Blue Line Feeds
Blue Line Feeds
Written by Tuesday, 23 December 2008 00:00
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Feeding fish is a matter of prime importance. An appropriate feeding regime ensures quicker adaptation to the tank environment, healthy growth, improved disease resistance and good spawning activity. Fish feeds differ widely; their value for a given species depends on a number of factors such as selection of raw materials, processing, percentage of nutrient content and palatability.
Over the years we have tried a number of commercially available feeds. It is true that fish get used to a certain type of feed. So much so that some, particularly cichlids, once used to a certain type of feed they will not touch another 'brand' and would rather go starving. However feeding remains for us an open issue. We will often introduce a new brand of feed to our tanks and see how the fish react to it. If the feed is not well accepted, or not accepted at all, we will drop it. If the feed is eagerly accepted we will feed it for a while, particularly to young fish, and note the effect it has on their growth rate, the colours and their overall vitality. We are not talking about advanced experiments here; just visual observation of the fish in two randomly selected tanks hosting the same species and same age fry.
Years ago our team mate, Francesco, introduced to us Blue Line feeds. We fed Basic Grade 122 to cichlids for a while; the feed was a hot favourite and we could not talk highly enough about it. So eventually we tried it with the catfish. Though our crowd have extremely healthy appetites we were not expecting massive enthusiasm; we were quite pleasantly surprised when we saw the smaller Loricariids literally emerging en masse from their hiding places and rushing to the spot where the feed had collected.
Basic Grade 122 was greeted with the same enthusiasm daily until the small tub we put aside for the catfish finished. This is when we got stuck; the feed is not widely commercially available and Francesco could only send us a limited quantity of the 130 gram tubs. We ended up literally fighting over our remaining stock. In a moment of desperation we decided to contact the company directly to ask if they would ship abroad (Blue Co. Società Cooperativa which manages the Blue Line feed is based in Italy).
We were delighted when we received a response within 24 hours to say the company were happy to ship anywhere in the world. We ordered our favourite, Basic Grade 122 and Bottom Spiru. We had not tried Bottom Spiru before; the idea was to introduce it to the Baryancistrus sp. fish (L18, 81, 177 and L47). This fish are notorious slow growers in the aquarium and we have forever been trying to identify feeds which will be appropriate for them.
When you open a tub of Blue Line feeds it has a very distinctive smell. You can tell the feed is fresh - somehow it smells fresh. In the 2.5 Kg containers the feed is carefully packaged in a plastic bag inside the container. As opposed to other feeds the feed maintains this smell until the tub is finished (we have noticed that even with the 2.5 Kg containers we order these days). We eventually discovered that the company renews its stocks every five to six months; they suggest use of the feeds within fifteen months from the production date. Mr This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Managing Director) told us "I think that this is the shortest shelf life proposed in the aquarium sector. Fifteen months is the optimal period for feed use. Within this time period we can guarantee the integrity of feed components declared in the label keeping their highest possible metabolic value".
The Bottom Spiru tub smelled 'green'; the feed contains 60% pure spirulina which compares very favourably with the usual 4% - 12% content of other commercially available feeds. More importantly the company uses 100% pure spirulina, suitable for human consumption, for the production of the tablets.
We first offered the Bottom Spiru tablets to our L137s. The tank is also hosting a pair of L95s (Pseudorinelepis genibarbis) which favour vegetable matter. Our wild caught male has been a rather finicky eater and we wanted to see his reaction to the new feed. The reaction was simply unbelievable. Within minutes the male L95 was out literally hoovering tablet after tablet. All and every other fish trying to approach was literally bitten off. The fish finished all the tablets, then withdrew. We added some more tablets and the male L95 returned. This time his female and him had a right fight over the feed - so much so that we ended putting some tablets in a different corner of the tank for her. Today, 18 months later, the L95s have reportedly almost doubled their size and they feed exclusively on Bottom Spiru (daily) and fresh vegetables (three times weekly). On one occasion, last May, that our scheduled delivery of Bottom Spiru was delayed as the company was waiting for newly produced stock the fish refused to eat alternative green staple feed offered. They lived on fresh vegetables until the new supply arrived.
The L95s were not the only ones that voted with their mouths. The big surprise in this tank was the L114s and the L600s. Pseudacanths are carnivores so we hardly expected them to kick a fuss about Spirulina. Though we have always been feeding a variety of feeds to our fish we have never noticed Pseudacanths going for staple green feed. Bottom Spiru was and still is the exception. So much so that we have now established an eating order in this tank: the L95s eat first, followed by the Pseudacanths and finally the L137s get their share. This means that we need to offer the tablets in three instalments, so to speak, otherwise whoever occupies the eating area will just eat the additional portion!
Bottom Spiru was a right winner with the other fish too: the Baryancistrus and the Ancistrini simply loved it. We have not compared growth rates with these fish as our colonies share the same tank. Having said that the fish are definitely growing well, they are healthy and they react as positively to the feed as the first day they tasted it. More importantly, we have offered the feed to newly imported individuals (L47). These fish in our experience can be pretty difficult to get used to prepared feeds. On this occasion the fish were eating the day after they joined the tank.
Following the success of Bottom Spiru we included in our next order a number of other goodies, including the Marine and Discus Line, Artemia Grains, floating slivers, floating pellets and Bottom Stick. We use the Marine and Discus Line mainly with fry and young fish growing up due to its higher protein content. We also offer it, twice weekly, to all the other fish. We have noticed that both cichlid and catfish youngsters eating Blue Line Marine and Discus / Basic have grown much better than their siblings fed on a mixture of other feeds.
We have tried the Artemia grains mainly with fry and juveniles. They are extremely well accepted and a nice alternative to live artemia as this carries the risk of disease. Artemia grains are only available up to 81 (0.8-1.2 mm size pellets). This, regrettably, makes them unsuitable for our larger fish. We would welcome this product in larger size pellets.
An additional advantage of Blue Line feeds is that they come in different size pellets. 12 (the smaller available in the Artemia line) is a fine powder suitable for newborn fry. Every 6-12 weeks, depending on the species being fed, we change the feed to the next size up (35, 58, 81) until we reach 122, which is the biggest size pellet available in the Basic and Marine and Discus lines. The Basic and Marine and Discus Lines start from 58; we offer this to young fry crushed. Having said that our recent brood of Paretroplus damii have taken extremely well to it and were able to eat the Basic and Marine and Discus Grade 58 pellets when they were about 2 weeks old.
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