CrashSmAshley
New Member
There has been a lot of discussion about ®Hikari on my other forums and I thought I would bring it to the attention of all of you too. As many of you probably don't know, ®Hikari changed all of their food formulas a while ago which included adding monosodium glutamate (MSG).
I've always used ®Hikari, since I got my first fish tank and currently with my bettas and snails (though not without second thoughts...). They were one of the best fish diets around and many agreed...So what happened? Now I'm reading the ingredients and pondering "I wonder what made them do this?". In Betta Bio-Gold® the first ingredient used to be fish meal but now it's wheat flour. Now, wheat flour is a binder and contains a good amount of protein, but why was more of it added into the ingredients to make it #1 in the list? It's not detrimental to the diet or anything but for an insectivorous fish it just seems like most of the protein should be deriving from a meat-based ingredient.
In their Algae Wafers™ fish meal is the #1 ingredient. Where does that make sense? Putting a meat-based ingredient in a herbivorous diet does not seem right...however, I do realize there are many "herbivorous" species that occasionally eat the remains of another dead species and even enjoy the occasional meat treat. For my apple snails their formula does not concern me, but for other fish (butterfy goodeid comes to mind for me; though they can eat very tiny, small fish they do best on vegetable/plant matter) this diet might not want to become their staple.
One last thing I'd like to discuss: monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG, are in all ®Hikari formulas now. It's true that MSG may be used as a preservative but we can't really tell from their ingredients. Food preservative or flavor enhancer, who knows. But I still would like to know why it's in my fish food. I asked ®Hikari about this and this was their response:
Understandable, but still the only fish food I know of with MSG in it.
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What are you guys' thoughts on this topic? Please be respectful of others opinions; Let the discussion begin!
I've always used ®Hikari, since I got my first fish tank and currently with my bettas and snails (though not without second thoughts...). They were one of the best fish diets around and many agreed...So what happened? Now I'm reading the ingredients and pondering "I wonder what made them do this?". In Betta Bio-Gold® the first ingredient used to be fish meal but now it's wheat flour. Now, wheat flour is a binder and contains a good amount of protein, but why was more of it added into the ingredients to make it #1 in the list? It's not detrimental to the diet or anything but for an insectivorous fish it just seems like most of the protein should be deriving from a meat-based ingredient.
In their Algae Wafers™ fish meal is the #1 ingredient. Where does that make sense? Putting a meat-based ingredient in a herbivorous diet does not seem right...however, I do realize there are many "herbivorous" species that occasionally eat the remains of another dead species and even enjoy the occasional meat treat. For my apple snails their formula does not concern me, but for other fish (butterfy goodeid comes to mind for me; though they can eat very tiny, small fish they do best on vegetable/plant matter) this diet might not want to become their staple.
One last thing I'd like to discuss: monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG, are in all ®Hikari formulas now. It's true that MSG may be used as a preservative but we can't really tell from their ingredients. Food preservative or flavor enhancer, who knows. But I still would like to know why it's in my fish food. I asked ®Hikari about this and this was their response:
Understandable, but still the only fish food I know of with MSG in it.
--------------------------------------
What are you guys' thoughts on this topic? Please be respectful of others opinions; Let the discussion begin!
