Feeding doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It gets a lot of attention, but it’s something that still feels like a self-evident part of reef keeping. As Rod Buehler, the man behind “Rod’s Food” put it, the old school of thought was “If it had a mouth, feed it.” Feeding fish is a no-brainer, since fish are always on the move and usually react with gusto at the sight of food. But feeding is so much more than making sure fish have something to eat, and today it’s so much more than feeding fish. Our reefs are miniature ecosystems and even beyond corals, tiny micro-organisms live and reproduce, aiding the ecosystem’s health, even though we can’t see them. Is it possible for aquarists to feed their entire tank, managing nutrition for a host of animals, including microorganisms they can’t see. To help answer that question I reached out to the creators of two leading frozen foods, Larry DuPont of LRS Reef Frenzy and Rod Buehler of Rod’s Food. The move to fresh:
Fish have eaten a lot of different things over the years. From flakes made of freeze dried fishmeal, on up to whole freeze dried krill. It was in the early 2000’s that New Life Spectrum (NLS) revolutionized prepared diets with their “one pellet” for every fish species methodology. NLS was created by Pablo Teapoot (I’m a little Teapoot short and stout, sorry couldn’t resist) a prominent fish breeder in the realm of African Cichlids. NLS used high quality ingredients, combining them with garlic and other natural enzymes to create a full bodied nutritional pellet for a variety of fish. NLS advertised their food as a hormone free alternative, which used natural color enhancers to create an immune system boosting diet. NLS eventually became popular in marine fishkeeping, and a variety of species accepted it well. It’s hard to forget Pablo Teapoot’s famous fish only aquarium, where Moorish idols and other finicky species thrived, eating only NLS pellets. Yet for many marine aquarists NLS foods didn’t create the end all, be all of fish nutrition. Still today there are many species that simply won’t accept pelleted foods, and questions have arisen about how pellets effect water quality. There is also question about how natural it can be, moving an animal from a wild diet of naturally occurring fauna, over to a pellet prepared in a factory.… More:
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