New Life Spectrum is available from most of the online suppliers like petsolutions.com and what not. I know I've also seen it at Blue Sierra in Issaquah, but my shopping on that side of the mountains has been somewhat limited, so I'm not sure where else you can find it locally. So far, my fish have loved all but the therA formulas and the sinking wafers. The grow formula is very high in protein and works great for conditioning my hypancistrus types. Hikari algae wafers are the preferred "veggie formula" wafer here, but aquadine "flake" (more of a crisps) is also readily accepted and comes in different formulations you can mix and match. If you don't fertilize or use pesticides in your yard, worms collected there would be fine to use, according to posts where it was discussed in length on an old message board I to frequented. I was never able to find documentation for which types of fertilizer could make it dangerous to our fish though, as many of the same components are in the plant fertilizer I add to my planted tank with no ill effects. If anyone has any more input on the subject, it would be appreciated! I may be driving over to the coast in a month or two, if anyone is interested in Queen Arabesque plecos, Pseudocrenilabrus nicholsi, Synodontis petricola, or Cyprichromis leptosoma "utinta", feel free to contact me about them. Barbie ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Welenofsky To: 'Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat' Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 3:21 AM Subject: RE: [GSAS-Member] Free fish food, or trade Hi John: That's interesting about cottonseed meal. Maybe that's why my fish breed a lot. I just got my first batch of Placidochromis "Electra" fry, I'm guessing around 30. The "Daffodil" brichardi's should be fine with the Kenyi. How many should I set aside? I have plenty of them! As a non-fish item, in keeping with my African theme, I got a pair of giant black millipedes. They're really cool as they eat fruits and vegetables and don't bite. I'm not sure how they make in the jungles of West Africa since only exude a yellow nasty stuff which makes them taste bad or curl into a coil. Seems to me, they'd be a nice meal for some animal. But anyway, they're fun and I'm going to see if I can get them to breed. Susan -----Original Message----- From: gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com [mailto:gsas-member-bounces@thekrib.com] On Behalf Of John Ruhland Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:40 PM To: Greater Seattle Aquarium Society member chat Subject: Re: [GSAS-Member] Free fish food, or trade Matt, I absolutely agree with you that homemade food is best for fish and other animals including people. I'm sure there are a lot of byproducts in fish food. I noticed cottonseed meal. That causes sterility in human men. Since humans are genetically very similar to fish, it could not be good for our scaley friends. I got a good recipe for homemade fish food from Susan. I'll be trying that as soon as I have a little extra time. In the meanwhile, I'm trying to find a food the fish like, AND that will hopefully work in an automatic feeder, in case I need to use one sometime. New Life Spectrum large fish formula is a slowly sinking pellet that fish tend to really love. It also enhances the yellows and reds, guaranteed. I feed quite a bit of it. Barbie Barbie, where can I get that food? Betty, thank you for your tips. My plectostamus's did NOT seem to like the Wardley sinking algae tablets, so I'm currently trying the Hikari, and will try the Tetra ones you recommend, which I ordered today. Sandy, I'll be happy to give you the Hikari Cichlid Excel. I'll just keep a bit, and store it in the freezer, to try for future fish I might get. Are you going to the next GSAS meeting? Thank you for all of your responses. That should save me quite a bit of time and money experimenting. By the way, all of my fish seem to love bloodworms. Regarding earthworms, do we need to worry about any diseases if we feed worms from our yard to our fish? John On Feb 23, 2005, at 11:25 AM, matt kaufman wrote: > Until you can get a legitimate guaranteed analysis on the fish food > bag (you know, of course, that there's really not governing body that > oversees the claptrap fish food manufacturers print on their > packaging? There's no expiration dates, nor can you be comfortable > with their list of ingredients), you might as well make your own food, > it's substantially cheaper, you have more confidence in the > ingredients, fish love it. I used to make catfood-based fish food for > years and fed it to big cichlids. > > I'll leave it as an exercise in web surfing to find home-made fish > food recipes, they've been discussed on the net for at least the past > 17 years. I imagine Erik has some archived on the krib somewhere. > > Also, hopefully the fish described are in separate tanks, otherwise > that Oscar will have a varied diet, indeed. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today - it's > FREE! http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/ > > _______________________________________________ > GSAS-Member mailing list > GSAS-Member@thekrib.com > http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/gsas-member > > Dr. John F. Ruhland The Natural Health Medical Clinic 4002 - 25th Avenue S, Seattle, WA 98108 206-723-4891 www.drruhland.com _______________________________________________ GSAS-Member mailing list GSAS-Member@thekrib.com http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/gsas-member _______________________________________________ GSAS-Member mailing list GSAS-Member@thekrib.com http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/gsas-member _______________________________________________ GSAS-Member mailing list GSAS-Member@thekrib.com http://lists.thekrib.com/mailman/listinfo/gsas-member