Which of these brands is the best?

Another fan of NLS here. My blackskirt tetras started stealing pellets fed to my rams...(I drop pellets down a tube to a little dish) The tetras roll the pellets in thier mouths like a gumball. Then, after a while, the changes in them became more and more apparent. They are, well, so much healthier than I thought they could be, they are beautiful now. And the rams, they are gorgeous too, and well, happier, if one could say this of a fish. The lengths the tetras go to to steal the pellets is fun to watch. Darting upside down if need be. I have kept blackskirts for years and never had them look so pretty. I also feed the tetras little pinches of Ocean Nutrition Spirulina flakes, and everyone gets frozen bloodworms, too, on occasion. But since the NLS food, the health was nothing like it is now.
 
That is a problem though, this would make a horrible science experiment. It would take 10-20 years to get results, by which time none of the foods used may not be in production anymore. You would also have be running all trials of the experiment at the same time.

The problem when looking at scientific experiments with this type of stuff is that all the real papers written on this are based on more economically significant fish, food fish. The other problem is that for THOSE fish what is wanted is fast growth. The only goal is to keep the fish healthy just long enough to grow to a size large enough to sell for food. The problem is this kills the fish in the process and it wouldn't have lived long enough anyways. Basically shove as much protein down their throat as you can and watch them grow.

All we in the hobby can really do is communicate with each other at clubs and on forums like this and say 'I have tried foods A, B, and C. A did this to the following fish, B did this, and C was the best because my...' Then let others decide based on the FACTS what foods they should try and see what works best for them. We have a lot of people in this hobby with a lot of experience with different circumstances. If we figure out how to tap in to that most effectively that is more valuable than a scientific experiment.
 
reptileguy2727 said:
I personally think that the variety issue is based on the lack of quality available in foods over the years. None were good enough to be fed alone, especially if you feed a lot of frozen foods that do not have the supplements needed. Just because the fishkeeping used to require a variety of foods to allow fish to thrive doesn't mean it still does.

I don't think there is any LESS nutrition in frozen brine shrimp than in any other frozen food. Maybe one has a little more protein or a little less fat, but they all have something.

I am not simply drinking the kool-aid. I have tried almost every method of feeding fish over the years. I actually fought against NLS the hardest when I first heard about it. It made no sense that one food, especially alone, could be the best for all types of fish. I was even more against them when I finally bought a few foods to try out and looked at them and sure enough the cichlid, goldfish, and one other food were all identical. However, since then I have seen what it can do, and it can do what no other food can do. I have worked in a number of different shops over the years, and the one I ran allowed me to feed NLS exclusively. This made a MASSIVE difference. We had the lowest death rate by far, many days we did not have a single dead fish (most shops are pulling out a dozen or more every day, depending on how many tanks they have, a lot more after getting shipments in). Our fish started eating sooner and colored up faster. We also had more breeding then I have ever seen in a shop. In our sales tanks we had the following fish breed: all the usual cichlids and livebearers, goldfish, gold barbs, galaxy rasboras, shrimp, crayfish, discus, and others. In addition we had stingrays start taking it within a week of arrival, and even wild caught mandarins take to it.

If you watch the video and read the article on their site you will see even more examples of what it can do. Moorish idols leaving for years is almost impossible to pull off with any food, but for one prepared food to do it, and keep them fat and happy for years, is something else.

Although other foods, mainly live, can condition and trigger breeding, one prepared food being able to do this is above and beyond.

Since switching over to NLS exclusively my tanks are cleaner, and so are my clients' tanks. Fish are healthier, they grow better, and color up better. Even breeding is improved. Yes, if you research and set up an area for it, you could breed your own foods to supplement prepared foods, but if one food, fed exclusively, can go above and beyond what other foods can do why waste money on other foods?

Almost everyone who tries feeding NLS exclusively for at least a few months sees a difference. They see what it can do and stick with it. All I suggest is that people consider the possibility that a variety of foods is not required and give NLS a try. If for some reason you are not in the group that sees that improvement, let us know what you were feeding that gave you the same results so we know.
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Okay...you convinced me - from now on you will only eat meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and 6 oz of 2% milk. Every meal, every day. Oh, okay, lets throw in a one-a-day vitamin too. It could be said that this diet provides you with all of the nutrition you need to do a days work and dare I say it, procreate tiny little reptiles. But I'm thinking you would prefer a more varied diet.
I blend many different commercial foods together to routinely feed. This variation ensures that any important elements missed by one recipe, likely exists in another. However, following the weekly water change, I treat with frozen brine shrimp. Perhaps as many claim, the shrimp are not as nutritious as the flake food - but the fish go nuts for them, jumping through hoops to get their share.
Then again, after a month on your new diet, brussel sprouts would prolly be a treat! :dance2:
The trouble is we tend to form opinions based on subjective rather than objective evidence. I don't know what foods were used at the pet store you mention. I suppose ANY better food would have been an improvement. Then again, that food mixed with several other BETTER foods may have been even better still - we'll never know.

It is unlikely that any one processed (fish) food is magical over all others, especially with all of the competition and R&D that goes into these products.

:cheers:

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Have you tried feeding NLS exclusively for a few months?

Comparing the variety in human diet to the nutrition fish should receive is errored at best. And blindly mixing an assortment of prepared foods together hoping that any unknown flaw in one will magically be balanced by another is naive at best. Lower quality foods are just that, lower quality (and by lower quality I mean not as good as the best, not that what you feed is a low quality food). Feed the best food and stick with it.

As I have stated I have used almost every type of diet out there, including in the shops I worked at. From nothing but Tetra, to a mix of higher quality prepared and frozen foods.

The results speak for themselves, which is why so many people who finally step out of the brainwashed mindset of 'Variety is good, variety is needed' (spoken with a zombie accent) and try feeding NLS exclusively stick with it and become so confident in what they feed that it drives people who haven't tried it crazy.
 
I'd be happy (as would others I'm sure) to review the data from your Design Of Experiments (DOE) that clearly shows objective evidence that NLS is markedly better than all other high quality fish foods.
I could go out on a limb and hypothesize that switching to New Life Spectrum (or any high quality food) from say lower quality tropical fish foods would likely produce positive results.
However, there is no data I'm aware of that, for example, objectively compares NLS to Omega One or Hikari foods or any others. I appreciate you have brand loyalty, but that seems much more brainwashed to me and doesn't prove to anyone that NLS is truly better than another, or that any one food is better than a mixture of high quality foods.
NLS seems to be principally krill and herring. I don't think that is is any better, for example, than say Omega One's Whole Salmon, Halibut, Black Cod, Whole Herring, Whole Shrimp, Whole Krill ...

There's more than just one good brand.
 
You will never find scientific data showing anything like that. No real researcher of any type would do that. It is not a commercially valuable issue (like food fish) and researchers know better than to speak out for or against any actual company. So if the only thing that will convince you otherwise is non-existent, then you will always be right (or at least prevent anyone from proving you wrong based on the standards you create).

I guess years and years of experience feeding different diets personally and professionally and seeing a huge difference between NLS and any other diet isn't real data?

There is data in every aquarist who saw an improvement when they switched from Hikari or Omega One to NLS and saw an improvement. But I guess this is not 'real' data, and the aquarists must just be brainwashed...

Yes, there is more than one good brand, but only one can be the best.

It is not brainwashing, it is experience.

How long have you tried feeding NLS exclusively?

When you ignore all evidence to the contrary, you are always 100% right.
 
I feed all 15 of my tanks NLS. I have tried many different foods and the only other food Ive ever got the reaction I get from my fish is Plecocaine. I suppliment with frozen bloodworms, brine shrimp, and on occassion, mealworms for my cichlids. They react the same everyday with the NLS. If I run out for any reason and have to feed crap like Hakkari, they just dont react the same. Just my 2 pennies worth.
 
We use Hikari.
 
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