If you want more info on the best ways to feed fish check out this video! czcams.com/video/18zLyt4h-A8/video.html Here is the link for kelp wafers and other North Fin Foods: flipaquatics.com/collections/northfin-foods Our new shirts can be found at: www.primetimeaquatics.com/merch For the latest in the fish room check us out on Instagram primetime_aquatics For more cool behind the scenes stuff consider becoming a member! czcams.com/channels/YVN7EN0ALL6CE4U7NpMUTA.htmljoin If you want to see all the cool stuff Joanna does with other types of scapes check out her channel! czcams.com/channels/PEZk1MpOTGiBVh6BtWjlRg.html
The link in the part about the video is actually to the sold out flake food or at least that's where it took me when I clicked it. This link is good though.
I use "mini" algae wafers and place the wafer right in front of Pleco noses with long tweezers. I use a terra cotta tray to put the wafers and Bugpro food as well and they converge there so I don't have food all over the tank uneaten
My gouramis LOVE algae wafers....like a lot. Honey gouramis, sunset gouramis and dwarf gouramis are what I have and they love kelp/algae wafers. Currently feeding NorthFin kelp wafers and Hikari sinking wafers with spirulina, silkworm & krill 👍👍👍
I personally stopped feeding algae wafers. I just wasn’t satisfied with the ingredients found in most products and especially not with how they’re made. These days I feed SFB frozen Seaweed Delight, a variety of fresh veggies and dried nori.
@@TonyVainosky I am but I’m not particularly impressed with the ingredients list. These are the first six ingredients: Organic Kelp, Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina 1) This food contains only two types of algae, kelp and spirulina, the same as many other brands. I can easily feed kelp, spirulina and a variety of other algae in forms that are fresher and less processed. 2) By listing the first ingredient as “Kelp” rather than “Dried Kelp” or “Kelp Powder” it seems that this includes water weight. Most of kelp’s weight is water so once it’s removed the remaining kelp could weigh less than (and thus be lower on the ingredients list than) ingredients which have already had their moisture removed like krill meal, herring meal, sardine meal and wheat flour. 3) Any ingredient which includes the word “meal” has been heat processed to Hell and back. The rendering process through which meals are made is known to destroy many valuable nutrients and vitamins, which companies then have to spray back onto the completed product via synthetic vitamins that are less bioavailable. Sorry for rambling on. I’m kinda passionate about nutrition. Looking into different ingredients lists is fun.
I give algae wafers to all of my fish as a treat. I love hearing the koi crunch em up! We have a 150 gallon stock tank of corydoras and they are fun to watch try to eat it 😋 they look like they are playing soccer lol
I feed these as a staple to ALLL my fish !! And they’re so cool to watch even the bigger aggressive cichlids eat them as if it’s a tiny pellet. Absolutely amazing 💯 I love breaking these up and getting the real stuff like your sharing !! The better the wafers the more they’ll enjoy.
I don't even bother with them anymore tbh. There are good ones, but everyone in my tanks wants to eat everything, so I have mixed krill and spirulina xtreme flakes and mix soilent green and community repashy.
The listed ingredients for the Kelp wafers on the site seem to differ from what you listed - Kelp is the 5th ingredient. "Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Kelp, Spirulina,". I don't see any veggie food that has kelp #1. Did I miss it?
I use the hikari algea wafers and my plecos come out the second I drop them in the tank, they really Love them. I break them in halves and a small pack lasts for half a few months. I also feed them cucumbers ever other day and my plecos are growing and looking Beautiful. Hooe all your fish and you all are doing well ❤️ great video as always
From their US website the ingredients are "Salmon, Whole Herring, Wheat Germ, Wheat Flour, Rice Bran, Kelp, Whole Shrimp, ..." Is your package different than the website? I don't see much of a difference between any of the brands including Hikari when you look at the guaranteed analysis.
I stopped buying them and started making my own mix of greens, spirulina and other veggies. Grind everything up in the ninja chopper blender til it looks like baby food then add it to a prepared packet of plain jello. Smoosh that mix in to super teeny tiny mini ice cube trays and put it in the freezer til frozen. Then pop out the little cubes and put them in airtight zip lock bag. They sink to the bottom and not just the bottom feeders go after them but endlers love them too. It's a win win for me because I know exactly what goes into it, it's always fresh, and takes hardly anytime at all to make a batch. 👍❤👍
I give the Algae wafers and all my fish including my Angel Fish love them. Pleco’s. rather eat fresh veggies and wood but the rest of the tank loves them. 😀
I use the topfin ones from Petsmart. I just bought it today. I put one in because I didn’t didn’t feed my pleco last night, but the mollies and platys pretty much ate most of it. I don’t have two of each of those they just mentioned and also what I mentioned in one of your videos I’m pretty sure.
Xtreme Scrapers are eaten in all 6 of my tanks. They go nuts for them. Shrimp, snails, tropicals, goldfish, cichlids, corys, plecos all adore them. Other brands they won’t touch. I haven’t tried Northfin.
I’m glad you made this video. I checked the Hikari Algae Wafers I have, and the first two ingredients are fish meal and wheat flour. You and a lot of other youtubers in the past have spoken about some brands are supposedly high quality fish food, and in reality they’re just fish meal. Hikari is one of those brands. Edit: I also have Hikari First Bites, Micro wafers and vibra bites. Each of these food have fish meal as they’re first ingredient. I won’t be buying this food brand again.
Absolutely this. When I worked at a pet store my boss would recommend Hikari to everyone and then I’d have to explain to customers why the brand might not be so great. Before I stopped using algae wafers my go-to was NLS Algaemax since it contains like 8 different seaweeds (algae). Nowadays I just feed SFB frozen Seaweed Delight and fresh veggie slices.
I don’t know how they would work with your cichlids but I have gone to Xtreme Scrapers . Love what they are made of,how long they last and the fish love them. Kind of given up on alge wafers.
TBF wafers, pellets, flakes, etc. are just fish “kibble” made using the same manufacturing processes and with many of the same ingredients as dry dog/cat foods.
Your series is a breath of fresh air! I started collecting tropical fish in the early 1970s and by the late 1970s had switched over to Michigan natives. By chance I just happened to get a job at a wholesale tropical fish (and feeders) outlet in Detroit in 1980 until I quit a several months later. What I saw in that outlet sickened me. On a wholesale level fish were so cheap nobody cared much about them. I still have a 1980 wholesale price list around here somewhere from Pet Siam (I think that was the name of one of our suppliers) and never forgot noticing that Neon Tetras were 4c each (give or take) and Cardinals a bit more. Of course Africans, etc., cost more and some of those tanks were covered but often nobody even bothered to cover them and you'd see them dead or flopping around on our wet floors (as I remember it - we hosed our floors down at the end of the shift and just let the water drain overnight). Feeder goldfish care was even more sickening. We traveled to Florida once a week to pick them up by the tens of thousands. We supplied places like the Detroit Zoo and Belle Isle Aquarium in addition to many local shops within about a 50 mile radius. It was not unusual to lose a high percentage of the goldfish before we even got them back to Michigan and in spite of the fact we had three large pool size tanks in the shop it was not unusual for us to lose thousands of them overnight We'd skim them off the top and fill 5 gallon buckets with them and flush. In my opinion most of this was preventable; fewer fish in transit undoubtedly would have helped! Fewer fish in our holding tanks would have helped a lot too. Reducing the temperature would have also helped. The establishment was comprised of what used to be two different businesses which were connected to each other by two doors. We could have easily kept the temps up on the tropical fish in that room and temp down in the feeder goldfish room. The entire affair turned me off to the commercial fish collecting hobby. I continued on with my natives until one day when my son was watching my wife wash windows and he thought dumping a half bottle of Windex into each of my fish tanks would clean 'em up ... and you know the rest of that story. So I have not collected any kind of fish since the 1980s. I sadly lost my cat and my dog this year and decided I can't go through that kind of heartbreak again. I prefer native over tropical fish but natives are very labor intensive with many requiring live food, etc., on a daily basis. So I thought I'd see what's going on in the tropical fish hobby. Prime Time's videos are the first I have viewed so far and again - what a breath of fresh air! Somebody who cares about the fish first and the hobbyist second ... as it should be. Thank you!!!
Depends on the brand. I stick with NLS and NorthFin for all my premade fish stuff. I view anything with unnecessary harmful additives to be useless and I avoid it for myself and my pets.
I feed my fish the cheap tetra ones..all my fish and shrimp go mad over them..so much so I had to stop using them in my 65 g because of the fights between my angel and the rainbow fish..I don't use that many because I also use bug bites for bottom feeders now..I find the snails and Cory cats get those ...I use a different fish food every day so there is something for everyone..
I'm so happy to have your help thank you.. cause I waisted a lot of money.. and I noticed my plecos don't even go for the wafers at all.. and trust me I've had my water babies for 6 year's and that's when I first started dabbling into this world 😂I was sold 3 baby plecos and they told me the biggest they would get was 4/6" tops 🤔needless to say is they turned out to be common plecos 😮now they are around 12/18" long and 5 tanks sizes later😅 but now I go to ur page and others alike before I purchase anything Don't get me wrong, I love all my fish and now have a huge aquarium in my living room and one in my kitchen one in my bedroom and about to start on my outdoor pond.. 😂so yeah I'm addicted to the hobby, I also by (mistake) started breeding corydora babies and now when they spawn I'm up all night sometimes messing around with my aquariums my husband thinks I'm crazy, that's because he just doesn't understand the dedication and pain and heartache I go through with all my babies (the whole fish underwater world
While this is a bit of a commercial, I have to entirely agree with it. Jason's points match my experience and I'm glad he's putting these points out there. My fish (especially otocinclus and gobies) eat the Northfin Kelp Wafers MUCH more enthusiastically than the algae wafers from Hikari. In general, I have very good experiences with Hikari foods and many of my tanks thrive on Vibra Bites. For whatever reason, though, Hikari's Algae Wafers do not appeal to the fish, even when fresh from a new bag. Anyway, Northfin Kelp Wafers are worth trying. They are great. Another good "real" algae-based food is Sera Micron fry food. It's half dried spirulina and you can really smell the spirulina in it.
That's great. We feed our plecos Northfin Kelp about every other day. They do great cleaning the glass otherwise. We also use Northfin Veggie Formula pellets for our Pea/Hap tanks. Twice a week they go crazy over that Veggie Formula 😎
This is exactly the advice I needed atm thank you! I’ve been looking for a good all around good quality algae wafer for shrimp, snails and Corys for good health. You always have great advice and content!
I completely agree - most are the same ingredients with a little green thrown in. That's why I feed a lot green beans to everyone among other vegetables.
@Prime Time Aquatics By the way,I just became a monthly membership member! I cannot thank you all enough for your incredibly valuable information and patience with my questions throughout this month which started with a constipated baby male Betta who I adopted unknowingly with swim bladder disease right from the very beginning to my questions with my baby sword tails Right through all of my Many questions involving my large rescue group and an emergency cycle setup situation ( including me laying under the tank with no substrate desperately trying to figure out if I have male/ female or both with my fishies . Happy that everyone in the chat could have a small chuckle😂😘at times this hobby is so stressful and serious that is great to have a universal 🤭 giggle)It makes me feel better that I'm not the only person who has had difficulty identifying Blood parrot and other not obviously male or female fish 🧠💭💕🐟
Thanks for the video. I thought I had picked a good algae wafer for my Cory's and Nerite Snails but sure enough the first ingredient listed was Fish Meal. SO glad you posted this video and thanks!!
I have what I think to be a stupid question. I have five cory's and wonder if I am over feeding. I put a wafer in that they consume in a day. Should I only leave it in for a short time?
I feed my corydoras "algae" wafers, Hikari and Omega One. Others have mentioned the Hikari ingredients being less than impressive . Omega One list salmon and herring first; is that good or bad? The cories are breeding but maybe that's because they do not have eating to look forward to so they spend their time canoodling!
Cories aren’t primarily algae eaters so having protein sources as the first ingredients isn’t a bad thing for them. While salmon and herring are, in my opinion, higher quality ingredients than fish meal (less processed and more specific), wild cories don’t actually eat that much fish in the wild. They would get some dead fish and fish eggs, but most of their protein would come from insect larvae and small crustaceans. That’s why I look for ingredients like fly larvae, shrimp, krill, plankton, worms, etc. as the primary ingredients.
I've found alot of cheap ones my bristlenoses won't even touch. Even the pond snails barely touch them and they just go bad. The good wafers are gone every day. I prefer cucumber or zucchini for my plecos. I throw in bottom feeder pellets (cory/loaches type) and a few wafers occasionally. The breeding bristlenoses and fry are almost always on vegetables. The one fish ive found love all the wafers is rainbow cichlids.
Love the informative video and the scientific evidence based approach. The ingredients of the algae wafers you feed is a very important key consideration. The first ingredient should be some type of algae. My Bristlenose Catfish, Cory Catfish, and Black Skirted Tetra all really like the algae wafers I feed. I only feed a few times a week with the algae wafers and never to many wafers at one time.
What do you think on this? Read if somewhere a while ago and makes total sense to me: it is not enough to ahve algae as the first ingredient, for example if the "vegetarian" food states Kelp as itsfrist ingredient you might think its fine, but of the next 3 ingredients are Krill Meal, Herring meal and Whole sardine meal, then at the end of the day that food very well might have more animal content than algae, maybe it has 30% kelp, but then 20% krill, 15% herring and 10% whoel sardine. That's why I really like algaemax from NLS, algae is like, the primary 5 or 6 ingredients of the formula, krill is very far away in the list, but is still there cause vegetarians can benefit from it as well. NLS Algaemax ingredients: Ingredients: Algae: Chlorella Seaweed, Ulva Seaweed, Red Seaweed, Kelp, Spirulina, Wakame Seaweed. Whole Antarctic Krill**, Giant Squid*, Whole Wheat Flour, northfin: Organic Kelp (Laminariales), Whole Antarctic Krill Meal (Euphausia Superba), High DHA Omega-3 Whole Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina The thing is, we dont know the ratios of each ingredient, but its safe to say that you're better off feeding something like NLS
It might, but it's still far better than having the first 2-3 ingredients being animal-based products. Also, you can infer percentages by looking at the protein content, etc which is very good on the Northfin Kelp pellets.
I feed my tanks. Peas , cucumber and a interesting trick I learned from Miami sea aquarium when I was down there. You can buy the freeze dried kelp like they use in Miso soup and crush bit that up. Most Asian grocery stores have it. I buy a large bag of dried fish chips there as well for my cat. Way cheaper than the pretty small round cylinder that is 8-10 dollars.
You can also buy a variety of dried seaweeds online, either in sheets or powders, and make gel cubes by either mixing them into Repashy products or with agar agar (which also comes from seaweed). Can also mix in diced or puréed veggies. A great way to maximize the variety of algae we provide our fish.
@@kendallwikoff8900 Thanks ! I never thought that . I do know what agar is. My personal feeling is the natural veggies is the way to go. Seaweed in all honesty has limited nutrients in it. Fish like everyone else has different taste palette. I have four Corey Dora’s. 2 them love zucchini but the other 2 seem to go nuts for peas and barely mess with Zucchini. Hard to please everyone.
@@Brett7777 Aren’t kelp and many of its macroalgae relatives considered superfoods dense in bioavailable minerals and micronutrients? Many pleco nerds prefer to provide as much algae as possible in the form of various seaweeds since they should be more digestible and easier to absorb nutritionally compared to terrestrial plants.
@@kendallwikoff8900 Yes you are right. I honestly did not know it was classified as super food. I knew it had some vitamins. Honestly did not think as many as it does. Here is the breakdown I found from cosmopolitan article and some basic googling. I have dealt with a handful dietitian in my time do to having a kidney transplant. Never covered seaweed. Do you watch Aquarium Co-op. I recently joined there forum. I think you would enjoy it. People so far are pretty cool and down to earth. Nutrients: Sea kelp is a natural source of vitamins A, B1, B2, C, D and E, as well as minerals including zinc, iodine, magnesium, iron, potassium, copper and calcium.May 25, 2021.
@@Brett7777 Yeah seaweeds contain way more minerals than most terrestrial plants because seawater contains a lot of dissolved solids. Also algae absorbs nutrients through basically every surface rather than through roots so the entire organism is nutrient dense. I meet with a dietician about once a week and we often just discuss pet foods. I do watch Aquarium Co-op pretty often but have never been involved in the community. Have a link to the forum?
Just a heads up extreme uses meal instead of whole ingredients. Would highly suggest New Life Spectrum, Ocean Nutrition frozen, Hikari frozen, or Northfin. Those are the only 3 I’ve found with absolutely no meal in the ingredients list.
Thanks for this Jason . I looked at mine and realised I was feeding mine the ones filled with fillers and not much algae so changed brand . Thanks Jason I always crush mine and you can tell the algae ones as they seem to crush differently than the ones with all the fillers in. 👍
Great topic Jason. It's definitely important to check out the ingredients and not just look at fancy packaging. Thanks for sharing and for your recommendations!! I appreciate you so much 💚🌿🌿🐟🌿💚🙏
Yep, Algae max has an amazing amount of aquatic plants and has an amazing ingredient list; however, I have yet to train a fish to eat them. Even my Festae love the NF Kelp wafers. I have been really happy with NF lately. I just started Krill Gold as well. Been a complete NLS fan boy for a long time. Now, it seems NF is just more palatable without having to train my fish to eat specific pellets.
I was shocked to see my Hikari Algae Wafers have fish meal as the top ingredient, rather than algae. I expected better from such a highly respected brand. Everyone raves about Hikari wafers.
Apparently their ingredients used to be better and might still be high quality in Japan but Hikari USA is just coasting off their respected reputation. They’re junk food.
I purchased algae wafers by Hikari & they contain copper. That isn't good for Apple snails & fish that are sensitive to copper based wafers. I can't understand why they contain copper in the first place??
Heads up: I can get there another way, but your Northfin link to the algae wafers didn’t work properly. Thanks for the info, though. I’ll be switching wafers.
I think we miss understand the eco system all fish i know that are in the aqarium setting basically compete with scavenger fish in home aqariums except piranhas which likely will try to eat them idk if livebearing pike or pike chiclids will scavenge but they may try to eat scavenger fish as well.
Saw the video, immediately checked out my algae wafers. Fish meal top ingredient in both packages. Looks like I will be ordering from North Fin in a few days. Problem is all of my fish LOVE the algae wafers I have been feeding them. My Bronze Corydora herd, My Plecko (Killer) and especially my 2 Silver Dollars. In fact, at feeding time the Silver Dollars will be waiting in the spot where I drop the wafers. 2 of the wafers will be caught by the Silver Dollars on the way down and they will happily swim around the tank, each with a wafer protruding from its mouth. I just hope they will take to the North Fin wafers in the same way.
I am definately going to try some North Fin algae waffers to feed to my newly acquired (4) albino Plecos. They share my 55gal with 6 Altolamprologus Calvus.
Wow, Thank you for this 'Algae Wafer' challenge, mine did not pass muster! I've got an order coming in from Flip next week anyway, so this gives me time to add Algae wafers to the order!
I have been using Fluval Bug Bite, its a pellet instead of a wafer, it has some bug larve as the first ingredient, green peas, potato, wheat, and all the rest of the ingredients, but all of my fish love them including my plecos and the stay together good, I also feed bug bite tropical formula, which is basically the same but also has fish protein concentrat, it's small little bits that even my baby guppies can eat, betta, grown guppies love it, it floats for a few seconds then sinks so u have to go light and put in a couple pinches. But all my fish seem to love both of them
Keep in mind that almost all foods are designed to be palatable so whether or not a fish “likes” a food shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Companies add in flavor enhancers like fish oils, krill oils and garlic to fish foods just like sugar and oils are added to many of our foods to make them more palatable and addictive.
When my friend got a mystery snail last year put it in his 49 gallon 8 (tiny at that time feeder size) Comet goldfish tank I told him I don't think this is a good idea because his comets are so ravenous that they're not going to allow the snail a chance to eat. I even tried hiding its wafers in something and after I left the goldfish broke eventually through the barrier and the poor snail starved it had no opportunity to eat. I would say all who have 1 let alone multiple goldfish take a good look at what type of goldfish you have and realize that comets move and eat so fast that there's no way that a snail could keep up with it and you are setting up a premature death for an innocent snail.He learned his lesson,never again and yes everyone makes Mistakes.(and Yes the comets will be split up into multiple tanks, they are growing)
@@PrimeTimeAquatics Thank you for responding to my message! I will and everyone should try that important tip .it was a mistake on friend part,but we all make them .I just hated that an innocent snail paid the price.
@@PrimeTimeAquatics I night feed in pretty much any tank w/ slow scavengers. Snails are slow and plecos are derpy. They would get very little if they didn't have all night to find the food 🤣
I have algae wafers and my kuhli loaches would take micro fauna or fish flakes before ever considering algae wafers. For some reason my ottocinclus also never touches them months later, they stick to their diet of invisible(biofilm) food lol. Shrimp don't bother much with it for me either, sometimes you see one on it, but they don't run to it because plenty of better options that my aquarium produces, and they still prefer fish flakes to algae wafer. I did notice my Hillstream loaches eat them but they are not so picky like the others in my tank, they take flakes, demolish that green algae. Personally I feel algae wafers which I got in a tiny bag of tiny size bites too, are a waste of money for me and all my fish, if I could take that money back I would reinvest it in more flake food or hella better, live grindal worm culture that sinks and stays alive in the water AND I can pump whatever nutrients I please into them and then feed to my fish. So that is the direction I am heading 😎
Saw a commercial fish breeder feeding seaweed as it comes to wrap sushi. Do you know anything about that? He also fed carrot to red colored fish for the carotene
Did the "Northfin Kelp Wafer" formula change recently? Checking online "Kelp" is the 5th ingredient in the ingredient list for this product. 1. Krill 2. Herring 3. Sardine 4. Wheat Flour 5. KELP
Honestly this is my problem with algae wafers in general. Algae rarely makes up a majority of the product. Easier just to feed dry or frozen seaweeds, and fresh veggies.
@@PrimeTimeAquatics True, but first doesn’t mean majority. I appreciate that being first is better than being further down the ingredient list but it’s still not what some of us are striving for.
I had a feeling this would turn into a commercial. I'd rather feed my fish FISH MEAL than algae! My pleco can get his algae off everything in the tank and all my other fish love these algae(mostly fish meal) wafers I use!
After watching this video, I checked the ingredients of all the fish foods I currently have and was really surprised that they all contain ash. Surely that can’t be good for the fish 😬
From what I understand, ash is a byproduct of the process by which they create the guaranteed analysis, during which the foods are basically burnt to a crisp. “Ash” refers to the inorganics which remain, including components from bones, scales, as well as synthetics from vitamins and minerals. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s not like ash is a listed ingredient that they purposefully add to foods.
people should make their own vegetarian fish food, it's cheap, quick and easy and you know it's great ingredients. You only need a small 1 third of a broccli, half a carrot, half a cucumber, half a red pepper, 3 cloves of garclic add your old fish food you dont use also just so the fish recognise it as food more, blend it, put it in a pot and bring it to the boil, pour it back into the blender, blend it into a liquid and put it into a bowl measuring how much you have add the correct amount of gelatin slowly stirring it in little by little, pour it into or onto something you can freeze, once frozen cut into cubes and in 1 day if you only have one or two tanks you have enough food to feed 2/3 times per week for a few months or 6 months that is better than almost any store bought algae or vegetable food and only cost like $5 to buy the ingredients although you can even use stuff you buy for your own meals, just freeze them until you have all the stuff then do it. This would be a pretty low protein food though so not suitable for feeding solely every day but for every other day or twice a week just for a varied diet.
Most algea wafers like you said, have fish meal, wheat product and what not in them so I don't bother anymore. I use bio vegetables like end bits of cucumbers, small leaf of lettuces ect. for my shrimps snails and otos. Also, when you trim plants, you could alway boil some and feed them your fish...would that work?
I think that most aquatic plants would basically disintegrate if boiled. You could blend them with some agar agar and cut them into plant gel cubes, or dehydrate the the blend to make plant crisps.
Thanks soo much for this. ive noticed that my pleco doesnt even touch the wafers i feed and just eats the flakes i feed my other fish. And wouldnt you know, the wafers barely have any algae in them. i will be switching to a different brand to see if he prefers them. Any suggestions?
I really don't keep scavenger fish but always love redtail and rainbow sharks good all around scavenger n algea eater.but the fish i have eat alot of everything so they are really not needed.
You want happy plecos... feed blood worms about 20 mins after lights out at night twice a week. Blanched zucchini on a skewer in a secluded spot during the day, meaty worms at night. Your plecos will thank you!
If you want more info on the best ways to feed fish check out this video!
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Here is the link for kelp wafers and other North Fin Foods: flipaquatics.com/collections/northfin-foods
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The link in the part about the video is actually to the sold out flake food or at least that's where it took me when I clicked it. This link is good though.
Thank-you just looking i have over 500 fish to feed.
I use "mini" algae wafers and place the wafer right in front of Pleco noses with long tweezers. I use a terra cotta tray to put the wafers and Bugpro food as well and they converge there so I don't have food all over the tank uneaten
omg, I LOVE the Terra Cotta tray idea!
My gouramis LOVE algae wafers....like a lot. Honey gouramis, sunset gouramis and dwarf gouramis are what I have and they love kelp/algae wafers. Currently feeding NorthFin kelp wafers and Hikari sinking wafers with spirulina, silkworm & krill 👍👍👍
My dwarf gourami also loves eating the algae wafers!
I just wish they would leave the copper out. Messes with my Mystery Snail.
I personally stopped feeding algae wafers. I just wasn’t satisfied with the ingredients found in most products and especially not with how they’re made. These days I feed SFB frozen Seaweed Delight, a variety of fresh veggies and dried nori.
Are you able to get NorthFin products? I believe that's what he said he uses in the video and I use their algae wafers as well with great results
@@TonyVainosky I am but I’m not particularly impressed with the ingredients list. These are the first six ingredients:
Organic Kelp, Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina
1) This food contains only two types of algae, kelp and spirulina, the same as many other brands. I can easily feed kelp, spirulina and a variety of other algae in forms that are fresher and less processed.
2) By listing the first ingredient as “Kelp” rather than “Dried Kelp” or “Kelp Powder” it seems that this includes water weight. Most of kelp’s weight is water so once it’s removed the remaining kelp could weigh less than (and thus be lower on the ingredients list than) ingredients which have already had their moisture removed like krill meal, herring meal, sardine meal and wheat flour.
3) Any ingredient which includes the word “meal” has been heat processed to Hell and back. The rendering process through which meals are made is known to destroy many valuable nutrients and vitamins, which companies then have to spray back onto the completed product via synthetic vitamins that are less bioavailable.
Sorry for rambling on. I’m kinda passionate about nutrition. Looking into different ingredients lists is fun.
is dried nori good for cherry shrimps?
If you have invertebrates be careful due to many of them containing copper
@@kendallwikoff8900 Finally.
I give algae wafers to all of my fish as a treat. I love hearing the koi crunch em up! We have a 150 gallon stock tank of corydoras and they are fun to watch try to eat it 😋 they look like they are playing soccer lol
I bet they love them!
I feed these as a staple to ALLL my fish !! And they’re so cool to watch even the bigger aggressive cichlids eat them as if it’s a tiny pellet. Absolutely amazing 💯 I love breaking these up and getting the real stuff like your sharing !! The better the wafers the more they’ll enjoy.
I don't even bother with them anymore tbh. There are good ones, but everyone in my tanks wants to eat everything, so I have mixed krill and spirulina xtreme flakes and mix soilent green and community repashy.
The listed ingredients for the Kelp wafers on the site seem to differ from what you listed - Kelp is the 5th ingredient. "Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Kelp, Spirulina,". I don't see any veggie food that has kelp #1. Did I miss it?
I use the hikari algea wafers and my plecos come out the second I drop them in the tank, they really Love them. I break them in halves and a small pack lasts for half a few months. I also feed them cucumbers ever other day and my plecos are growing and looking Beautiful. Hooe all your fish and you all are doing well ❤️ great video as always
I like the omega one veggie rounds. Kelp is the first ingredient, spiralina is the second ingredient.
From their US website the ingredients are "Salmon, Whole Herring, Wheat Germ, Wheat Flour, Rice Bran, Kelp, Whole Shrimp, ..." Is your package different than the website? I don't see much of a difference between any of the brands including Hikari when you look at the guaranteed analysis.
I stopped buying them and started making my own mix of greens, spirulina and other veggies. Grind everything up in the ninja chopper blender til it looks like baby food then add it to a prepared packet of plain jello. Smoosh that mix in to super teeny tiny mini ice cube trays and put it in the freezer til frozen. Then pop out the little cubes and put them in airtight zip lock bag.
They sink to the bottom and not just the bottom feeders go after them but endlers love them too. It's a win win for me because I know exactly what goes into it, it's always fresh, and takes hardly anytime at all to make a batch.
👍❤👍
Feeding time is always entertaining but the cichlids chewing on the wafers is next level. Love the vids keep them coming!
I give the Algae wafers and all my fish including my Angel Fish love them. Pleco’s. rather eat fresh veggies and wood but the rest of the tank loves them. 😀
I use the topfin ones from Petsmart. I just bought it today. I put one in because I didn’t didn’t feed my pleco last night, but the mollies and platys pretty much ate most of it. I don’t have two of each of those they just mentioned and also what I mentioned in one of your videos I’m pretty sure.
😲 Looks like I need to double check some of my wafers....
Great info! Thank you
Too funny - might not be a bad idea. Haha
I am big fan of northfin, but only for veggie/algae pellets I choose NLS algaemax. No fillers same as northfin but has 9 type of algae.
NLS has some of the highest quality food out there. All you have to do is read the ingredients. All I feed is NLS foods and Repashy gel foods.
Xtreme Scrapers are eaten in all 6 of my tanks. They go nuts for them. Shrimp, snails, tropicals, goldfish, cichlids, corys, plecos all adore them. Other brands they won’t touch. I haven’t tried Northfin.
I’m glad you made this video. I checked the Hikari Algae Wafers I have, and the first two ingredients are fish meal and wheat flour. You and a lot of other youtubers in the past have spoken about some brands are supposedly high quality fish food, and in reality they’re just fish meal. Hikari is one of those brands.
Edit: I also have Hikari First Bites, Micro wafers and vibra bites. Each of these food have fish meal as they’re first ingredient. I won’t be buying this food brand again.
Absolutely this. When I worked at a pet store my boss would recommend Hikari to everyone and then I’d have to explain to customers why the brand might not be so great. Before I stopped using algae wafers my go-to was NLS Algaemax since it contains like 8 different seaweeds (algae). Nowadays I just feed SFB frozen Seaweed Delight and fresh veggie slices.
I don’t know how they would work with your cichlids but I have gone to Xtreme Scrapers . Love what they are made of,how long they last and the fish love them. Kind of given up on alge wafers.
Algae wafers tend to turn into just a green glob for me.
I love xtreme cat scrappers all my fish go nuts for them
My dog Holly absolutely loves "accidently dropped" algae wafers. :-P
Haha mine too!
TBF wafers, pellets, flakes, etc. are just fish “kibble” made using the same manufacturing processes and with many of the same ingredients as dry dog/cat foods.
Your series is a breath of fresh air! I started collecting tropical fish in the early 1970s and by the late 1970s had switched over to Michigan natives. By chance I just happened to get a job at a wholesale tropical fish (and feeders) outlet in Detroit in 1980 until I quit a several months later. What I saw in that outlet sickened me.
On a wholesale level fish were so cheap nobody cared much about them. I still have a 1980 wholesale price list around here somewhere from Pet Siam (I think that was the name of one of our suppliers) and never forgot noticing that Neon Tetras were 4c each (give or take) and Cardinals a bit more. Of course Africans, etc., cost more and some of those tanks were covered but often nobody even bothered to cover them and you'd see them dead or flopping around on our wet floors (as I remember it - we hosed our floors down at the end of the shift and just let the water drain overnight).
Feeder goldfish care was even more sickening. We traveled to Florida once a week to pick them up by the tens of thousands. We supplied places like the Detroit Zoo and Belle Isle Aquarium in addition to many local shops within about a 50 mile radius. It was not unusual to lose a high percentage of the goldfish before we even got them back to Michigan and in spite of the fact we had three large pool size tanks in the shop it was not unusual for us to lose thousands of them overnight We'd skim them off the top and fill 5 gallon buckets with them and flush. In my opinion most of this was preventable; fewer fish in transit undoubtedly would have helped! Fewer fish in our holding tanks would have helped a lot too. Reducing the temperature would have also helped. The establishment was comprised of what used to be two different businesses which were connected to each other by two doors. We could have easily kept the temps up on the tropical fish in that room and temp down in the feeder goldfish room.
The entire affair turned me off to the commercial fish collecting hobby. I continued on with my natives until one day when my son was watching my wife wash windows and he thought dumping a half bottle of Windex into each of my fish tanks would clean 'em up ... and you know the rest of that story. So I have not collected any kind of fish since the 1980s.
I sadly lost my cat and my dog this year and decided I can't go through that kind of heartbreak again. I prefer native over tropical fish but natives are very labor intensive with many requiring live food, etc., on a daily basis. So I thought I'd see what's going on in the tropical fish hobby.
Prime Time's videos are the first I have viewed so far and again - what a breath of fresh air! Somebody who cares about the fish first and the hobbyist second ... as it should be.
Thank you!!!
I love it when you say thing #...
Depends on the brand. I stick with NLS and NorthFin for all my premade fish stuff. I view anything with unnecessary harmful additives to be useless and I avoid it for myself and my pets.
I feed my fish the cheap tetra ones..all my fish and shrimp go mad over them..so much so I had to stop using them in my 65 g because of the fights between my angel and the rainbow fish..I don't use that many because I also use bug bites for bottom feeders now..I find the snails and Cory cats get those ...I use a different fish food every day so there is something for everyone..
I'm so happy to have your help thank you.. cause I waisted a lot of money.. and I noticed my plecos don't even go for the wafers at all.. and trust me I've had my water babies for 6 year's and that's when I first started dabbling into this world 😂I was sold 3 baby plecos and they told me the biggest they would get was 4/6" tops 🤔needless to say is they turned out to be common plecos 😮now they are around 12/18" long and 5 tanks sizes later😅 but now I go to ur page and others alike before I purchase anything Don't get me wrong, I love all my fish and now have a huge aquarium in my living room and one in my kitchen one in my bedroom and about to start on my outdoor pond.. 😂so yeah I'm addicted to the hobby, I also by (mistake) started breeding corydora babies and now when they spawn I'm up all night sometimes messing around with my aquariums my husband thinks I'm crazy, that's because he just doesn't understand the dedication and pain and heartache I go through with all my babies (the whole fish underwater world
Excellence in CZcams entertainment guys, love the fact your a man/wife team! Keep them coming :)
Thanks for what you do Jason
Thank you for being here!
Yes🙏💚
While this is a bit of a commercial, I have to entirely agree with it. Jason's points match my experience and I'm glad he's putting these points out there. My fish (especially otocinclus and gobies) eat the Northfin Kelp Wafers MUCH more enthusiastically than the algae wafers from Hikari. In general, I have very good experiences with Hikari foods and many of my tanks thrive on Vibra Bites. For whatever reason, though, Hikari's Algae Wafers do not appeal to the fish, even when fresh from a new bag. Anyway, Northfin Kelp Wafers are worth trying. They are great. Another good "real" algae-based food is Sera Micron fry food. It's half dried spirulina and you can really smell the spirulina in it.
Good to know what to look for on the packaging. Thanks!!
I have a cat that LOVES algae wafers - comes to the tank at feeding time. He's my Cat-Fish!
That's great. We feed our plecos Northfin Kelp about every other day. They do great cleaning the glass otherwise. We also use Northfin Veggie Formula pellets for our Pea/Hap tanks. Twice a week they go crazy over that Veggie Formula 😎
I've gotten away from these, but I'm glad you did this video. I've switched to just cutting up zucchini or cucumbers. Great info as always! 🤙
This is exactly the advice I needed atm thank you! I’ve been looking for a good all around good quality algae wafer for shrimp, snails and Corys for good health. You always have great advice and content!
I completely agree - most are the same ingredients with a little green thrown in. That's why I feed a lot green beans to everyone among other vegetables.
@Prime Time Aquatics
By the way,I just became a monthly membership member! I cannot thank you all enough for your incredibly valuable information and patience with my questions throughout this month which started with a constipated baby male Betta who I adopted unknowingly with swim bladder disease right from the very beginning to my questions with my baby sword tails Right through all of my Many questions involving my large rescue group and an emergency cycle setup situation ( including me laying under the tank with no substrate desperately trying to figure out if I have male/ female or both with my fishies . Happy that everyone in the chat could have a small chuckle😂😘at times this hobby is so stressful and serious that is great to have a universal 🤭 giggle)It makes me feel better that I'm not the only person who has had difficulty identifying Blood parrot and other not obviously male or female fish 🧠💭💕🐟
Thank you for being here!
I bought algae wafer for my bristle nose placo and found that my marigold variatus platies absolutely love them too
That one dude at 1:40 lying on top of, like, 3 of em! 😆😆😆
All my fish hate those northfin kelp wafers and refuse to eat them, in all 4 of my tanks
Thanks for the video. I thought I had picked a good algae wafer for my Cory's and Nerite Snails but sure enough the first ingredient listed was Fish Meal. SO glad you posted this video and thanks!!
I have what I think to be a stupid question. I have five cory's and wonder if I am over feeding. I put a wafer in that they consume in a day. Should I only leave it in for a short time?
Thank you for this video. I checked my algae wafer and it was 95% fillers with a little bit of spirulina and a few veggies sprinkled in
I feed my corydoras "algae" wafers, Hikari and Omega One. Others have mentioned the Hikari ingredients being less than impressive . Omega One list salmon and herring first; is that good or bad? The cories are breeding but maybe that's because they do not have eating to look forward to so they spend their time canoodling!
For algae wafers I’d prefer to have some type of algae/kelp as my first ingredient. That being said, your corys are fine with what they’re getting.
Cories aren’t primarily algae eaters so having protein sources as the first ingredients isn’t a bad thing for them. While salmon and herring are, in my opinion, higher quality ingredients than fish meal (less processed and more specific), wild cories don’t actually eat that much fish in the wild. They would get some dead fish and fish eggs, but most of their protein would come from insect larvae and small crustaceans. That’s why I look for ingredients like fly larvae, shrimp, krill, plankton, worms, etc. as the primary ingredients.
Corys dont really need algae, my corys really like tetra pro colour crisps and mini granules.
I've found alot of cheap ones my bristlenoses won't even touch. Even the pond snails barely touch them and they just go bad. The good wafers are gone every day.
I prefer cucumber or zucchini for my plecos. I throw in bottom feeder pellets (cory/loaches type) and a few wafers occasionally. The breeding bristlenoses and fry are almost always on vegetables.
The one fish ive found love all the wafers is rainbow cichlids.
Those are questions I think about all the time
I have found a few wafers my plecos or anything else won't touch. What I get now, they are all over almost as soon as it touches the substrate.
Love the informative video and the scientific evidence based approach. The ingredients of the algae wafers you feed is a very important key consideration. The first ingredient should be some type of algae. My Bristlenose Catfish, Cory Catfish, and Black Skirted Tetra all really like the algae wafers I feed. I only feed a few times a week with the algae wafers and never to many wafers at one time.
What do you think on this? Read if somewhere a while ago and makes total sense to me:
it is not enough to ahve algae as the first ingredient, for example if the "vegetarian" food states Kelp as itsfrist ingredient you might think its fine, but of the next 3 ingredients are Krill Meal, Herring meal and Whole sardine meal, then at the end of the day that food very well might have more animal content than algae, maybe it has 30% kelp, but then 20% krill, 15% herring and 10% whoel sardine.
That's why I really like algaemax from NLS, algae is like, the primary 5 or 6 ingredients of the formula, krill is very far away in the list, but is still there cause vegetarians can benefit from it as well.
NLS Algaemax ingredients:
Ingredients: Algae: Chlorella Seaweed, Ulva Seaweed, Red Seaweed, Kelp, Spirulina, Wakame Seaweed. Whole Antarctic Krill**, Giant Squid*, Whole Wheat Flour,
northfin:
Organic Kelp (Laminariales), Whole Antarctic Krill Meal (Euphausia Superba), High DHA Omega-3 Whole Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Spirulina
The thing is, we dont know the ratios of each ingredient, but its safe to say that you're better off feeding something like NLS
It might, but it's still far better than having the first 2-3 ingredients being animal-based products. Also, you can infer percentages by looking at the protein content, etc which is very good on the Northfin Kelp pellets.
@@PrimeTimeAquatics Thanks! So, less protein might be indicative of more veggie content right?
I feed my tanks. Peas , cucumber and a interesting trick I learned from Miami sea aquarium when I was down there. You can buy the freeze dried kelp like they use in Miso soup and crush bit that up. Most Asian grocery stores have it. I buy a large bag of dried fish chips there as well for my cat. Way cheaper than the pretty small round cylinder that is 8-10 dollars.
You can also buy a variety of dried seaweeds online, either in sheets or powders, and make gel cubes by either mixing them into Repashy products or with agar agar (which also comes from seaweed). Can also mix in diced or puréed veggies. A great way to maximize the variety of algae we provide our fish.
@@kendallwikoff8900 Thanks ! I never thought that . I do know what agar is. My personal feeling is the natural veggies is the way to go. Seaweed in all honesty has limited nutrients in it. Fish like everyone else has different taste palette. I have four Corey Dora’s. 2 them love zucchini but the other 2 seem to go nuts for peas and barely mess with Zucchini. Hard to please everyone.
@@Brett7777 Aren’t kelp and many of its macroalgae relatives considered superfoods dense in bioavailable minerals and micronutrients? Many pleco nerds prefer to provide as much algae as possible in the form of various seaweeds since they should be more digestible and easier to absorb nutritionally compared to terrestrial plants.
@@kendallwikoff8900
Yes you are right. I honestly did not know it was classified as super food. I knew it had some vitamins. Honestly did not think as many as it does. Here is the breakdown I found from cosmopolitan article and some basic googling. I have dealt with a handful dietitian in my time do to having a kidney transplant. Never covered seaweed. Do you watch Aquarium Co-op. I recently joined there forum. I think you would enjoy it. People so far are pretty cool and down to earth.
Nutrients: Sea kelp is a natural source of vitamins A, B1, B2, C, D and E, as well as minerals including zinc, iodine, magnesium, iron, potassium, copper and calcium.May 25, 2021.
@@Brett7777 Yeah seaweeds contain way more minerals than most terrestrial plants because seawater contains a lot of dissolved solids. Also algae absorbs nutrients through basically every surface rather than through roots so the entire organism is nutrient dense. I meet with a dietician about once a week and we often just discuss pet foods. I do watch Aquarium Co-op pretty often but have never been involved in the community. Have a link to the forum?
I have a variety of fish and snails. I feed canned green beans.
I’ve been using Xtreme bottom wafers for about a year now and have had very good success. Thanks for sharing!
Just a heads up extreme uses meal instead of whole ingredients. Would highly suggest New Life Spectrum, Ocean Nutrition frozen, Hikari frozen, or Northfin. Those are the only 3 I’ve found with absolutely no meal in the ingredients list.
Thanks for this Jason . I looked at mine and realised I was feeding mine the ones filled with fillers and not much algae so changed brand . Thanks Jason I always crush mine and you can tell the algae ones as they seem to crush differently than the ones with all the fillers in. 👍
Thanks for the info on how to find a great algae wafer!
All my fish absolutely love the northfin food
Yes it is, I take wood and put it in my only snail/ pleco free tank. I allow it to grow biofilm and switch out when needed.
Great topic Jason. It's definitely important to check out the ingredients and not just look at fancy packaging. Thanks for sharing and for your recommendations!!
I appreciate you so much 💚🌿🌿🐟🌿💚🙏
Thank you :-)
Very informative, thanks! I heard of people using Nori (sea weed sushi wrappers) as well.. are those good?
Yep, Algae max has an amazing amount of aquatic plants and has an amazing ingredient list; however, I have yet to train a fish to eat them. Even my Festae love the NF Kelp wafers. I have been really happy with NF lately. I just started Krill Gold as well. Been a complete NLS fan boy for a long time. Now, it seems NF is just more palatable without having to train my fish to eat specific pellets.
My pleco loves those things I think it can smell them or something.
I was shocked to see my Hikari Algae Wafers have fish meal as the top ingredient, rather than algae. I expected better from such a highly respected brand. Everyone raves about Hikari wafers.
Apparently their ingredients used to be better and might still be high quality in Japan but Hikari USA is just coasting off their respected reputation. They’re junk food.
Just did the same thing... Come on hikari....
I purchased algae wafers by Hikari & they contain copper. That isn't good for Apple snails & fish that are sensitive to copper based wafers. I can't understand why they contain copper in the first place??
Heads up: I can get there another way, but your Northfin link to the algae wafers didn’t work properly. Thanks for the info, though. I’ll be switching wafers.
I think we miss understand the eco system all fish i know that are in the aqarium setting basically compete with scavenger fish in home aqariums except piranhas which likely will try to eat them idk if livebearing pike or pike chiclids will scavenge but they may try to eat scavenger fish as well.
Saw the video, immediately checked out my algae wafers. Fish meal top ingredient in both packages. Looks like I will be ordering from North Fin in a few days. Problem is all of my fish LOVE the algae wafers I have been feeding them. My Bronze Corydora herd, My Plecko (Killer) and especially my 2 Silver Dollars. In fact, at feeding time the Silver Dollars will be waiting in the spot where I drop the wafers. 2 of the wafers will be caught by the Silver Dollars on the way down and they will happily swim around the tank, each with a wafer protruding from its mouth. I just hope they will take to the North Fin wafers in the same way.
You can always use multiple types of wafers and occasionally switch it up. :-)
I am definately going to try some North Fin algae waffers to feed to my newly acquired (4) albino Plecos. They share my 55gal with 6 Altolamprologus Calvus.
Wow, Thank you for this 'Algae Wafer' challenge, mine did not pass muster! I've got an order coming in from Flip next week anyway, so this gives me time to add Algae wafers to the order!
Cool! 😀
Great video Jason thanks for the information on algae wafers
Whew. Mine has kelp. Thanks for bringing this up.
Plecos never get to this because the other fish shred it apart before it hits the ground.
If you feed your plecos at night that should take care of the issue.
Mollys love them too!
I have been using Fluval Bug Bite, its a pellet instead of a wafer, it has some bug larve as the first ingredient, green peas, potato, wheat, and all the rest of the ingredients, but all of my fish love them including my plecos and the stay together good, I also feed bug bite tropical formula, which is basically the same but also has fish protein concentrat, it's small little bits that even my baby guppies can eat, betta, grown guppies love it, it floats for a few seconds then sinks so u have to go light and put in a couple pinches. But all my fish seem to love both of them
I also feed cucumber sometimes, my plecos love them
Keep in mind that almost all foods are designed to be palatable so whether or not a fish “likes” a food shouldn’t be the deciding factor. Companies add in flavor enhancers like fish oils, krill oils and garlic to fish foods just like sugar and oils are added to many of our foods to make them more palatable and addictive.
CHECK OUT OMEGA ONE....THEY ARE THE BEST....NO COMPARISON TO THE OTHER FOODS
When my friend got a mystery snail last year put it in his 49 gallon 8 (tiny at that time feeder size) Comet goldfish tank I told him I don't think this is a good idea because his comets are so ravenous that they're not going to allow the snail a chance to eat. I even tried hiding its wafers in something and after I left the goldfish broke eventually through the barrier and the poor snail starved it had no opportunity to eat. I would say all who have 1 let alone multiple goldfish take a good look at what type of goldfish you have and realize that comets move and eat so fast that there's no way that a snail could keep up with it and you are setting up a premature death for an innocent snail.He learned his lesson,never again and yes everyone makes Mistakes.(and Yes the comets will be split up into multiple tanks, they are growing)
I would feed the snail at night. Goldfish will be asleep and the snail will still be scavenging. :-)
@@PrimeTimeAquatics Thank you for responding to my message! I will and everyone should try that important tip .it was a mistake on friend part,but we all make them .I just hated that an innocent snail paid the price.
@@PrimeTimeAquatics I night feed in pretty much any tank w/ slow scavengers. Snails are slow and plecos are derpy. They would get very little if they didn't have all night to find the food 🤣
This was the video that made me switch to north fin wafers awhile ago 👍
Hope you like them!
I have the extreme algae wafers but the plecos nibbles on it a bit then the snails takes it over. I feel like I’m only feeding my snails lol.
I have algae wafers and my kuhli loaches would take micro fauna or fish flakes before ever considering algae wafers. For some reason my ottocinclus also never touches them months later, they stick to their diet of invisible(biofilm) food lol. Shrimp don't bother much with it for me either, sometimes you see one on it, but they don't run to it because plenty of better options that my aquarium produces, and they still prefer fish flakes to algae wafer. I did notice my Hillstream loaches eat them but they are not so picky like the others in my tank, they take flakes, demolish that green algae. Personally I feel algae wafers which I got in a tiny bag of tiny size bites too, are a waste of money for me and all my fish, if I could take that money back I would reinvest it in more flake food or hella better, live grindal worm culture that sinks and stays alive in the water AND I can pump whatever nutrients I please into them and then feed to my fish. So that is the direction I am heading 😎
Saw a commercial fish breeder feeding seaweed as it comes to wrap sushi. Do you know anything about that? He also fed carrot to red colored fish for the carotene
Similar to the wafers most likely?
well i never feed mine oto for 6 years , just green beard algae in the tank
Sera spirulina tab : 24% spirulina 16% marine algae 9%krill
Very informative. Thanks so much
Very happy with both the Veggie and Meat wafers from KensFish. Fish love them and affordable!
Did the "Northfin Kelp Wafer" formula change recently?
Checking online "Kelp" is the 5th ingredient in the ingredient list for this product.
1. Krill
2. Herring
3. Sardine
4. Wheat Flour
5. KELP
I’ll have go back and check!
You have forgotten to mention tetras. They are always first at my Söll organix wafers (other name in us).
The northfin kelp wafer on the flip aquatics site has "krill meal" as the 1st ingredient.
Honestly this is my problem with algae wafers in general. Algae rarely makes up a majority of the product. Easier just to feed dry or frozen seaweeds, and fresh veggies.
What I showed you were the ingredients from their website - Kelp was first.
@@PrimeTimeAquatics True, but first doesn’t mean majority. I appreciate that being first is better than being further down the ingredient list but it’s still not what some of us are striving for.
From my experience north fin is a great brand. I use a lot of there products
A lot of my fish eat algee wafers, but I buy tbe spuralina wafers
I had a feeling this would turn into a commercial. I'd rather feed my fish FISH MEAL than algae! My pleco can get his algae off everything in the tank and all my other fish love these algae(mostly fish meal) wafers I use!
For fish that require algae the cheaper fish meal pellets are not suitable.
After watching this video, I checked the ingredients of all the fish foods I currently have and was really surprised that they all contain ash. Surely that can’t be good for the fish 😬
From what I understand, ash is a byproduct of the process by which they create the guaranteed analysis, during which the foods are basically burnt to a crisp. “Ash” refers to the inorganics which remain, including components from bones, scales, as well as synthetics from vitamins and minerals. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s not like ash is a listed ingredient that they purposefully add to foods.
@@kendallwikoff8900 thank you that’s good to know 👌
My kois love the algae wafers
Dang! I've got Hikari mini algae wafers and first thing on the ingredients list is FISH MEAL.
people should make their own vegetarian fish food, it's cheap, quick and easy and you know it's great ingredients. You only need a small 1 third of a broccli, half a carrot, half a cucumber, half a red pepper, 3 cloves of garclic add your old fish food you dont use also just so the fish recognise it as food more, blend it, put it in a pot and bring it to the boil, pour it back into the blender, blend it into a liquid and put it into a bowl measuring how much you have add the correct amount of gelatin slowly stirring it in little by little, pour it into or onto something you can freeze, once frozen cut into cubes and in 1 day if you only have one or two tanks you have enough food to feed 2/3 times per week for a few months or 6 months that is better than almost any store bought algae or vegetable food and only cost like $5 to buy the ingredients although you can even use stuff you buy for your own meals, just freeze them until you have all the stuff then do it.
This would be a pretty low protein food though so not suitable for feeding solely every day but for every other day or twice a week just for a varied diet.
Most algea wafers like you said, have fish meal, wheat product and what not in them so I don't bother anymore. I use bio vegetables like end bits of cucumbers, small leaf of lettuces ect. for my shrimps snails and otos.
Also, when you trim plants, you could alway boil some and feed them your fish...would that work?
I think that most aquatic plants would basically disintegrate if boiled. You could blend them with some agar agar and cut them into plant gel cubes, or dehydrate the the blend to make plant crisps.
I read everywhere that snails don't eat algae wafers
They sure do!
I bought a bag in 2015. I've used 5 wafers,.
My plecos and crawfish LOVE them
Thanks soo much for this. ive noticed that my pleco doesnt even touch the wafers i feed and just eats the flakes i feed my other fish. And wouldnt you know, the wafers barely have any algae in them. i will be switching to a different brand to see if he prefers them. Any suggestions?
Kelp wafers by Northfin for sure!
I really don't keep scavenger fish but always love redtail and rainbow sharks good all around scavenger n algea eater.but the fish i have eat alot of everything so they are really not needed.
You want happy plecos... feed blood worms about 20 mins after lights out at night twice a week. Blanched zucchini on a skewer in a secluded spot during the day, meaty worms at night. Your plecos will thank you!
North fin Kelp wafers are the best wafers in the market. And they stick to the glass with a little trick lol.
Nice information
Best food for angele fish
Thanks nice to know.
New Life Spectrum Algaemax wafers are amazing in quality and everything in my tanks eat them.