How the Fish Food Crumbles
We've got big news, fellow fish geeks. For those of you who are regulars here, you'll know that we regularly promote Nutramar Foods of all kinds and today is going to be no different. In fact, there's been some expansion in the Nutramar lines that we feel you need to get caught up on. First off, in regard to “dry” food offerings, Nutramar's trusted formulas aren't changing (sigh of relief here). They're still offering both the Nutramar Marine Complete, and the Marine Algae and Color Boost. For most fish, we feed both of these on regular basis. For some fish whose diet resides more on the herbaceous side of life, we'll stick more strictly to the Algae and Color Boost diet, which is made up of a variety of marine alga and is suitable as a base diet for them. For the purer carnivores, we may opt for the Complete formula all the time. Both formulas contain naturally occurring sensory attractants to encourage feeding.
What is changing is that now there are more options for how these foods can be fed. Regardless of the formula you're looking for, the Nutramar pellets still come in 1.75mm sizes for our piscine pals, but are now available in both 0.8mm and 1.5mm as well! Both formulas are also still available in the miraculous shots that can be stuck to the glass, rocks or any other smooth hard surface. While pretty much all fish learn to love the shots, we especially focus on using them with the grazers of the aquarium world whose natural feeding triggers are set off by utilizing the shots. All this being said, have you heard of crumbles???
Crumbles are also available in both the Algae and Color Boost, and Marine Complete formulas. They start as a 1.75mm hunk of food, but are designed to come apart, both by being crumbled by you, the aquarist, and through natural feeding action. This makes both large chunks of tastiness for your bigger fish, and smaller bits for the little guys and inverts to mow down on. Both formulas have been designed for a wide nutrient spectrum, appropriate protein density, balanced color enhancers and ease of digestion.
There's also some new Nutramar liquid feeds, like Nutramar Copepods. This is a different product than the live Tigrio. This is a suspension food that contains a range of sizes of red copepods (Calanus sp.) as well as crustacean derivatives, antioxidants and stabilizers. It is appropriate for just about everything in a marine aquarium but is especially useful for feeding animals like pipefish and seahorses. There's a couple of other new liquid fires from Nutramar too. One is called Reef Complete and the other is called Phytoplankton. All three of these are concentrated liquid feeds. Reef Complete and Phytoplankton were especially designed for marine invertebrates / filter feeders like SPS Corals, Feather Dusters, Clams and even Sponges etc. All three of these foods can be diluted and target fed or dosed to the whole tank but should always be shaken before use. You shouldn't feed more than three ml for every 25 gallons of aquarium capacity total. Meaning if you use two milliliters of Copepods, then you should only dose one milliliter of Reef Complete or Phytoplankton per day (for every 25 gallons). Either / any can be fed daily or used as a supplement to other foods. Refrigerate after opening and use them all within a few months.
Another cool new liquid feed from Nutramar is the Sprays. There is Vitality Boost, formulated to support your fish's immune response and boost their general vitality, especially important when adding new fish or inverts to help naturally maintain their health. It is full of vitality boosters like probiotics, garlic, aloe vera and omega 3s. The other is Feeding Boost designed to help get picky fish to respond to the dinner bell. It contains garlic and blended amino acids, spirulina as well as antioxidants and appropriate aquatic yeasts. Both of these can be sprayed on other dry foods or even used to re-hydrate seaweed-based foods like Ogo and Nori. They should also be shaken well and refrigerated after opening and kept out of direct sunlight.
If you've been around long enough to read a few articles here, you know we trust Nutramar (and Gamma) foods to feed almost everything in this place, and we recommend the same to you. Nutramar's quality has always been on point, and now they are offering an even wider range of incredible products, enough to fit almost every niche you can have in a home aquarium. If you've been thinking it's time for a new food, it is. Make the move to the food all our professionals use both at work and in their own tanks; Nutramar has got some magic for your display!
