NYCichlidForum.com

Anthony - shoot me your number, and I'll call on my dime.

"Feedbacks in another forum about some hobbyists fish’s colors/ appearance improved over a matter of weeks after switching to NLS, it makes me wonder what were they feeding to their fish prior 'cause I have not noticed any improvement on mine."

fishmn, Are you feeding NLS exclusively or inconjunction with other food? RD seem to think to get the best results , you have to feed exclusively or close to that. Fish color changes very gradually unless you compare them side by side it might hard to notice the color change. Another way of finding out whether NLS is any good for color is to withhold the food for a month and see what happen. Maybe take some photo, so you can compare before & after and post back to this thread. I do agree with you that color is an important factor in selecting fish food! Personally, I like the fish's color to look natural, I certainly don't like to see a yellow labidochromis turn into orange lab.
Why is that when NLS is mention it always generate lots of heat!!!!!!

IMO too, the color of the fish is not the most important factor, but their health, behaviour and lifespan. There are also so many other factors that affect the fishe's colors in our tanks like water quality, tankmates, etc, that has nothing to do with the food they get...The best/true color comparison would be to keep 2 exactly the same setups and switch the food let's say in few months and see the difference before/after. You need to change the food because there are no 2 identical fish that would show identical colors. And to have the health/lifespan comparison another 2 identical tanks would be needed and the food fed exclusively all the way.

Don't get me wrong, color is VERY important to me as well, it's just not the only important thing in the equation.

Some fish could show better colors on some other food than NLS for example, but what about their health? For example I've heard some people saying that their fish were showing better colors when fed Ken's Color enhancing crumbles instead of NLS, but when the ingredients were compared in the other thread can see the quality difference...

RD, do you know about such an experiment/comparison like I mentioned above?

I have a small tank and a big one...

tell you this:

The small tank, I feed spirulina flakes, super kelp flakes, spirulina pellets from hikary and occational veggies.

the big one I feed exclusively NLS...

The color on the fish eating NLS is 100% better.

Testing myself, NLS is better than that other stuff...

Dianichi is on the list for future tests.

Well I think im going to try NLS cichlid pellets for a while and see how it goes. My problem is that I have this one Front my biggest that refuses to eat the pellets from Kens, all of its smaller siblings do with eagerness. It seems odd to me that it wont just take to the pellets, been tryin for a month now. The only thing it will eat is the flakes so thats why I was looking for flakes. Should I try the NLS pellets first or should I just go for NLS flakes?

Also anyone near upstate NY wanna split 5lbs nls cichlid pellets? lol

The pellets are always better than the flakes, since it's more stable.

Where is the Dianichi people...

Ant.. give'em a hollow see if they chip in.

When I began with my Cichlid obsession in December, I hadn't come across any forums at that point and so was just feeding them the traditional "Cichlid flakes/pellets" from the LFS.

I finally put in an order from NLS when I ordered 2 dividers for my 10G tanks. Needless to say, when I feed them NLS and attempt to give them some of the old flakes/pellets, they mostly ignore the old stuff, so I think they definitely prefer the NLS pellets over the others. It did take them awhile to figure out that they didn't have to swim to the top to feed, since the NLS pellets sink.

I'm thinking I might take the pellets (mine are quite small, not sure of the mm size), but I might crush them into salt-like granules and use that to feed my fry. The other flake/pellet food can hit the trash for as much as it serves no purpose anymore.

I think I've now spoiled my Cichlids and I love the NLS product. I have heard good things about the Dainchi line as well (err, spelling?), but I am going to stick with NLS for now at least.

(I'm not argumentative, but boy - you guys sure can debate!!)

Nicholaa, have you tried to locate NLS Grow formula? It is a much smaller pellet, and it is an excellent food for fry and juvies.
A good Veggie flake, like HBH, is also good for fry as is frozen Cylopeeze.

Nicholaa, you can try the NLS flakes for the fry for the first few weeks, and then the growout formula .5mm pellets as they get big enough to eat it.

I also noticed on my fish that switching to NLS pellets from flakes or color enhancer crumbs is no problem, they go for it right away, but if I want to feed them the later after they were used to NLS pellets, they just simply wouldn't accept it...At feeding, when I drop the first little scoop of NLS in the tank, everyone is jumping out of the water grabbing some pellets on the fly I got splashed with water so many times thru a 2''x5'' feeding hole

Still waiting for Dianichi??...Zzzzzzzzz.zz.z.z.z.zzz

Lets give Dainichi a break. The site was down for a week and came back very slow. Anthony (Zebra7) said that he will talk to them. Being rude is not the answer.

All ths Dainichi talk got me curious so I went out and got some of their Ultima blend this week. I have replaced one meal a day with this stuff. It's been 3 days, and they have been more active and their color is a little brighter. I would definately recommend Dainichi.