Maximum Feeding Commence!

There's a moment every marine hobbyist knows well. You've just come home with a stunner of a new fish, maybe one (or many) you've been idolizing and saving for, like the Candy Cane Femininus Wrasse you've been searching for, or a Regal Angelfish that finally showed up at your local store and you've got it home, got it acclimated into quarantine, and now comes the moment: you've got to get it to eat. You try mysis. You try brine. You try pellets. You think you've tried everything, and the fish just hangs there, gorgeous and indifferent. This is the situation that Nutramar's Feeding Boost Spray was built for. Wait, what? Feeding Boost Spray? What is this?

Nutramar Feeding Boost Spray is an advanced feed-enhancing liquid that you apply to any frozen or dry food before offering it to your fish. The practical premise is we're taking food we already feed and dressing it up. We mean, would you rather have a plain lettuce salad or one with some dressing? In the world of fish feeding, that salad is some dried nori. Or the spray could be used to transform a cube of frozen mysis or a pinch of flake into something far more nutritionally complete and (crucially) compelling to a fish that might otherwise be disinterested in such pedestrian fare. The formula is made entirely from 100% natural ingredients, and that matters both for the fish and for your aquarium. If you're going to feed it all the time, it's important that it doesn't mess up the chemistry you've been building.

The ingredient list tells an interesting story: spirulina, salt, crustacean derivatives, aquatic-appropriate yeasts, garlic, antioxidants, and stabilizers. Each of these plays a distinct role, and none of them are accidental. Spirulina is one of the most nutritionally dense substances you can offer a marine fish; it's loaded with protein, essential fatty acids, beta-carotene, and a suite of vitamins and minerals that support everything from immune function to pigmentation. Fish that receive regular spirulina in their diet tend to show noticeably richer coloration over time, and that's not coincidental; the carotenoids and phytonutrients in spirulina feed the same biochemical pathways that produce the reds, oranges, and yellows that you bought that fish for in the first place. When you're spraying this onto food that might otherwise be spirulina deficient like thawed adult brine shrimp, you're addressing a gap (it's also a good way to thaw that cube if you have some time, just spray a couple blasts on the cube and let it sit).

Crustaceans (and extracts of them) are naturally rich in astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment that is a super potent color enhancers. They're also rich in chitin, which has been shown to stimulate immune responses in fish. The aquatic-appropriate yeasts in the formula add B vitamins and amino acids, support gut health, and contribute to the overall palatability of the food. Yeast-based ingredients have a well-documented quality that fish find almost universally attractive, which is why yeast extracts show up here and pretty much all the other effective feeding stimulants on the market.

Fish aren't vampires. Well, there's a couple exceptions to this, but even those fish probably love garlic. In fact, you've probably seen garlic as an additive or a gut load in a wide variety of foods. For instance, Gamma does a Brine Plus Garlic (and fish go nuts for it.)  Garlic's reputation as a feeding stimulant is well earned. Organosulfur compounds in garlic (allicin chief among them) act as powerful chemical attractants that trigger feeding responses in a wide range of fish species (and people), including many that are notoriously difficult to coax into eating prepared foods. Garlic also has demonstrable antimicrobial and antiparasitic properties, which makes it particularly valuable when used during acclimation of new arrivals or during periods of stress. The fact that Nutramar has incorporated it into this spray rather than asking hobbyists to jury-rig their own garlic-soaked food solutions is a genuine quality of life improvement for all of us who have this before.

In terms of what foods benefit most from the spray treatment, the answer is essentially everything, but some categories stand out more than others. Even quality frozen foods can benefit from supplementation. Things like mysis shrimp, chopped krill, silversides, squid, cockle, and similar items are staples for good reason; they're accepted by a wide range of species and provide solid baseline nutrition. A few spritzes of the Feeding Boost Spray before thawing and offering does meaningful work to restore anything lost through freezing and adds compounds that weren't present in the first place. This usage is probably the staff favorite: it works exceptionally well on dried seaweed sheets (nori) and clip-on algae preparations, where the pre-soak actually helps the algae stay together better, dramatically increases nutrition value and makes the whole thing more palatable. The difference between how wet nori moves and dry nori doesn't is remarkable; this alone can encourage reluctant herbivores to start grazing. If you're using flaked foods, the Nutramar Feeding Boost Spray is a perfect way to get that food to clump up a little and sink down to fish that might otherwise get none, and it adds a ton of nutrients to a food type that is often overprocessed. One place we would not suggest using it is with the Nutramar line of pellets, crumbles and shots. The liquid balance in these foods is very specifically formulated and adding more will just turn them into goo. 

Using Nutramar Feeding Boost Spray itself couldn't be more straightforward. You shake the bottle well, apply a few spritzes directly to the food before offering it, and let the surface coating do its work. Once opened, the bottle should be kept refrigerated and used within three months, which shouldn't be a problem. A small spray bottle is reasonably priced making it one of the best values in the hobby when you consider that its most important job might be coaxing a hundred-dollar fish (or a thousand dollar fish) to take its first meal. Ask your local fish store about the Nutramar Feeding Boost Spray and the full Nutramar food line from Quality Marine. Your most challenging fish will thank you.