Anybody think it’s weird to have wheat flour in fish food?

[Reef AquaCult]

I’ve been allergic to wheat my entire 37 years of existence. Over the last decade, awareness of gluten intolerance has sky rocketed (thankfully for me). I assume fish cannot develop a wheat allergy, but I think it’s odd that most if not all dried fish foods contain wheat flour as the first or second (primary) ingredient. It’s also well accepted that fresh or frozen food is higher in nutrition. It’s strange to me that we would feed a reef fish wheat flour. Imagine yourself on a snorkel trip where the guide is tossing bread in to attract the fish. That’s essentially what feeding flake food or pellet is doing . Food for thought....

 

[Katrina71]

I think any time you reach outside of a natural food source, it isn't good.

 

[Reef.]

I’ve just bought some seaweed pellets as I was thinking my fish needed more ‘greens’ in their diet, I was shocked to see around 30% of the pellet was wheat! Seaweed being the 1st ingredient and wheat flour being the 2nd.
I can maybe understand they need to add some kind of binder but 30% wheat is not there to bind, it’s a filler and a carbohydrate source (sugar) which doesn’t seem natural to feed to fish so they are now in the bin.

 

[ichthyogeek]

If you're feeding frozen food, and that has wheat flour, that's a case to be concerned. But in the case of pellet/flake foods (heck, even PE Mysis pellets have it), the grains function as binder. Granted, they could certainly use xanthan gum and all the doodads that the gluten free movement touts. But like a lot of gluten free products, they would most likely result in a higher price tag.

Pellets and flakes also aren't "natural". The better food brands will prioritize non-filler ingredients first (PE Mysis uses mysis shrimp, Fluval Bug Bites uses black soldier fly larvae, etc.). But the price you pay for an all in one diet includes having to use a binder and filler to cheapen production costs and make sure the food doesn't immediately crumble during production.

 

[Tired]

It's for the gluten. Gluten is a great binder, and holds the flakes and pellets into that convenient shape, instead of it being a dust. That's why gluten-free bread is a different texture, it's the gluten that lets the dough be strong and stretchy.

Binders aren't harmful to fish, as long as there's plenty of good nutrition in the food.

Frozen foods generally don't have binders in them.

 

[Reef.]

If you're feeding frozen food, and that has wheat flour, that's a case to be concerned. But in the case of pellet/flake foods (heck, even PE Mysis pellets have it), the grains function as binder. Granted, they could certainly use xanthan gum and all the doodads that the gluten free movement touts. But like a lot of gluten free products, they would most likely result in a higher price tag.

Pellets and flakes also aren't "natural". The better food brands will prioritize non-filler ingredients first (PE Mysis uses mysis shrimp, Fluval Bug Bites uses black soldier fly larvae, etc.). But the price you pay for an all in one diet includes having to use a binder and filler to cheapen production costs and make sure the food doesn't immediately crumble during production.

it was a good brand I bought, Hikari Seaweed extreme, just seems a little off to have wheat as the 2nd main ingredient with the fish ingredients coming after the wheat.

 

[Reef.]

It's for the gluten. Gluten is a great binder, and holds the flakes and pellets into that convenient shape, instead of it being a dust. That's why gluten-free bread is a different texture, it's the gluten that lets the dough be strong and stretchy.

Binders aren't harmful to fish, as long as there's plenty of good nutrition in the food.

Frozen foods generally don't have binders in them.

I’ve seen other foods list gluten way down the ingredients list but these have wheat flour and at a much higher concentration than seems warranted, with krill meal, fish meal and cuttlefish meal after the wheat flour...think I’ll stick to frozen.

 

[Reef.]

Just to add as I can’t edit my post, not sure what the % of wheat in the food is but thinking it’s high maybe not 30% as stated in my post.

 

[AquaBiomics]

This is a good point. One of the many reasons I don't feed dried foods to my tank.

Keep in mind, you're not just feeding the fish, you're feeding the bacterial community. The bacterial community is primarily determined by the kind of nutrients available, and the ocean doesnt have an awful lot of wheat flour.

Mixed seafood smoothies for life - IMO dried, prepared foods are right up there with dry rock in terms of things people do to cause problems in their tanks.

 

[RVA REEF]

my fish are gluten free

 

[92Miata]

This is a good point. One of the many reasons I don't feed dried foods to my tank.

Keep in mind, you're not just feeding the fish, you're feeding the bacterial community. The bacterial community is primarily determined by the kind of nutrients available, and the ocean doesnt have an awful lot of wheat flour.

Mixed seafood smoothies for life - IMO dried, prepared foods are right up there with dry rock in terms of things people do to cause problems in their tanks.

This is a weird take - there are tons of things not present in the ocean that we regularly dump in our tanks - and tons of other things that we purposefully keep at levels very different than the ocean.

Wheat flour is high in protein, and carbohydrates - and is fine food for plenty of microfauna.

 

[Crevalle]

Doesn’t seem natural but then neither are Doritos.

 

[scchase]

Doesnt bother me in the slightest, mostly a binder and some sort of binder has to be used, not a lot of great options out there though I do wish they would use a seaweed binder instead though I am not sure how palatable these are to fish.

 

[AquaBiomics]

This is a weird take - there are tons of things not present in the ocean that we regularly dump in our tanks - and tons of other things that we purposefully keep at levels very different than the ocean.

Wheat flour is high in protein, and carbohydrates - and is fine food for plenty of microfauna.

But you'll get a completely different microbial population if you feed it wheat flour than if you feed it something that normally occurs in the ocean. Its more or less the rule of marine microbial ecology that the type of nutrients drives the type of microbes that grow.

Its not a question of "is it good food or bad food" , its a question of "is it the right kind of food"?

Keeping anything at a different level in our tanks than the ocean is not a good idea, whether its something people do in the hobby, or not.

 

[92Miata]

Doesn’t seem natural but then neither are Doritos.

Neither are PE mysis, but nobody seems to have a problem with them.


Natural doesn't mean good. Unnatural doesn't mean bad.


And no, there aren't specific clades of marine bacteria that show up when you feed wheat.


Reef tanks aren't the ocean - there's almost nothing in them that behaves the same way it does in the ocean. Our feed levels and nutrient availability models are completely different.

 

[Reef.]

Doesnt bother me in the slightest, mostly a binder and some sort of binder has to be used, not a lot of great options out there though I do wish they would use a seaweed binder instead though I am not sure how palatable these are to fish.

mine were seaweed pellets so an ideal candidate for a seaweed binder!

 

[ichthyogeek]

mine were seaweed pellets so an ideal candidate for a seaweed binder!

Hmm....not necessarily though. Agar agar (a very specific seaweed binder) works and turns things into a gel, not necessarily allowing things to be bound when dry. Also, it's a lot different to work with than with wheat flour. If I were making homemade pellets, I'd probably use wheat flour instead of agar agar.

Also, Hikari, is...a decent brand, in my opinion. They're a wonderful beginner's food. But as newer fish foods come into the market, they're prioritizing marine protein, and attempting to look less at land based foods. Take SA's hatchery diet or BrineShrimpDirect's mysis flakes: they don't use wheat flour, but instead use wheat gluten (the active binder). I'd still use Hikari in a pinch, but their recipes could use some modernization.

 

[Spare time]

It never bothers me. Obviously fish don't eat wheat in the wild, but it is never a good thing to assume wild is better or that not wild food items or ingredients are bad. The best thing to do is just hit a wide variety of nutritional points to replicate what a specific organism targets. However they are delivered is probably not as big of a deal as them being delivered in the first place unless there is specific evidence that there is harm in something. I doubt that most people in the hobby feed exactly what our fish eat in the wild, but we try to give them a variety of foods in an attempt to feed them the macro and micronutrients that they need

 

[Reef.]

Hmm....not necessarily though. Agar agar (a very specific seaweed binder) works and turns things into a gel, not necessarily allowing things to be bound when dry. Also, it's a lot different to work with than with wheat flour. If I were making homemade pellets, I'd probably use wheat flour instead of agar agar.

Also, Hikari, is...a decent brand, in my opinion. They're a wonderful beginner's food. But as newer fish foods come into the market, they're prioritizing marine protein, and attempting to look less at land based foods. Take SAhatchery diet or BrineShrimpDirect's mysis flakes: they don't use wheat flour, but instead use wheat gluten (the active binder). I'd still use Hikari in a pinch, but their recipes could use some modernization.

Just took a look at SA hatchery diet, I had high hopes then saw the ingredients list...wheat gluten, potato starch and garlic oil, doesn’t sound any better and maybe slightly worse than Hikari.
Had a look at Brineshrimp also and wasn’t much better, the 2nd ingredient was wheat of some sort with most of the others being just vitamins.

Not meaning to be totally negative here but I can’t see much improvement with either one.

 

[ichthyogeek]

Just took a look at SA hatchery diet, I had high hopes then saw the ingredients list...wheat gluten, potato starch and garlic oil, doesn’t sound any better and maybe slightly worse than Hikari.
Had a look at Brineshrimp also and wasn’t much better, the 2nd ingredient was wheat of some sort with most of the others being just vitamins.

Not meaning to be totally negative here but I can’t see much improvement with either one.

If your end goal is to have no wheat or binders in the food, then you're going to be disappointed every time you look at dry prepared foods like flakes and pellets.

Wheat gluten: It's a protein. Specifically it's a complex of proteins. They basically make a web that can be used to hold all the other tasty things.

Potato starch: it's a thickening agent.

Garlic oil: probably there for the "stink" factor.

Instead of looking at ingredients and brushing them off, critically think about why the ingredients are there in the first place.