Guest Master of Puppets Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 Well a lot of us have rays and Hikari Massivore is a very common food for rays so I'm currently researching finding what other ray keepers use for food. If you have a brand or food to add it would be helpful. Ocean Nutrition pellets for bottom dwellers NLS Thera A+ Jumbo mazuri aquatic gel Silvercup sturgeon diet sinking extruded pellets bloodworm pellets These were just copied and pasted from mfk threads so i dont know what alot of them are. If someone could list a few arowana foods too that would be great. I know prawns, beef heart and nightcrawlers are good sources of food but I'm looking more along the lines of pellets and dry goods Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hybrid Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 Well a lot of us have rays and Hikari Massivore is a very common food for rays so I'm currently researching finding what other ray keepers use for food. If you have a brand or food to add it would be helpful.Ocean Nutrition pellets for bottom dwellers NLS Thera A+ Jumbo mazuri aquatic gel Silvercup sturgeon diet sinking extruded pellets bloodworm pellets These were just copied and pasted from mfk threads so i dont know what alot of them are. If someone could list a few arowana foods too that would be great. I know prawns, beef heart and nightcrawlers are good sources of food but I'm looking more along the lines of pellets and dry goods dont forget the best food on the market "xtreme" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fish4fun Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 the distributors in Canada are all switching to a different product: http://midjerseypetsupply.com/index.php?op...ge&Itemid=1 Should be available in local store in about 30 days Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 (edited) the distributors in Canada are all switching to a different product: What distributors? Looks like a wide selection of expensive frozen foods, certainly not an economical option for most ray keepers. dont forget the best food on the market "xtreme" lol, says who? Ricky Biro's food has only been on the market for what, 3 yrs, and hasn't gone anywhere to speak of. Seriously, you might want to take a closer look at the ingredients before you start talking about what's "best" for a fish. If you're going to feed a mix of generic fish meal, along with wheat middlings, wheat, dehulled soybean meal, wheat flour, and distillers dried grains with solubles (an ethanol by-product), you might as well just feed a generic farm feed, or trout chow. FYI - beef heart is not a "good" source of food, for rays, or any other species of fish. Personally I wouldn't feed the 6mm TherA formula to rays either, better to stick with the 3mm Large Fish, or the H20 wafers. New Life will be rolling out a few new formulas in the near future, one being a Mega Fish formula, designed for rays & other large "monster" fish. BTW - from what I can gather there are still distributors that are bringing Hikari in with no issues. Not too sure what the problem has been for other companies, but it may just be a case of not having their paperwork in order. (under the new CFIA legislation) Edited November 12, 2009 by RD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skynoch Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 the distributors in Canada are all switching to a different product: What distributors? Looks like a wide selection of expensive frozen foods, certainly not an economical option for most ray keepers. dont forget the best food on the market "xtreme" lol, says who? Ricky Biro's food has only been on the market for what, 3 yrs, and hasn't gone anywhere to speak of. Seriously, you might want to take a closer look at the ingredients before you start talking about what's "best" for a fish. If you're going to feed a mix of generic fish meal, along with wheat middlings, wheat, dehulled soybean meal, wheat flour, and distillers dried grains with solubles (an ethanol by-product), you might as well just feed a generic farm feed, or trout chow. FYI - beef heart is not a "good" source of food, for rays, or any other species of fish. Personally I wouldn't feed the 6mm TherA formula to rays either, better to stick with the 3mm Large Fish, or the H20 wafers. New Life will be rolling out a few new formulas in the near future, one being a Mega Fish formula, designed for rays & other large "monster" fish. Thanks and good to hear they will be getting a formula out for the monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Master of Puppets Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 the distributors in Canada are all switching to a different product: What distributors? Looks like a wide selection of expensive frozen foods, certainly not an economical option for most ray keepers. dont forget the best food on the market "xtreme" lol, says who? Ricky Biro's food has only been on the market for what, 3 yrs, and hasn't gone anywhere to speak of. Seriously, you might want to take a closer look at the ingredients before you start talking about what's "best" for a fish. If you're going to feed a mix of generic fish meal, along with wheat middlings, wheat, dehulled soybean meal, wheat flour, and distillers dried grains with solubles (an ethanol by-product), you might as well just feed a generic farm feed, or trout chow. FYI - beef heart is not a "good" source of food, for rays, or any other species of fish. Personally I wouldn't feed the 6mm TherA formula to rays either, better to stick with the 3mm Large Fish, or the H20 wafers. New Life will be rolling out a few new formulas in the near future, one being a Mega Fish formula, designed for rays & other large "monster" fish. BTW - from what I can gather there are still distributors that are bringing Hikari in with no issues. Not too sure what the problem has been for other companies, but it may just be a case of not having their paperwork in order. (under the new CFIA legislation) Beef heart actually can be a good source of food, depends on how you prepare it. Dustin actually injects his with vitamins lol. Neil, I know NLS is your thing and you have pointed out fault with other peoples choices for fish food but I have noticed alot of fish turn their noses up at nls inlcuding alot of my own cichlids, is it possible that you may have some infuence on the maker to change up the tastey-ness of the larger pellets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Master of Puppets Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 the distributors in Canada are all switching to a different product:http://midjerseypetsupply.com/index.php?op...ge&Itemid=1 Should be available in local store in about 30 days Thanks for the info but none of that stuff looks like pellets to me and I would rather have my rays eating pellets so i dont have to run to the store once a week to stalk up on frozen foods. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairdeal Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 I for one can tell you that my large fish didn't take to the NLS Thera A+ pellets with the same gusto that they ate everything up to the 3mm. When I 1st fed them it was just a small amount and I noticed right away that they mouthed the pellets slowly and spit them out and then ate them sparingly - some even refused to do that. I gradually increased the amount each day or 2 until they got used to them and now as soon as they hit the water they are gone. It definitely took time for them to like these pellets but it only took a week or less for that to happen. Don't get discouraged just because the fish don't look like they want this food - give them a little time and they will likely devour these pellets. Question - do gulper cats and australian lungfish count as monsters. LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Master of Puppets Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 I suppose gulpers are terrors with most fish. I've seen them eat huge fish whole and lungfish have monster poo so they must be monster fish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hybrid Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 dont forget the best food on the market "xtreme" lol, says who? the bailey brothers.. The creators of petfishtalk... http://www.petfishtalk.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 Beef heart actually can be a good source of food, depends on how you prepare it. Actually, no, it can't, no matter how it is prepared. Fish aren't hard wired to assimilate the fatty acids found in beef, anymore than they are hard wired to assimilate large amounts of carbs. These excess lipids get stored in & around the organs, and eventually shorten the fishes lifespan. Can these foodstuffs offer amino acids, and solid growth, yes, no question about that, but that doesn't qualify them as being a good source of food. Some of you guys don't keep any one fish long enough to see the end results of feeding foods such as beef heart, but for anyone concerned about longevity beef heart is considered a D grade of food, vitamins added, or not. This is far from being just my opinion, even a lot of the major discus keepers have moved away from beefheart over the past decade, for these exact reasons. It's a great food for breeders that simply want quick growth in their juvie fish (so they can take them to market quicker) but it is most certainly not an ideal long term diet. Any cichlid can be trained to eat any type of pellet, you simply have to be smarter than the fish. Sometimes you need to experiment between floating/sinking, as well as sizes. As far as "tastey-ness", as the manufacturer of NLS switches the production of all of his formulas over to his own on site facilities, I think you'll see some overall improvements in all areas of the final product. Obviously rays are not in the same league as cichlids when it comes to training them to take pellets. Some will take to pellets right out of the gate, and others may never accept a dry food. In those cases I would advise feeding clams, squid, prawns, mussels, etc, with vitamin & trace mineral supplementation. Certainly nothing wrong with that, I do precisely that with one of the fish that I own. When it gets larger I'll stuff his food with a large pellet for additional supplements. BTW - I honestly don't care what people feed their fish, to each their own, but I do feel the need to respond when I see misleading or incorrect information being posted on this subject. (such as what is "best" for a fish) You'll notice that I never questioned feeding frozen food to rays either, only the frozen foods that were linked to above. With foods such as those you are basically paying for water, which may be fine with smaller fish, and smaller tanks, but certainly not an economical choice for someone feeding rays. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 (edited) Perhaps the Bailey bros can explain how feeding a mix of generic fish meal, wheat middlings, wheat, dehulled soybean meal, wheat flour, and distillers dried grains with solubles can be what's "best" for a fish, especially a fish classified as a carnivore. I'd certainly love to hear that explanation.......... Edited November 12, 2009 by RD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Master of Puppets Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 Ugh this isn't going to end well it's the bolts on Dustins tank all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RD. Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 (edited) Hey, if you want to feed your ray beefheart, feel free to do so. But simply going on a chat board stating that's a good source of food, doesn't make it so. Sometimes I wonder why I bother wasting my time trying to educate kids that think that they already know it all. :bang1: http://www.fishchannel.com/media/fish-excl...chlids.aspx.pdf "I suggest, however, that you avoid those that incorporate beef heart. Beef heart is a fatty meat that will ultimately lead to the fatty degeneration of the liver in long-lived cichlids." The article linked to above was written by Lee Newman, Curator of Tropical Waters at the Vancouver Public Aquarium. You can read Lee's bio in the link below. http://www.vanaqua.org/pressroom/curatorbios.htm And please don't attempt to tell me that if the heart is de-veined that all of the fat is removed, because it isn't. The tissue of beef heart also contains fat, and as Lee states above feeding beef heart will ultimately lead to fatty degeneration of the liver. Best of luck to you & your fish ........ Edited November 12, 2009 by RD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
African_Fever Posted November 12, 2009 Report Share Posted November 12, 2009 I need to agree with Neil on this one, I'd never in my life feed my rays (or any fish) beef heart . Most fish aren't physiologically able to fully process red meats in the same way that they're not all able to process vegetable matter. I know my silver dollars would probably continue to thrive on a diet of nothing but raw vegetables (lettuce, spinach, cucumber etc.), while my rays, african cichlids (mostly mbuna), and syno's would most likely whither away on the same diet. Red meat is a protein/food source that very few fish would be physiologically developed to process - piranha and a few other opportunistic predatory freshwater fish are among the few that are able to. Rays will be able to process the food to some degree, but with all the other more beneficial options out there, why bother with something that might cause premature death? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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