colors" - they list zeaxanthin, astaxanthin and salmon skins as ingredients in some of their "super color" foods, so I would imagine those are some of the ingredients grouped under that umbrella. I can't find anything specifying that, however. Hm, something to keep an eye on.
Anyway, I know you're crazy about NLS, reptile, so I don't think we'll ever meet eye to eye on this point. But I do think it's worth trying to dig deeper into the preservatives and colors added to all commercial fish food, for the benefit of the larger fishkeeping community. So if you find any further articles on this subject, please do update this thread.
I would think that ethoxyquin and tocopherol are added to the OmegaOne food itself as preservatives since they use only whole fish, not fish meal. Since NLS uses fish meal, they likely don't add any extra ethoxyquin, as it would already be in the fish meal.
I'm still curious as to the "natural and artificial colors" - they list zeaxanthin, astaxanthin and salmon skins as ingredients in some of their "super color" foods, so I would imagine those are some of the ingredients grouped under that umbrella. I can't find anything specifying that, however. Hm, something to keep an eye on.
Anyway, I know you're crazy about NLS, reptile, so I don't think we'll ever meet eye to eye on this point. But I do think it's worth trying to dig deeper into the preservatives and colors added to all commercial fish food, for the benefit of the larger fishkeeping community. So if you find any further articles on this subject, please do update this thread.
I am not saying they don't have great natural colors and color enhancers (which can be very different). But to produce uniform coloration in the pellets and flakes according to the type (veggie vs meaty vs reef, etc.) you need artificial colors. Natural colors would produce a varying color of the food, which throws people off. Without any evidence to the contraray and with no response from them (as much as I hate assumptions) I think it is a relatively safe assumption that it is not the better possibility.
Exactly. They presumably add them to the food itself. There are better ways to preserve the food, and we don't know how much they are adding.
My point is if you can get a food that has been shown to be better by others and is known to not have these things, give it a shot. Worst case you find out it isn't better (which is still beneficial since you now know that food isn't better than your current food). Best case you find a better food.
Exactly. They presumably add them to the food itself. There are better ways to preserve the food, and we don't know how much they are adding.
My point is if you can get a food that has been shown to be better by others and is known to not have these things, give it a shot. Worst case you find out it isn't better (which is still beneficial since you now know that food isn't better than your current food). Best case you find a better food.
