What Are "High Quality" Fish Foods?
High quality does not mean high protein.
High quality also does not mean high growth or lots of color
enhancing ingredients. Maybe it makes more sense to say “good
quality” or “proper quality” food because that’s the real
meaning behind the word “quality.”
Now, I’ve run into many hobbyists who know
the names of certain ingredients, for example spirulina, and
then assume they know everything about food quality. They look
for that one ingredient in the listing on the bag and if there,
it’s a good food for their fish. Others look at the protein
levels and assume “more is better”… Not necessarily true
either.
High quality to me means it is in a
digestible form, no matter what the ingredient is, and it
contains a balance of nutrients that is suitable for my
particular type of pet. For example, catfish chow may be
reasonably priced, but contains way too much fat to be healthy
for my koi, no matter what the protein content. I’m going to
wind up, in a few years, with obese, poorly conditioned koi that
are also losing their color.
The next buyer-beware is the name of the
food. Sure, the Japanese started the koi hobby and have bred
incredible fish for us. They’ve spent centuries perfecting the
koi in our ponds today. But a Japanese-sounding name doesn’t
assure your fish of properly balanced nutrition either, any more
than a pretty wrapper will help the fish to a longer life.
My suggestion is to read and learn what koi
nutritional requirements really are before comparison shopping.
If you can’t read Japanese, you probably won’t know what you are
feeding, good or bad, from a Japanese company. I just hope it’s
good. But when faced with all this, it all boils down to pretty
packaging and price, no? Or you can ask the man in the store
about his products.
Be assured, the fish need less protein than
you expect and less fat than contained in most feeds. They also
MUST have stabilized Vitamin-C for good development of cartilage
and skin. Stabilized Vitamin-C is the key ingredient missing in
so many food products as it is lost in processing the food. So,
when you go shopping for your koi food read the labels and take
notice of stabilized Vitamin-C to prevent curved spines and
other preventable structural deformities.
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