Probiotic food?

[mchambers]

At the ACA this summer, I picked up a sample of probiotic cichlid flakes from Cobalt Aquatics (www.cobaltaquatics.com) and had the rep explain to me the advantages of probiotic food, including its use in aquaculture. I got picked up a small sample of Hikaro Bio-Gold, which is another example of probiotic food.
I used the Cobalt Aquatics food on one tank for the last two months. The fish liked it and seemed healthy, but that is also true of my other tanks where I was using conventional food.
I'm curious if anyone else here is using or has used probiotic food and what their experience is or was. The concept seems promising to me, but the food is quite expensive, so, being a cheapskate, I won't buy it unless I can be convinced of its benefits.

 

[neut]

Hadn't heard of it before, but I'd want to see an ingredients list and guaranteed analysis before I'd even try it, which I don't see on their product descriptions on their web site.

An example of why is Hikari Bio-Gold. Adding some dried intestinal flora (probiotics) to an ingredient list with so many grains and starches doesn't impress me much and when I did some pretty thorough food testing a few years ago I got better color with other products which I now prefer compared to Hikari. Also, after doing some research into it, I tend to avoid fish foods with soybean meal. The Hikari is also lower in protein and higher in ash than the products I use. The high ash might be more acceptable if there was spirulina and kelp in the product, but without them the ash is likely an indication of too much bone, scale, etc. in the fish meal.

Cichlid Bio-Gold first few ingredients according to this source:
shrimp meal, white fish meal, brewer's dried yeast, wheat flour, soybean meal, wheat-germ meal

Not to say I wouldn't try the Cobalt, but first I'd have to be convinced by an ingredient list and guaranteed analysis that looked good.

 

[ezrk]

I happen to have a trial can.

Protein min 44%
Fat min 10%
Fiber min 4.2%
Phophorous min 1.0%
Moisture max 5%

Ingredients: Salmon Fish Meal, Dried Yeast, Dehulled Soybean meal, Shimp meal, Freeze dried plankton, freeze dried krill, dried spirulina, dried kelp, fish oil, lecithin, dried bring shrimp eggs, egg powder, garlic powder, earthworm powder, after this it is viatmins and chemicals.

 

[fischfan13]

Here it is

View attachment 2974