why is nls better?

[hybrid]

The feeding of any pet shouldn't be based on price alone. If it gets to the point that feeding them a healthy diet becomes too cost prohibitive then it might be time to cut down on the herd.

I think that williewonka hit the nail on the head. All of us here are supposed to be lovers of aquatic pets and IMO that means providing them the best environment and care that we can. Isn't it better to have let's say 5 fish thriving on highly rated food than 20 fish getting by on so-so food. It's like comparing a meal of a quality cut of meat, fresh veggies and wild rice to a meal of SPAM and Minute Rice. Which would you choose?

wow.. judging my love of my fish... thats quite the statement..

just cause i dont buy nls...

[rED O]

The feeding of any pet shouldn't be based on price alone. If it gets to the point that feeding them a healthy diet becomes too cost prohibitive then it might be time to cut down on the herd.

I think that williewonka hit the nail on the head. All of us here are supposed to be lovers of aquatic pets and IMO that means providing them the best environment and care that we can. Isn't it better to have let's say 5 fish thriving on highly rated food than 20 fish getting by on so-so food. It's like comparing a meal of a quality cut of meat, fresh veggies and wild rice to a meal of SPAM and Minute Rice. Which would you choose?

wow.. judging my love of my fish... thats quite the statement..

just cause i dont buy nls...

hybrid dose have healthy fish, they do have nice color. Trout pellets might not be the best pellet out there but It still a decent pellet. I think if he uses that much pellets to feed his fish, NLS might not be the way to go. His fish have nice color and are healthy so why should he use nls? enough said

[Sam Chicklets]

All right everybody, degrassi has already stepped in here and asked for you to keep to the discussion at hand. If you can't do just that then the whole thread will be deleted. I will not waste my time editting out the garbage.

[jvision]

The reason NLS is a great food is because it combines much of the great qualities of a VARIED diet in one place. I am a lazy fish-keeper, and like to do as little as possible to keep happy, healthy, breeding fish, and NLS does that for me; however, a VARIED diet of mixed prepared, live and frozen foods would also be an excellent way to keep fish happy, healthy and breeding.

[DiscusKeeper403]

RedO - if you have any further questions feel free to send me a PM.

This discussion appears to have turned into a personal chat line, which I don't plan on reading any further.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with your oscars.

thanks for your help. I think for the most varied diet I am going to feed trout pellets, hikari and NLS.

Why not include some frozen food to mix things up, like some silver sides or krill?

If you ever get a bag of frozen prawns, try giving your Oscar those too!

no offence or anything but I know what I am doing :P

just to let you know I feed

nls pellets

hikari pellets

mysis

krill

prawns

beef heart

crickets

super worms

earth worms

maggots

banana

peas

algea weafers

I also add vita chem to all of there food

Ahh sorry, my mistake, it sounded like you were only feeding the pellets to them.

That is quite a good variety of food. Do they take beef heart readily? I don't own an Oscar, but I hear lots of people have a hard time getting their Oscar to eat BH readily.

[rED O]

RedO - if you have any further questions feel free to send me a PM.

This discussion appears to have turned into a personal chat line, which I don't plan on reading any further.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with your oscars.

thanks for your help. I think for the most varied diet I am going to feed trout pellets, hikari and NLS.

Why not include some frozen food to mix things up, like some silver sides or krill?

If you ever get a bag of frozen prawns, try giving your Oscar those too!

no offence or anything but I know what I am doing :P

just to let you know I feed

nls pellets

hikari pellets

mysis

krill

prawns

beef heart

crickets

super worms

earth worms

maggots

banana

peas

algea weafers

I also add vita chem to all of there food

Ahh sorry, my mistake, it sounded like you were only feeding the pellets to them.

That is quite a good variety of food. Do they take beef heart readily? I don't own an Oscar, but I hear lots of people have a hard time getting their Oscar to eat BH readily.

they love beef heart but its only a treat.

[rudy]

Being that my food bill is a small fortune a month I thought I would chime in on a few things.

RedO-your comment about the NLS coming out of the gills. I don't think this has anything to do with the size of pellets personally. I find NLS breaks up easily when it hits the water and therefore it is probably just a normal Oscar thing to do-make a mess. If you can feed them Massivore as I find it does not break up as easy. Problem with massivore is the size. Carnivore is smaller however unfortunately has the same problem as NLS. If you need some bulk I can help. I get it for $50 Us for 2.2 pounds.

Hybrid didn't you just get a ray? If you are worried about cost to feed I would try to get over it. Rays are stupidly expensive to feed.

I am a big fan of diversity in food. Nothing is better, so try everything.

Not sure about the whole trout chow thing though. Who else uses this? From what I understand it is used for high growth and no substance. Who else uses this?

[rudy]

Being that my food bill is a small fortune a month I thought I would chime in on a few things.

RedO-your comment about the NLS coming out of the gills. I don't think this has anything to do with the size of pellets personally. I find NLS breaks up easily when it hits the water and therefore it is probably just a normal Oscar thing to do-make a mess. If you can feed them Massivore as I find it does not break up as easy. Problem with massivore is the size. Carnivore is smaller however unfortunately has the same problem as NLS. If you need some bulk I can help. I get it for $50 Us for 2.2 pounds.

Hybrid didn't you just get a ray? If you are worried about cost to feed I would try to get over it. Rays are stupidly expensive to feed.

I am a big fan of diversity in food. Nothing is better, so try everything.

Not sure about the whole trout chow thing though. Who else uses this? From what I understand it is used for high growth and no substance. Who else uses this?

[firestorm]

I have to say I use both Hikari Gold products and NLS. I do really like both of them, but to be honest I do see that hikari would cost me more in the long run to buy. I have around 5 tanks full of fish that I feed the 1mm NLS cichlid formula to, and I have had my 5 lb pail for almost a whole year now and with that many fish (around 50-80 fish). I do find it lasts much longer not to mention most of my fish love the stuff. I also feed flake and smaller formulas to my smaller fish, and the containers seem to go alot further than other brands I have used in the past. When you have 15+ tanks running it is not worth it to not buy bulk. That reminds me, does hikari even sell their food in bulk? At least NLS offers this.

REDO, I find with my oscar even feeding him the large hikari pellets that he too would end up making a huge mess of the tank. Now that he is about 10" I still mainly feed him the 3mm pellets, and I actually found that these made less of a mess. I think Neil must be right and maybe the pellet sizes are what prevents this. Even still I think a 5lb pail of NLS for your 6 oscars should last at least 6 months or more. I used to feed my fish the tetra brand foods as well as nutrafin, I see a huge difference in my fish since I swtiched to NLS a year ago.

One more thing, I find with NLS flakes they don't go all soggy as soon as they hit the water, you try this with nutrafin flakes and they immediately sink to the bottom. Sometimes I will find a few NLS flakes still floating after 1/2hr (in my shrimp tank) which must say alot to how well they stay together and not break apart.

Edited April 4, 2009 by firestorm

[Endugu]

I like Ocean Nutrition. It's just as good as NLS and better then Hikari? But IMO nothing beats fresh beef and seafood.

[RD.]

No one here, including myself, is saying that one has to feed NLS in order to have healthy fish.

I'm 50 yrs old, and NLS has been around for less than 15 years, so obviously I have used many other products over the years.

Hopefully that clears that up ............

The reason that most fish keepers frown on trout chow formulas is due to the fact that these types of feeds are not designed with the longevity of the fish in mind. On a scale of A-D, even the better ones are at best a C grade formula, which is precisely why you seldom hear of anyone using them in anything outside of commercial operations where no one is planning on keeping the fish as pets. It's not like this is some kind of big trade secret, and was just recently discovered by someone on alberta-aquatica. Imagine the $$$$ that a retail store could save if they fed all of their livestock trout chow.

Ironically, several retail stores that I deal with spend the extra $$$ to feed their fish NLS.

Why do you think that would be? Obviously there are far less costly alternatives.

Beefheart will give you great results, if your only goal is to bulk a fish up quickly, and you aren't overly concerned about the longevity of your fish. (much like generic trout chow)

Simplydiscus.com had a survey a couple of years back that showed the average lifespan of a discus being 4 yrs. I thought that it was a misprint, yet when I contacted Al (one of the admin) he assured me that for a healthy discus a 4-5 lifespan was the norm. And guess what the vast majority of those people use as a staple food? BH! 4-5 yrs for a discus? Personally I find that unacceptable. Jack Wattley started the whole BH craze, and he has openly admitted that he used it due to it being a VERY cheap source of protein.

There are no health advantages to feeding BH, its sole purpose is to maximize growth. Period, end of story.

If anything NLS holds together several times longer in the water than most other brands. I've seen pellets floating in tanks for several hours, and they are still in one solid piece.

The reason for that is the small inclusion rate of carbs/starches/grains, which is also why NLS doesn't swell up like a balloon when it sits in the water. The wafers will last a full 24 hrs without breaking apart, try finding that in any other wafer on the market. Good luck! As previously stated, I have fed full grown oscars, red devils, midas, and even arowanas, and have never experienced what Red0 mentioned. Yes, some species such as oscars are messy fish, no question about that, but I haven't seen any of them blowing large chunks out of their gills.

Some people will say that NLS is overrated, or over hyped, yet the people that have created this hype are the very people who use the food. Unless I have somehow managed to convert millions of aquarists the world over. lol

New Life International has no marketing reps, no sales reps, and they do not advertise.

At best the manufacturer attends 2-3 trade shows a year, that's it! No fancy glossy full page advertisements in magazines (which ultimately consumers are paying for), no freebie gimmicks or kick backs for retailers, and no fancy wining & dining of corporate America. Not to mention the fact that there are numerous fish food products on the market that have a FAR greater profit margin, compared to NLS. Why would a retail vendor bother to carry a product such as NLS, if they could make far more selling brand X?

Yet somehow this food has distributors from one end of the globe to the other, and has succeeded where scores of other fish food products have come & gone over the past 15 years. Even those with some very serious muscle in this industry, such as the multi-million backing of Marineland's Bio-Blend. In that case consumers spoke, and the food is now no longer.

There are scores of fish foods on the market that will simply never make it mainstream. Every few yrs a few more come, and a few more go. The last couple of years have even seen some of the new players stating that their food was designed by Pablo Tepoot (the creator of NLS) or made by the same feed mill that makes NLS, apparently in a desperate attempt to associate themselves with NLS. Hmmmmm.

A couple of months back the owner of retail store called me up to inform me that he had just managed to save an entire shipment of marine fish that had arrived in extremely poor condition. He felt the entire shipment was beyond saving, but within 48 hrs he had all of the fish eating NLS, including 4 Moorish Idol, and within 1 week they looked like completely different fish & were back to almost 100%. That retail store owner has been keeping marine fish for 30 or so odd years, and has fed every type of food on the market, yet in his opinion without NLS all of those fish would have been as good as dead. Considering the fact that every year hundreds of thousands of marine fish that are collected on various reefs world-wide, die long before they make it to the retail stage of the game, I get a great sense of satisfaction every time I hear or read about someone managing to bring a few of those fish back from what appeared to be a certain fate with death.

Try telling those people that this product is overrated ..........

Edited April 5, 2009 by RD.

[Endugu]

I'm not a fan of beef heart, I feed free range ribeye. No hormones or antibiotics.

[RD.]

Free range ribeye, as well as all other forms of mammal meat (including de-veined BH), contain fat that is very difficult for most tropical fish to assimilate. Guess where that excess fat ends up? And guess how that fat accumulation affects the longevity of the fish?

This isn't rocket science .........

[snaggle]

I think that NLS is one of the best foods that I have ever used, I have been keeping fish for 15 some odd years. I still like to add other foods to the mix but that is just me. I don't see me not using NLS even though I have trouble to get it with out traveling. My fish stayed heakthey with any thing being done to the tank for over 3 months While I have been in Borden, and they are eating nothing but NLS.

[JORG]

I'm curious about all the claims of other foods being as good as NLS, does anyone have any info to back that up or is it all just an opinion ? I'm all ears to a comparable or better product that is cheaper.