VernalPond
New Member
There is a new shrimp and aquarium food being made locally here in the northwest on Vashon Island. It is unique in that it is made with all organic whole food ingredients. My shrimp go crazy for it. I'm going to review it now for your benefit and also because I want this approach to aquarium food to catch on.
Gigi Gungadee lives on Vashon Island just outside of Seattle, Washington, USA. She has been hand making food for exotic animals for a decade. She has recently turned her attention to aquarium foods for vegivores like shrimp, plecos, snails and many community fish.
She takes real whole vegetables that have been certified organic and pulverizes them by hand to end up with elegant dehydrated crisps that are nothing more than the vegetables, dehydrated and flat. If you flip over the package and read the ingredients of common shrimp and fish food, they have unnecessary ingredients and fillers. I used the best of these products for along time and then I got a sample from Gigi of this new stuff and I immediately switched.
This food smells like actual vegetables. When I opened my first bag it smelled like chlorophyll, humus and spirulina. I flipped the bag over and read the ingredients. "Ingredient list: organic peas, organic green beans, organic kale, organic carrots, organic alfalfa leaf, organic spirulina algae, organic stinging nettles." What I did not see was the wheat and soy fillers and added colors that are in most of the commercial foods I have used for years and the "dried bakery product" that are in my Hikari sinking wafers.
All my shrimp breeding tanks get heavy amounts of fresh blanched vegetables but I don't have time for that every day. Some days I need to drop something in there and leave. What annoyed me before was if I didn't use fresh food, I had to drop all the way down to what is essentially crappy fast food. My other packaged aquarium foods are all compressed vitamin pellets and not really food. Giving my shrimp a squash to eat is food. They will eat compressed vitamins laced with animal protein too but it isn't really a whole food.
This food was designed from the animals perspective intentionally. This is for folks who really desire the extra movement and color and breeding that comes with a thriving animal. When I compare the nutritional value of the top products that cost more and find that they are less quality than Gigi's Wonderfood, the $12 a bag seems reasonable. As a specialty shrimp breeder, I use the stuff because my shrimp mob it and their colors are better and more shrimp survive molting and their first weeks alive. Maybe that is because my infusoria have all ballooned since switching off the old food and onto organic whole food too. I also like that the crisps are water stable overnight so if I forget to remove any excess before bed, it doesn't create a big rotting mess. I just lift out any uneaten crisp portion the next day. After a few feedings though you will figure out the right amount and can underfeed so as to not waste any.
We really don't know anything about how the pesticides and GMOs in all commercial fish food affect the animals. There are no studies. Maybe we can extrapolate that since those same chemicals are cause disease and corrupt DNA in humans that it may be possible in fish and sensitive inverts too. At the very least I feel better than my water changes do not put pesticides into the waterways and I am supporting a healthier food industry overall. I guess we will find out more about the impacts of pesticides and GMOs in aquariums in future years.
This week, Msjinkzd also posted an excellent review of Gigi's Wonderfood.
http://msjinkzd.com/news/review-gigis-wonderfood-veggie-crisps-and-apparel/
You can get Gigi's Wonderfood online and in your local fish store or from Gigi in person if you attend GSAS meetings in Seattle. If they don't have it at your local shop, tell them about it and maybe they can get it.
I spent the time writing this because I am a big supporter of the animals and think this is a direction we should be going in as animal keepers. I also want to see Gigi succeed in her business and want you to have really successful breeding in your tanks.
Gigi Gungadee lives on Vashon Island just outside of Seattle, Washington, USA. She has been hand making food for exotic animals for a decade. She has recently turned her attention to aquarium foods for vegivores like shrimp, plecos, snails and many community fish.
She takes real whole vegetables that have been certified organic and pulverizes them by hand to end up with elegant dehydrated crisps that are nothing more than the vegetables, dehydrated and flat. If you flip over the package and read the ingredients of common shrimp and fish food, they have unnecessary ingredients and fillers. I used the best of these products for along time and then I got a sample from Gigi of this new stuff and I immediately switched.
This food smells like actual vegetables. When I opened my first bag it smelled like chlorophyll, humus and spirulina. I flipped the bag over and read the ingredients. "Ingredient list: organic peas, organic green beans, organic kale, organic carrots, organic alfalfa leaf, organic spirulina algae, organic stinging nettles." What I did not see was the wheat and soy fillers and added colors that are in most of the commercial foods I have used for years and the "dried bakery product" that are in my Hikari sinking wafers.
All my shrimp breeding tanks get heavy amounts of fresh blanched vegetables but I don't have time for that every day. Some days I need to drop something in there and leave. What annoyed me before was if I didn't use fresh food, I had to drop all the way down to what is essentially crappy fast food. My other packaged aquarium foods are all compressed vitamin pellets and not really food. Giving my shrimp a squash to eat is food. They will eat compressed vitamins laced with animal protein too but it isn't really a whole food.
This food was designed from the animals perspective intentionally. This is for folks who really desire the extra movement and color and breeding that comes with a thriving animal. When I compare the nutritional value of the top products that cost more and find that they are less quality than Gigi's Wonderfood, the $12 a bag seems reasonable. As a specialty shrimp breeder, I use the stuff because my shrimp mob it and their colors are better and more shrimp survive molting and their first weeks alive. Maybe that is because my infusoria have all ballooned since switching off the old food and onto organic whole food too. I also like that the crisps are water stable overnight so if I forget to remove any excess before bed, it doesn't create a big rotting mess. I just lift out any uneaten crisp portion the next day. After a few feedings though you will figure out the right amount and can underfeed so as to not waste any.
We really don't know anything about how the pesticides and GMOs in all commercial fish food affect the animals. There are no studies. Maybe we can extrapolate that since those same chemicals are cause disease and corrupt DNA in humans that it may be possible in fish and sensitive inverts too. At the very least I feel better than my water changes do not put pesticides into the waterways and I am supporting a healthier food industry overall. I guess we will find out more about the impacts of pesticides and GMOs in aquariums in future years.
This week, Msjinkzd also posted an excellent review of Gigi's Wonderfood.
http://msjinkzd.com/news/review-gigis-wonderfood-veggie-crisps-and-apparel/
You can get Gigi's Wonderfood online and in your local fish store or from Gigi in person if you attend GSAS meetings in Seattle. If they don't have it at your local shop, tell them about it and maybe they can get it.
I spent the time writing this because I am a big supporter of the animals and think this is a direction we should be going in as animal keepers. I also want to see Gigi succeed in her business and want you to have really successful breeding in your tanks.
