That’s a lot of grain in there! Just sayin!
Agreed. wheat germ, wheat flour, wheat gluten, peas, and rice bran. IMO that's a lot of terrestrial based plant matter for a food designed for tropical fish.
Science has proven that at least with most species of fish studied to date, terrestrial based plant matter can potentially cause health issues, especially if fed in a raw unprocessed state, due to the anti-nutritional matter found in the vast majority of terrestrial based plants. Not a major problem if one is feeding limited quantities, but can cause some serious problems in at least some species of fish when fed at higher levels on a regular basis.
“The presence of endogenous anti-nutritional factors within plant feedstuffs is believed to be the largest single factor limiting their use within compounded animal and fish feeds at high dietary levels. Table 11 summarizes the major groups of anti-nutritional factors present in plant feedstuffs with more specific examples given in Table 12. Although these factors vary in their individual toxicity to fish, a large proportion of them can be destroyed or inactivated by heat treatment processes (Tacon & Jackson, 1985).
Unfortunately toxicological studies have not been performed on the majority of these anti-nutritional factors; on a general basis however their presence in untreated foodstuffs normally results in anorexia, reduced growth and poor feed efficiency when used at high dietary concentrations. For review see NRC (1983), Hendricks & Bailey (1989) and Lovell (1989). “
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t0700e/T0700E06.htm
Peas contain phytic acid, tannins, and trypsin inhibitors (anti-nutritional matter) which can potentially cause negative health issues when fed in excess. Check out the list in the link above & be informed, not all plant matter is going to offer a nutrient boost for fish. Just because it's green, doesn't mean that it's a health food for fish.
If one is wanting to increase the amount of plant matter in their fishes diet, my advice has always been to offer fish aquatic based plant matter. The fact that a fish enjoys eating something, doesn't necessarily mean that it's good for them
