Cobalt foods

[festaedan]

Hey guys. I was just curious to see if anyone else uses cobalt fish foods. I picked up some of the marine spirulina flakes and some of the small cichlid pellets at AM2 and my fish love it. The ingredient list is pretty good and the fish took onto it pretty fast. My only complaint is that the pellets are very dense. But, overall a great food and I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

 

[dogofwar]

It's what Rusty Wessel feeds his fish!

Matt

 

[festaedan]

Cool!

 

[mchambers]

I use Cobalt food sometimes. I got a bag of Cobalt color flakes in the February raffle and have been using it on some tanks where I'm hoping to see more color in the fish. I've also been using the cichlid pellets I got at Aqua Mania.

Some of the Cobalt food is probiotic, which seems like a good idea, but I can't say I've scientifically tested the effectiveness. Hikari has a probiotic food, and most of Ken's house brand now includes probiotics.

As with all fish foods, I read the ingredients carefully and stay away from foods with much filler (like wheat, corn, or soy) or land animal protein.

 

[dogofwar]

Like bear meat

Matt

I use Cobalt food sometimes. I got a bag of Cobalt color flakes in the February raffle and have been using it on some tanks where I'm hoping to see more color in the fish. I've also been using the cichlid pellets I got at Aqua Mania.

Some of the Cobalt food is probiotic, which seems like a good idea, but I can't say I've scientifically tested the effectiveness. Hikari has a probiotic food, and most of Ken's house brand now includes probiotics.

As with all fish foods, I read the ingredients carefully and stay away from foods with much filler (like wheat, corn, or soy) or land animal protein.

 

[Localzoo]

Like bear meat

Matt

Lol


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[Becca]

I've tried two of the foods I got at Aquamania. The breeder flakes bring the catfish out when the lights are on, which is unusual. The only other food I've seen do that are the Ken's blackworm flakes.

 

[AndyNarwhal]

Probiotics in extruded fish foods (flakes, wafers, pellets, sticks, etc...) is nothing but a marketing gimmick.

The truth is that at the temperatures that the food is extruded at all the probiotic bacteria are killed off.

If you were to send that food to a laboratory you would find no active cultures in it.

Andy

 

[mchambers]

Andy,

That's interesting. My understanding is that probiotics are used in aquaculture. Do they use different temperature in making the food for aquaculture?

Matt

 

[mrkillie]

Probiotics in extruded fish foods (flakes, wafers, pellets, sticks, etc...) is nothing but a marketing gimmick.

The truth is that at the temperatures that the food is extruded at all the probiotic bacteria are killed off.

If you were to send that food to a laboratory you would find no active cultures in it.

Andy

Suggested reading -

http://www.petproductnews.com/ppn-editorial-blog/fish-absolutely/probiotics-for-life.aspx

I strongly recommend that you try to get Mr. Donston to speak at your local club. His store, Absolutely Fish, is in Clifton, NJ if you want to try to contact him.

 

[HermsTheWord]

PVAS had a speaker from AquaPharm on Saturday talking about how fish foods are made. There are two different types of extrusion process. One is the heat process, where the food is cooked to a high temperature to help the binding process. This can break down a lot of the nutrients in a food, but the technique is used to make floating pellets. The other method is the pressure extrusion process, where there's no added heat, just pressure.

One way to tell the difference is to look at the ingredient list. Lots of wheat, soy, glutin ingredients are included in heat extruded products as binders. Pressure extruded products will not contain such ingredients, or at least not as the main ingredients.

 

[AndyNarwhal]

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that probiotics are bad for fish. But the application needs to be done correctly.

Nearly all fish feeds on the market are heat (steam) extruded. If you are cooking the food at a core temperature of 90-100 degrees C you can't have a living bacteria culture that dies at 80 degrees C inside it. You just killed them all off.

Cold extruded food has it's own issues. It has a high moisture content (increased rate of spoilage), high cost, and it sinks quickly. It is mainly used for larval marine fish and shrimp in aquaculture.

A few companies have tried over the years to introduce cold extruded foods and none have survived. They can't compete on price point and they have spoilage issues. I can't remember their name but the brand of food that was very popular before Red Sea bought them, changed the formula to heat extruded, and killed it was the most successful one I can remember. All I can remember now is the small nitrogen packed cans though.

I think the only company using that technology now is New Era.

Andy

 

[mchambers]

Probiotic food

Interesting answer, Andy. Thanks for taking the time to explain all this.

As far as I know, there are at least four food manufacturers making probiotic food: Cobalt, Hikari, AquaPharm, and Ken's.

Herman, did anyone ask about the heat issue and effectiveness of probiotic cultures at PVAS?

 

[JasonC]

sounds like we need to have our resident microbiologists take some food samples to work with them... ;P

 

[AndyNarwhal]

Although this is kind of an ad for Theralac, there is some very good and truthful probiotic application information in it.
http://www.probiotic-myths.com/Default.aspx



Andy

 

[JLW]

PVAS is also having Les Wilson, CEO of Cobalt, come out to speak later this year.

I don't know if there are any active biological cultures in it or not, but I will say that it is a great food. I've seen client tanks have drops in nitrate after shifting from other foods to Cobalt, and presume it is because of better digestion through probiotics.

 

[HermsTheWord]

There was some talk of probiotics, but I do not recall specifically whether the issue of heat extrusion and probiotic survival was discussed. I don't want to misrepresent what he said, since I wasn't listening too closely to this part (I've never used probiotic food and hadn't even heard of it until the talk), so if there are others who were at the PVAS meeting and are more familiar with the subject, I'll defer to their notes of the speech.

 

[mchambers]

I asked Cobalt about this issue and here's the response:

"Our bacteria have a "terminal" temp of 400F
We cook 325-350 and put 6x the final 1,000,000 CFU that we want in end product in the precook end mixture to ensure we end up with the product quality we require"

I think I need to go back and ask how cold affects the bacteria, since it could affect how we store the food.

 

[mchambers]

Here's the answer from Cobalt on food storage:

"Not the freezer! That will kill them. Fridge temperatures would not hurt them, but the high humidity in the fridge would be a risk if the package is not totally sealed. We recommend keeping cans and pouches closed, squeezing the air out of pellet pouches before closing, keeping in a dry place, and using up within 6 months of first opening."