Ocean Nutrition Formula Pellet - availability

[WuHT]

I've seen a gradual change in stock for fish food change to NLS.

NLS pellets are great at the small size, but the medium size seems slightly larger than the medium size for the formula one/two pellets (and obviously not being eaten when i tried to feed it).

Does anyone know which store still carries the ocean nutrition formula one/two pellets ? I'd like to stock up, enough so that my medium fish grow large enoguh to ween onto NLS (well the reality is my angel is likely just picky)

[RD]

Try lightly soaking your NLS pellets for the more finicky fish, then reduce the pre-soaking once they get a taste for the food.

Any ON that you currently find in Canada will more than likely be older stock, as the CFIA ban in Canada has been in place for quite some time.

[fishytime]

Ive said it before and will probably say it again but......NLS actively adds copper to their foods......Im not saying that its a bad food, just food for thought about feeding it to your reef......Red Coral has probably the last of the ON stock in western Canada...... RC online should be able to get it to you.......we've been trying out the "New Era" foods with good results......

[RD]

Ive said it before and will probably say it again but......NLS actively adds copper to their foods......

The copper New Life used to add, was a minute amount, added as a dietary supplement, and it has never been shown to have any type of negative effect on marine life. Most marine salts also contain trace amounts of copper, and always have. Joe Yaiullo, one of the pioneers of reef keeping in the USA, and the curator/co-founder of Atlantis Marine World in NY has been feeding NLS for the past decade. His reef tank is the largest in North America, and 4th largest in the world. I think he knows what he's doing.

Charles Delbeek M.Sc., senior biologist at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco also feeds NLS at their facility. Neither experienced any negative issues due to the copper supplement that used to be added to NLS.

Either way, New Life stopped adding a copper supplement when they began making their own food, at their own facility. The raw ingredients now contain enough nutrient supplementation that bioavailability is no longer a concern.
This will be reflected when their new labels begin to roll out over the course of next year.

FYI - New Era also lists copper under the mineral profile of their food. (23 mg/kg in their marine foods) and ON foods also contain copper, as was shown in this past discussion on the exact same topic that you posted in a couple of yrs ago.
http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=54356

The fact that a commercial pellet or flake doesn't list copper on their label, certainly does not equate to that food not actually containing copper. Almost all commercial foods on the market contain trace amounts of copper, and for good reason, it's an essential trace element.

For those interested, some further reading on the role that copper plays in the health of marine life.

http://www.copper.org/publications/n...er_health.html


HTH

[WuHT]

Originally Posted by RD

Try lightly soaking your NLS pellets for the more finicky fish, then reduce the pre-soaking once they get a taste for the food.

Any ON that you currently find in Canada will more than likely be older stock, as the CFIA ban in Canada has been in place for quite some time.

Yeah so i've heard about the "ban" but never really found a source on the internet regarding it.

Anyways it's not really a matter of taste, the pellet seems visually larger (a cylinder shape vs ON's round pellets).

I shall be mindful of all advice in this thread

[BlueWorldAquatic]

Anything left on store shelves will likely be the last you see.

I know I have had difficulty in choosing the new foods to stock in the shelves, and NLS was one of the options.

We are currently awaiting our order of New Era foods.

Ken - BWA

[Myka]

Pet food manufacturers only have to label what they add to the food. When they buy an item for the food, say "fish meal", the manufacturer doesn't have to list the ingredients the supplier added the fish meal, just "fish meal". This problem arises in dog and cat foods mainly because those foods are much more popular and inspected more scrupulously by the consumer and the PFAC. Taking "fish meal" as an example again, many suppliers add ethoxyquin (known carcinogen used as a preservative) to their fish meals, and the manufacturer doesn't have to list ethoxyquin as an ingredient on their label. That ingredient is one of the bigger "hidden ingredient" concerns in dog and cat foods.

I have a feeling that people (manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, consumers, and the PFAC) in very general terms care about their fish foods less than their dog and cat foods. There is a lot of garbage that makes its way into dog and cat foods; I can just imagine the garbage in fish food.

In the end, the best option for your fish's health is probably using raw human-grade seafood and seaweeds supplementing daily with a proven vitamin supplement like Selcon.

[RD]

Before this topic gets any further out of control, let's get a few facts straight.

The whole ethoxyquin scare started from a single rumour, which became so blown out of proportion via internet chat forums that it eventually turned into another urban myth. The only reason that this preservative ever came into question, was due to a study performed on rats back in 1987 where the dose level of 5,000 ppm ethoxyquin, which is FAR higher than approved levels in pet food, suggested a carcinogenic potential. Ethoxyquin has since been blamed for a myriad of problems, none of which have ever been proven.

Considering the outcry over this preservative by dog owners worldwide, one would think that by now there would be a plethora of data/studies that actually proved that this preservative caused at least some type of long-term health issue in pets. There is not a single documented case where ethoxyquin used at approved levels has been found to cause any type of long term negative health condition in a dog, cat, fish, or otherwise. One would think that with all of the hysterical anti-ethoxyquin crusades that have taken place over the past 20 yrs or so that at least one non-biased study would be able to prove that this substance can cause serious long term health issues in pets, even when used at appropriate or approved levels. Yet to date, there is not a single shred of scientific evidence that supports such a view.

Please keep in mind that almost everything and anything can become toxic at high enough levels, including fat-soluble vitamins. No nutritionist would recommend completely eliminating vitamin A, B, D, E and K from the diet just because high levels can be toxic, yet this exact type of logic is what's used when most people discuss preservatives such as ethoxyquin. When used in small amounts to prevent rancidity, preservatives are valuable and important components of the diet.

Having said all that, there are also alternatives in todays market, such as fish meal that has been preserved via more natural means, sans ethoxyquin.


Secondly, the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency) is responsible for the safety, regulation, and importation of pet food into Canada. PFAC may have a voice in Canada, and offer suggestions/input etc, but it's a small voice & they don't have any hard say about anything. Different situation when one looks south at what the regulations are in the USA involving the USDA and/or AAFCO. You have no idea what type of red tape & inspections are involved, an absolute nightmare for a US based company that has to not only deal with federal regulations, but also each state individually.

And in many cases these regulations change on a frequent basis. It's gotten to the point that probably the less info one places on their label, the better, or you'll be updating your labels every 6 months. These changes cost $$$$, lots of $$$$, and someone has to eat the cost of outdated labels, and yet another run of new updated labels. It's become goofy stupid.

As an example, most states allow Vitamin C to be listed on a pet food label, but all it takes is one overly anal state inspector to decide that it must be listed as ascorbic acid, and you are forced to either remove that listing from your label, or play by their new rules. Even if the vitamin C you are listing is the total content, most comprised from the raw ingredients themselves, not from some vitamin premix. One wrong word or term can equate to your product being disallowed in an entire state, and each state requires a permit just to get your product across their border, and like everything else, you have to pay for that privilege. And that's just what takes place within the USA, now factor in all of the other various countries that some fish food products are exported to.

Canada couldn't give a rats behind with regards to things such as GMO products, but the UK requires additional labeling if the product contains .9% or greater GMO. A country such as Turkey doesn't allow any GMO products, not even if it's as little as .0001%. They use outdated testing equipment that simply tests positive, or negative, and if it's positive your shipment will be refused at their border.

It's easy to sit back & critique manufacturers, or their labels, but the reality unless you have walked in their shoes you wouldn't even begin to understand the cluster phuck that takes place within the pet food industry, and label regulations.

The reason that ON became banned is due to the fact that the CFIA laid out some strict import regulations back in 2009. One, the facility making the food requires a clean bill of health from CA inspectors, and two the CFIA no longer allows transshipping of pet food. ON's food is now made in Thailand, where regulations are a world apart from North America, and they ship out of Bangkok to the USA, and then up into Canada. So either they didn't pass, or wouldn't allow a risk assessment at their Thai facility, or they couldn't find an importer to bring in a container directly from Thailand into Canada, or both.
I honestly have no idea. I was told by one of the CFIA inspectors in Ottawa that many Asian companies simply would not allow them access to their facilities. Gee, I wonder why?

The creator of New Life foods was importing & distributing marine fish/corals over 40 yrs ago, and has a spotless 20 yr record with his food, with some of the leading authorities in the marine world using his products over this period.
Even captive bred aquaculture facilities such as ORA use NLS in their feeding regime. http://www.orafarm.com/products/fish...-mandarin.html

The so called concerns or problems that some of you are looking for simply don't exist. This may not be a perfect world, but if it was I guess all of those fish & corals in your tank would still be out on a reef somewhere.

[ProReef]

Yup its true if you read the ingredients label the tiny tiny amounts of copper are for cellular metabolism and it is in many additives! We hear at Progressive Reef carry and feed our store fish and our personal aquariums at home the New Era pellets and New Life Spectrum pellets and the fish and I enjoy both. The New Era is great cuz it is very moist and a good aroma, where the NLS has a great small fish variety. If you are looking for a medium pellet, try the New Era pellets- they are a pellet that you can actually roll in your fingers to get a variety of pellet sizes. I actually have two small (100g) containers of the Ocean Nutrition Formula Two Medium pelleat left in stock (and yes older stock) drop me an email (sales@progressivereef.com) or phone call (toll free 866-997-7333)and we can get that sent to you. Good Luck. And check out our web site. Progressivereef.com
Cheers Ronnie

[Myka]

RD, Taste of the Wild dog food admits to using "fish meal" with added ethoxyquin (off label). They are a reputable company, I'm sure there are many others like them with hidden ingredients.

My point wasn't the tangent you went off on, my point was that there are ingredients in pet foods that aren't listed on the label.