Food Choice Help - Corydoras Specific (somewhat)

[nabokovfan87]

Hey everyone,

So I keep a variety of species in two tanks, the focus being corydoras and amano shrimp.  Pretty much everything does well with "whatever" but I have tried a few methods and just really haven't found what I am comfortable with.  I have some time before I need to buy more food and I feel like I really want to find something better.

First, I do have one very specific consideration that I would like to add:

I would opt to not use anything that has the term "fish meal" as it's first ingredient.  I wouldn't like it at all, but I kind of understand it's just going to be there because fish eat fish.

I tend to lean pretty hard on a few food right now, specifically things with fly larvae, spirulina, shrimp, or frozen foods.  My "treat" is when I get to feed repashy and using better ingredients is just generally easier and second nature.  I can control things a lot better using repashy and it's nearly a perfect food for the tanks I keep.  They don't overeat, it's always there for them, easy to get at, etc.

Here's my dilemma.  I was looking at food and I just sort of threw my hands up in frustration.  This is from a common brand of algae wafers and I know this is one of the few wafers my fish always enjoy.
 

Quote

Fish meal, wheat flour, wheat germ meal, cassava starch, dried bakery product, dried seaweed meal, dehydrated alfalfa meal, alfalfa nutrient concentrate dehydrated, brewers dried yeast, soybean meal, fish oil, krill meal, spirulina, garlic, DL-methionine, chlorella, astaxanthin, choline chloride, vitamin E supplement, L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (stabilized vitamin C), inositol, d-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, vitamin A supplement, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, niacin, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, biotin, disodium phosphate, ferrous sulfate, magnesium sulfate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, calcium iodate.*

* Because of our commitment to providing the highest quality nutrition available, some differences in ingredients may occur due to regular formula updates.

 First, that asterisk means it's basically "whatever" and the ingredients don't matter.  Very weird to add that without having some sort of clarifying statement about how much can change in the ingredients list.  We also have fish meal as the first ingredient on an algae wafer..... and then we have stuff like "dried bakery product".  I have also seen the most bizarre statement ever on a food label of:
 

Quote

Ingredients: Grain Products, Animal Protein Products of Marine Origins, Plant Protein Products, Processed Grain By-Products, Soy Lecithin, Limestone Ground, Fish Oil, Dicalcium Phosphate, Calcium Propionate (preservative), Manganese Proteinate, Zinc Proteinate, Copper Proteinate, Calcium Iodate, Iron Proteinate, Cobalt Proteinate, Calcium Carbonate, Sodium Selenite, dl-Methionine, Vitamin A Acetate, Vitamin D3 Supplement, dl-Alpha Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E Supplement), Vitamin B-12 Supplement, Riboflavin-5 Phosphate, Niacin d-Calcium Pantothenate, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K Activity), Folic Acid, Thiamine Mononitrate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Biotin, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), Zinc Oxide, Ethoxyquin We replaced probiotics with Vitality Pak, an all-natural, nutritional feed supplement, designed to improve overall fish health and resistance to disease.

"grain products"
"animal protein products of marine origins"
"plant protein products"
"processed grain by-products"

I guess I am just frustrated with the very non-specific words used to explain what's going in things.  It's kind of like flipping over a TV dinner and seeing it say "green things" or something.

I don't need to have some crazy expensive foods, but I just really, really want to find something quality and that's clear as to what's going on in the food recipe. 

This leads me down a few paths.... something like bug bites might be useful.  krill flakes as opposed to something else that is a flake food and "fish meal" based.  krill pellets, if they exist, I would imagine so.  and I am assuming there is other options I am just not thinking about.

My parameters for use are:
-something with krill/shrimp
-something small for small mouth fish (repashy is fine, but a flake or micropellet works)
-something that is fully sinking, not semi-floating
-something with spirulina as a main ingredient

Any ideas?  Anything you use that would work for me that you can share!!!???

Edit: Hm, I am thinking maybe this works for some of what I need?
https://www.aquariumcoop.com/collections/fish-food/products/hikari-discus-bio-gold

Bug bites looks like a decent option too and I just went through all of the repashy versions.

Edited December 1, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[itsfoxtail]

Off the top of my head I'd just throw out there the Bug Bites Spirulina flakes. I believe first ingredients are spirulina and black soldier fly larvae but I'm not sure about it as you get into the nitty gritty of the paragraph that is ingredients. Also I think you're probably just asking for dry foods but brine shrimp (frozen or freeze-dried) have the spirulina option too which I think is great for corys!

And now I'm off to go look at the ingredients in my foods because tbh I guess I haven't paid that much attention to it...

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/1/2022 at 2:51 AM, itsfoxtail said:

Also I think you're probably just asking for dry foods but brine shrimp (frozen or freeze-dried) have the spirulina option too which I think is great for corys!

They definitely love frozen spirulina brine!

[Theplatymaster]

I was thinking Xtreme bottom wafers. Pea protein is first ingredient but good food.

[MattyM]

I recently watched a vid where Dean was into the Sera line - haven't tried it myself, but may be worth a look. I still have too many Extreme/Hikari products to go through, my tanks are small and I feed a lot of Hikari frozen food cubes. Cory's really seem to like the bloodworms and Spirulina shrimp. 

[Cinnebuns]

Hey!  Since you have this under breeding I'm assuming you are asking what will condition them or maybe what to feed fry?

I just put up a post in the panda appreciation society where I talk about that right now I have over 30 fry THAT I KNOW OF plus about a dozen that randomly popped up in the main tank. My cories are popping!  I feed them primarily shrimp pellets or wafers. I have tried 3 different brands. The Hikari ones seemed to be my preference as it wasn't messy like the other two. The ones I'm feed now, however, during the baby boom is API. Idk if that effected the baby boom or not. I tend to think it has more to do with the fact that I changed their environment drastically than the food though. 

When it comes to fry I mostly feed them first bites. They do also get some Sera micro feed but thats mostly because the rainbow fry in the same tank is too small to eat first bites. I also feed the tank bacter ae but this also is more for the shrimp. Another thing to consider is non-food foods. I supply the tank with mosses and cholla to cultivate micro organisms and such. When it comes to fry, a dirty tank is a healthy tank. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/8/2022 at 1:16 AM, Cinnebuns said:

When it comes to fry I mostly feed them first bites. They do also get some Sera micro feed but thats mostly because the rainbow fry in the same tank is too small to eat first bites. I also feed the tank bacter ae but this also is more for the shrimp. Another thing to consider is non-food foods. I supply the tank with mosses and cholla to cultivate micro organisms and such. When it comes to fry, a dirty tank is a healthy tank. 

Repashy works extremely well. Especially the community one and soilent green. The bottom scratcher is a bit chunky, but works too. I just used a pipette and mixed a dash of powder.

On 12/8/2022 at 1:16 AM, Cinnebuns said:

I feed them primarily shrimp pellets or wafers. I have tried 3 different brands. The Hikari ones seemed to be my preference as it wasn't messy like the other two. The ones I'm feed now, however, during the baby boom is API. Idk if that effected the baby boom or not. I tend to think it has more to do with the fact that I changed their environment drastically than the food though. 

Yeah, environment has always done wonders for me. I've had the pandas in a tank for a long time. Added moss and then got fry non-stop.

When you say "the hikari ones" do you mean the wafers? One of my biggest issues is finding pellets that aren't micro size, that they will enjoy, and that are good ingredients.

In lieu of "fish meal" and potentially contaminates from whatever that could be (shark, mercury, etc) I was leaning towards shrimp, krill, or just something that is very specific about what is in the package.

Hopefully that makes sense. I have just been trying to pay attention slightly more with what I'm feeding. The bug bites seems like a good option overall in comparison to other foods I have looked into.

I am "fine" if something says fish meal, clearly fish eat fish, but I am just trying to evaluate that and specifically for my corydoras understand what they want and need. I have always been heavy handed when it comes to spirulina, and had to do a double take when I saw the fish meal as the #1 ingredient in the spirulina stuff.

Things like that.... That's what I'm trying to figure out some improvements on my next food order.

[nabokovfan87]

Doing more research on this.

When an ingredient list says "whole fish" usually listing a species, should we assume this is bones and organs and everything?

I am guessing that for some species that's fine, for others it's not. Just trying to sort through a few things.

Edit: I also found another in my search for an algae wafer or spirulina food that boasts so highly about the quality of everything, but literally does not have the ingredients list anywhere on their website or easily available.  Not sure what to do with that.

Edited January 17, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Colu]

EBO has some of the best quality foods their spirulina tabs have 30% spirulina EBO veggie sticks are good quality 50% peas 50% pumpkin would be good for Cory's difficult to source if your in the USA @nabokovfan87

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/17/2023 at 12:15 PM, Colu said:

EBO has some of the best quality foods their spirulina tabs have 30% spirulina EBO veggie sticks are good quality 50% peas 50% pumpkin would be good for Cory's difficult to source if your in the USA @nabokovfan87

Yeah there was one from canada I saw I wanted to try too.  😞

I am very tempted to order some foods from amazon.de / amazon.co.uk but I do have plenty of other things to try for the next few months that I can source locally.  I appreciate it @Colu Thanks.

I did sort of get some clarity on the question above, for those following along I'll try to clarify.  The brand in question has a link on their website (but they won't tell you the ingredients) about how good the quality is and so on.   They talk about some of the things in the food and they make news style posts about the processes they use.  One of those being a marketing type page about how they don't use "fillers" for their form of fish meal but they use whole fish.  I take that to mean, they purposefully buy the whole fish so you're not just getting a head / carcass and condensing that down.   So in my mind, that tells me that yeah, it's a whole fish, not a processed fish with some things cleaned / removed.  I can't verify that, but that's how the article / information was presented.  This is akin to the human side of things when you purchase something with "beef" and it's not very clear on which cut or % fat and so forth.

Hard to say anything beyond that, but more research to do and I will try to reach out to some of these brands to get more clarity on things. 

[Mary W.]

What are people's thoughts on Repashy?  My corys (Pygmy and False Julii) like the community blend.  Has anyone tried bottom scratcher for corys?

[nabokovfan87]

Yes. They love it. I use soilent green and bottom scratcher.

I would recommend making it a slightly more loose food for them to make it easier to eat. 3:1 portions or even 3:1 with a splash more.

 

[Lennie]

Hello

I'm feeding mine the following. Always had a good growth, and lately some breeding action as you know!🙃Probably not all of them meet the standards you are looking for tho. Just sharing all I feed during the week.

1- JBL Novo Tab

2-NLS AlgaeMax (their main course is not algae, so I feed this randomly, but you may like some ingredients it has!)

3-Tropical Nanovit Tablets

4- Hikari Algae Wafers& Shrimp cuisine (mainly for snails and shrimp but they love to eat some too)

5- NLS Thera A+ and Tropical nanovit pellets that fall to substrate when I feed my tetras and gourami 😄

6- Sera O'nip, mostly once a week. Everyone deserves a treat!🙃

7-Spiriluna Brine shrimp and bloodworm cubes, once a week.

I feed the algae ones much less, as they like protein side more, and they mostly share the food with my L199.

Peace!

[knee]

Omega One, North fin and NLS are high quality food. Brings out amazing color on the fish too

[nabokovfan87]

I found it months after, but it fits pretty perfectly for this topic/conversation.

Aqueon nutrinsect line of foods.  The pellets/granules are extremely small that the corydoras can get them in their mouth and chew them really easily.  They do go towards them and enjoy them.  Nutritionally and through the ingredients it seems like a good quality food! I'm hoping they are a bit more prevalent and available locally in the big box stores (it's shown up in some).

I did email them and ask about bulk sized packaging, but I believe it's one of those things where it's a matter of when (not if) that happens.  They told me they have no plans at this time and it's all going to be one size for the time being. 

I still am planning on trying out other foods and we'll see what they gravitate towards.  I realize that while I did have a lot of protein, the protein from veggie being different than that from other sources like bugs or krill.  It's a balance, and I am hoping that I can really use things like spawn and grow (repashy) and some of these new foods to trigger them to spawn a bit more regularly.

[tolstoy21]

On 1/19/2023 at 1:09 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Yes. They love it. I use soilent green and bottom scratcher.

I was going to recommend Repahsy as well, as the ingredients list is very comprehensive and complex and full of things one mostly understands. 

For vegetarian plecos, I mainly feed New Life Spectrum Algae Max, which I feel has a very good ingredient list compared to other 'vegetarian' pellets I've seen.

However, most of the foods I use start the ingredient list with fish meal, so I have no other recommendations, except Fluval Bug Bites. 

I tend to feed a mixture made up of Vibra Bites, small blackworm pellets (from Aquatic Foods, Inc.), Bug Bites, Xtreme nano, and freed dried white worms that I grind up a bit in a small coffee grinder.  I prefer to use the mixture over feeding food X on day X and food Y on day Y, etc.  I feed this to almost everything I keep. I went through a lot of different foods to find things that none of my fish rejected. Obviously this doesn't help your quest, though, as many of the foods are fish meal based.

Edited October 30, 2023 by tolstoy21