spirulina discs bad?

[chikistar]

hey all, i just called my LFS i wanted to ask them some question and i remembered soemthing else i wanted to ask and that is what i should feed to my clown loaches(i knew but i wanted to see what they'll say) and he said shrimp pellets, i asked them what else and he said shrimp pellets again and again, so i asked him what about fresh veggies and he said "nope", i told him that i also have spirulina discs and he said thats not for clown loaches or cories , he said that its for plecos only and that clown loaches and cories wont eat it and that basically they only eat shrimp pellets, thats wrong right guys? because i asked in my other thread what food to feed to my 2 loaches and 6 cories and u guys said shrimp pellets, spirulina discs and some veggies like cucumber etc..

[angelcakes]

it is wrong, clown loaches will eat most veggies and some fruit,catfish pellets,flake,some wafers cucumber or zuccini,mine hate peas!!!!! love bloodworm frozen not dried,there are so many foods that clowns will eat.:19:

[Lady Hobbs]

I drop pellets in my tank for the corys but the clowns eat it. Hasn't hurt them any. It is algae and they eat algae off the wood and plants so how could it hurt them?

[chikistar]

alright good to know, its just because im not quiete sure what to feed the clowns other than shrimp pellets, im scared to mess with fresh veggies because i dont want them to mess up my parameters, i have frozen brine shrimp too which icant wait to test how they like but i didnt try yet because i only have bottom dewellers , i cant decide yet which fish to buy, bloodworms i only have freeze dried, i tried live frozen bloodworms before but some get uneaten so i just stick to freeze dried

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Spirulina is in fact not an algae but is a type of cyanobacteria. Although the 2 species that make up what we commonly know as Spirulina are not in the Spirulina genus, they are still considered to be similar. Arthrospira platensis, and Arthrospira maxima are the 2 species of bacteria commonly used in the production of Spirulina based foods. So spirulina is fine for omnivorous fish but is useless as an algae suppliment.

[Lady Hobbs]

Dang! Are you smart or what!!!!!!!!!

Way to go, Big Boy!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Thank Dave for that piece of info, he's the one who taught me that. LOL

[chikistar]

so i SHOULD feed the spirulina disc once in a while yes?

[Lady Hobbs]

Am I not even talking the same thing here. Mine say Algae Pellets not Spirulina Pellets. The Spirulina I feed is flake.

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Ah, gottcha.

Chikistar, spirulina pellets are not bad for your bottom feeders at all, it actually quite good for them, it's just not a substitute for algae.

[chikistar]

hm, the spirulina i have is like round pellets, heres a link to what it is:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]


so my initial question was, i should be feeding this to my corries and clown loaches? like 1 pellet per week? i mean according to the guy from the pet store my fish are not supposed to eat these spirulina pellets, but hes wrong right? i SHould feed these yea? basically when i get my fish im gonna start feeding the brine shrimp too so there will be more variety i guess.. but 1 thing i dont understand , when i went into the petstore and i said can i get algae wafers she gave me these spirulina pellets that i have now, they didnt have any other algae food, so what i bought is not alage wafers?

[chikistar]

UPDATE: i just called my LFS again to make sure and i asked , do u have alage waffers and she said yes we do and i asked is that spirulina discs that ur talking about and she said yes, i asked do u have any other alage waffers and she said no.

[BackwardsBob]

Ok, I was all ready to get on this and say: "Yeah, I throw in 1/2 a Hikari algae wafer every day to feed my four zebra loaches (botia striata to you hip kids), one otto, one ghost shrimp and two rosie barbs, and I haven't killed them yet."

But then I looked at the package. Just because it SAYS algae on the freaking lable, doesn't mean there is much in there!

Walk with me for a moment.

I have Hikari Algae wafers. The package clearly states on the back: "Contains higher levels of spirulina and vegetable matter plecostomus and other algae eaters prefer."

If you know anything about product lableing, you know that the most abundant ingredient is 1st, and so on and so forth to the last, which is the least abundant.

Spirulina is 11th on the list!!! The first thing is FISH MEAL!!! I'VE BEEN FEEDING MY HERBIVORE FISH MEAL!!! I'm a bit upset at this point. It's my own fault. I didn't read the ingredients. It was called algae tablets, so I took that for granted.

To quote George W. Bush: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you can't get fooled twice!

So I got out my Hikiri Sinking Wafers. I bought these expressly for the loaches. The shrimp and barbs will pick at them, but it's SUPPOSED to be loach food. Guess what? Go on guess. Guess what number 1 and number 11were.

To play fair, the formulas are differant.

But now, *sighs* I'm going to have to go out and find some of the Wardley stuff and see how that fares. In the meantime, I'm eyeballing some frozen zuchini and green beans I have in the freezer.

Sorry I have no answers, but man, did this thread open my eyes up!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

I just want to clarify something here. Spirulina is not a bad thing for your fish, even for your more herbivorous fish. However it should not be used exclusivly for fish like plecos and other algae eating fish and it isn't an algae substitute. Your herbivorous fish still need green matter like Zuchinni or other green veggies.

[BackwardsBob]

Ok, I hope this isn't thread jacking, but I just yanked out all my haikari food for giggles.

Hikari Tropical "Sinking Carnivore Pellets": 1st ingredient: Fish meal. 7th ingredient: Spirulina

Hikari Cichlid "Chiclid Gold": 1st ingredient: Fish meal. No Spirulina.

Hikari Cichlid "Cichlid Bio-Gold+": 1st ingredient: Fish Meal. 5th ingredient: Spirulina.

Hikari "Betta Bio-Gold": 1st ingredient: Fish Meal. No Spirulina.

This wouldn't bother me at all normally, but I always thought spirulina was some wierd blue-green algae. My wife used to work in a health food store, so I saw this stuff all the time. It was stanky in a pill form!

Before I digress, peep this out: [Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

At any rate I've learned the following:

1) Read thine lables. Carnivore pellets seem to have MORE than the herbivores. That wierds me out a bit.

Letter B) Read thine lables again. Just because it says herbivore/carnivore doesn't mean what you see is what you get. Of course, they don't give percentages, because if they did, we could all just make this stuff at home. You could almost scratch point 1 on that merit.

I still haven't answered the original question, but I hope the info helps! I'm pretty confused now though!

[chikistar]

Ok, I was all ready to get on this and say: "Yeah, I throw in 1/2 a Hikari algae wafer every day to feed my four zebra loaches (botia striata to you hip kids), one otto, one ghost shrimp and two rosie barbs, and I haven't killed them yet."

But then I looked at the package. Just because it SAYS algae on the freaking lable, doesn't mean there is much in there!

Walk with me for a moment.

I have Hikari Algae wafers. The package clearly states on the back: "Contains higher levels of spirulina and vegetable matter plecostomus and other algae eaters prefer."

If you know anything about product lableing, you know that the most abundant ingredient is 1st, and so on and so forth to the last, which is the least abundant.

Spirulina is 11th on the list!!! The first thing is FISH MEAL!!! I'VE BEEN FEEDING MY HERBIVORE FISH MEAL!!! I'm a bit upset at this point. It's my own fault. I didn't read the ingredients. It was called algae tablets, so I took that for granted.

To quote George W. Bush: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you can't get fooled twice!

So I got out my Hikiri Sinking Wafers. I bought these expressly for the loaches. The shrimp and barbs will pick at them, but it's SUPPOSED to be loach food. Guess what? Go on guess. Guess what number 1 and number 11were.

To play fair, the formulas are differant.

But now, *sighs* I'm going to have to go out and find some of the Wardley stuff and see how that fares. In the meantime, I'm eyeballing some frozen zuchini and green beans I have in the freezer.

Sorry I have no answers, but man, did this thread open my eyes up!


good thing i opened ur eyes even tho im not 100% sure what u ment throughout ur topic . but tell me 1 thing, daily im going to feed shrimp pellets, soon ill start feeding brine shrimp every weekend when i get some fish other than bottom dwellers, also every weekend ill drop in 1 spirulina disc, and from today i think im going to feed them cucumber? what i was planning to do is make a hole in a cucumber slice and tie a small knot in it with a small wire(not metal wire just like a wire thats used to make cloths) so its a thin one, ill do that so that i dont have to put my hand to get the veggie out of the tank after a while ill just pull the long wire's end and pull out the veggie, thats a good idea yea? and thats basically all im going to feed because i cant think of anything else.

1 thing tho, im going to petco on tuesday i believe , and i just checked petco's website and they have these 2 products:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

and this:

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.]


do i need any of these 2 to provide my 6 corries and 2 clown loaches a better food or these 2 products are the same like the spirulina discs that i already ahve?

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

chikistar, there is nothing wrong with feeding your cories and clown loaches the spirulina discs.

[chikistar]

i didnt even see them eat the discs tho, does it mean they dont like it?

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

feed them at night.

[chikistar]

what difference would it make if i feed at night? and you mean to feed the clowns at night yea? that rule stands for corys too? clown loaches are active at night instead of the day?

oh and do i still need to buy the HIKARI ALGAE WAFFER? to supply my fish with algae food or no need since i dont have a pleco or anything?

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

no, you don't need the algae waffers.

Clowns feed well at night. Drop a single tab in there right after lights out and it will be gone by morning.

[BackwardsBob]

My posts were as simple as this.

Read the lables.

I thought I was chucking out MORE algae than I thought I was.

I thought I made that clear, but there you are.

I do frozen zuchini and frozen green beans when the mood strikes me.

Eh, whatever. You ninjas go and do what you want.