shelf life of fish food

[carlos]

hi,

i accidentally left my OSI cichlid flakes open overnight. i've heard people talking about how quickly fish food loses its nutritional value if its not used or left open for too long, is this true?

[CThompson]

Yes that is true, but I doubt that one night open will make any real overall difference. Carry on using it, but don’t forget, you should also be feeding other foods to make sure the fish’s diet is more rounded out, so if you have lost a bit of extra nutritional value with the food left open, the other foods will make sure your fish don’t suffer anyway.

Craig

[Ash]

I think someone said they keep the majority of their food frozen & only keep small amounts defrosted ready to feed in an effort to keep the nutritional value up - I think it was Ducksta?

Anyway, I've been doing this since & have definatley noticed the food keeps it's colour & smell way better than it did previously.

[Ducksta]

Yep I break 2kg of flake into 6 snap-seal bags. I then get out half a bag or so at a time.

As for leaving out some food for a night, I would still use it - unless you notice something odd about it yourself - ie. your fish don't take it as readily, it smells odd, its texture changes drastically.

[Caesar]

Hey guys,

I bought 1 kg of spirulina about 6 months ago and broke it into 3 ice cream containers. I never froze any (but always kept the lid closed). I am just finishing the last of it off now. My fish seem to be doing really well and my fry are growing extremely fast.

Although I do mix up their diet, my fish are fed predominantly this.

So my question is, does spirulina lose its quality as well? Shoudl I have frozen this food early on?

Cheers

[stotto]

If this does happen, Could you mix the old flake with new flake E.G (1kg of one brand and a kg of another) ???? or is mixing flake not wise

[Ash]

if you mix the old stuff with new stuff - how much longer will it stay around being fed to the fish?

[Ducksta]

IMO if you mix old stale flake with new flake, your not helping anything much. The fish still get 50% stale (potentiall 'useless') food to fill their gut with little nutritional value. Unless you just need to fill their bellies but not offer as much genuine nutritional benefit? But I can't think of a reason for that

I do mix up my own flake mix, I think it is a good practice - it means I can tinker with their diet balance (ie. I like a good staple flake mixed with a quality spirulina flake at about 2:1) but I don't see the point of mixing old flake with new flake? It wont revitalise the old flake, and it means that the new flake will foul quicker as it will take twice as long to use than if you just used the new flake on its own, and you will end up with more stale old flake mixed with even staler older flake? Or have I misread your intention?

[stotto]

Nope that hit the nail on the head