It can be frustrating getting the real scoop on feeding your fish. This is where aquaria publications could be very helpful. Yet the silence is deafening when it comes to providing meaningful consumer information and comparisons for aquarium diets.

Most aquarium publications are geared towards promoting the hobby, and assisting enthusiasts — but because of their need for advertising, they don’t publish comparative fish food studies.

Hobbyists want a controlled feed trial study of top commercial foods. These studies have been done. In 2002, an in-depth feed trial study of 33 top fish food brands was performed by a group of highly accredited veterinarians in Singapore. In February 2007, Sparsholt College in the United Kingdom completed a feed trial on Lake Malawi cichlids. Yet the results of have not been made public due to the politics involved.

The best approach for hobbyists is to perform your own trials — as ad-hoc and imperfect as these experiments may be. It’s the only way you’ll find out what works best. We also believe enthusiasts that truly want to benefit the hobby will share their findings with others. Fish nutrition has been a long neglected facet of aquarium keeping, but it doesn’t have to be. Understanding nutrition’s role in a healthy aquarium is beginning to rise thanks to activist hobbyists who have tried various options for themselves and have advocated on aquarium hobby forums, YouTube and more.

The bottom line is that you should draw your own conclusions instead of relying on manufacturers’ claims. This includes our claims. Find out for yourself. Don’t we owe it to our aquarium companions to provide them with long-term optimal health?

As an example of the difference a personal investigation can make: in 1996, we published a book called “Marine Aquarium Companion”. Amongst all the information contained in the book was each fish’s survivability rating in captivity. We listed the Moorish Idol as “doomed” due to their specialized diet in the wild. At the time, it was a “fact” that this species simply couldn’t be kept long-term in an aquarium, as no commercial food could sustain it (nor many other delicate marine species). As a side note, at the time we listed it’s temperament as “peaceful” when in fact it’s docile nature was due to listlessness.

Conventional wisdom proved wrong in both counts. Once we began feeding idols with the formulations that later became Spectrum, we discovered two things. First, is that though difficult, still they could be kept in captivity if given sufficient nutrition with sufficient olfactory (scent) appeal. The second is that once well-fed, Moorish Idols weren’t peaceful at all but quite aggressively territorial. Their ‘docile’ nature was a side effect of starvation. Our own observations and experiments gave us insights we wouldn’t have gotten from commercial publications nor the rumor-mill.

In the next next article, we’ll talk about some common myths when it comes to fish food feeding myths, as well as best practices.

Finding Fish Nutrition Facts