Hikari vs. NLS

[Adhlc]

Beautiful fish man!!!!!!!!!

A big +1 there.

 

[RD.]

While I hesitated in reopening this old wound, I think that the following information is worth sharing.

I recently came across a discussion on another forum where a member was upset about a change in Hikari's Betta Bio Gold formula. Apparently sometime last year Hikari decided to change the formula, by adding additional wheat to the formula, enough to now make wheat flour the main ingredient. According to this member MSG had also now been added to their new labels.

Keep in mind that Betta splendens are classified as carnivores, and require the same amount of high quality protein as any "monster" carnivorous species, only in smaller portions. (obviously) This member contacted Hikari USA, who told her that no change had taken place. According to this member they went so far as to state:

"The first ingredient remains fish meal as it always has. Please check the package and remember you cannot always believe everything you read on the internet."

She never read this on the interent, she was reading the info directly from her Hikari Betta Bio Gold label.

And ....

Please remember that Hikari has been making aquatic diets for many decades and is the only fish food maker who actually breeds and sells live fish.

I guess they didn't realize that New Life has also been breeding & selling live fish for decades.

After further review of her complaint they forwarded the enquiry to Quality Control, and later responded to her with the following.

"Clare - please understand we are just customer service staff and cannot comment on packaging issues, formulations or any other changes and what the impact of these would be without having our QC, formulation and lab staff comment before hand. They are in a much better position (having significantly more information available to them from research work, formulation testing and production records) to provide information that would be useful to any hobbyist with a specific question like yours. All of these divisions are in Japan which requires that we forward the information overnight and usually have an answer the next evening.

Our concern here is that if there is an error on the package, we have a much larger issue to resolve and we want to know up front what we are dealing with so we can properly handle the situation with any customer, especially an informed one like you. We are normally notified of any change to an ingredient panel along with the impact of the change and there has been none on this product so I apologize if you feel we are not being as responsive as you feel we should. All the packages being used in the office show fish meal first and the best before date you provided did not match anything we normally use, so our first answer was an assumption that someone posted something incorrectly on a site, which happens more often than any of us would like.

It appears we should have waited to verify all the information with Japan before we commented on your email to avoid providing information that did not match the package you had in your hand or made us appear uncaring. For this we sincerely apologize. We have forwarded all your information to Japan and they have asked us to allow them to answer your email directly. You should be hearing from them within the next 24 hours. If in the mean time we can assist you further, please contact us at your convenience. We appreciate you taking the time to alert us to this issue and your patience so we can collect all the information and answer your question accurately."

At this point the member received the following pdf document from Keita Harada from Kyorin's Yamazaki Research Institute in Japan.

http://www.ida-may.com/other/hikari.pdf


When Mr. Harada states "the fish meal quality is getting more & more unstable due to the global climate fluctuation" .... I can only assume that he is referring to the cost of high quality fish meal being unstable, as fish meal has definitely seen a significant price hike over this past year.

Fish meal has become more expensive than ever, it's inclusion rate in this formula (and perhaps others?) has been reduced, and the explanation from the spokesperson from Hikari's research institute in Japan is ........ ?


I honestly couldn't make stuff like this up if I tried .........

 

[VRWC]

global climate fluctuation? geez...what a crock. Maybe Al Gore invented Hikari too.

 

[cchhcc]

global climate fluctuation? geez...what a crock. Maybe Al Gore invented Hikari too.

Perhaps he could pick up a job as a Hikari spokesperson now! He seems to have plenty of time on his hands. I'm sure he's getting bored.

That's Hikari response is an incredible explanation. Too right RD. No way you could make that stuff up and have someone believe you. The craziest things are sometimes real!

 

[Aquanero]

They left out the giant jelly fish invasion and the volcano in Iceland.

 

[cchhcc]

They left out the giant jelly fish invasion and the volcano in Iceland.

Oooooooooooo! You're right!

It's a miracle all our fish aren't malnourished all of a sudden with this volcanic, jellied, globally warmed fish meal!

 

[LBathory]

I have been trying to get my fish on NLS but they really prefer hikari. does NLS make a sinking equivalent to massivor?

 

[cchhcc]

I have been trying to get my fish on NLS but they really prefer hikari. does NLS make a sinking equivalent to massivor?

I've heard that before, but it hasn't been my experience. Regardless, don't let your fish "train" you! Hahaha! They'll come to love any food once they're used to it.

Regarding the Massivore equivalent, I just got a sample of the 10mm "Mega Formula" sinking pellet from one of the vendors here (D&S Aquatics). Nutritionally, it's night and day better than the Massivore (science, not opinion). But it is as hard as a rock. Really, really, hard. I wouldn't recommend it for just any fish, but very large P-Bass, rays, and certainly the monster cats would just gulp it down. It really has an aroma that all fish will be attracted to, but to most "normal" cichlids it'll be just an NLS jawbreaker. It's funny though; I'm having success feeding it to my greediest eaters first. They take it and won't give it away for ANYTHING. That gives the less aggressive feeders a chance to get their share of the normal stuff.

Another alternative to Massivore than pretty much all fish can take is the Large Fish Formula of NLS. It's a sinking pellet that's kind of a medium size, and it's not a rock like the Mega Formula.

 

[RD.]

I must admit, their logic, and science, is rather confusing to me.

Hikari has an interview that involves the same Keita Harada, with more of his scientific logic, and approach to fish nutrition posted on their website.
http://www.hikari.info/topics/pdf/inter_sakihikari.pdf

Instead of actually taking the time to check for fat deposits they wrapped that little feed trial up by running a "stress test", which simply involved removing the fish from water, and then seeing how long it took for them to die. All that talk about lipid (fat) levels in their food, flabby koi, etc, and the best they could come up with to ascertain actual fat deposits in these fish was to use a "weight per body length" formula? Instead they allow all of the fish to die, and do not perform necropsies where the actual fat levels in the fish could have been accurately taken, and recorded.

If one is running a feed trial on fish, and the potential for fatty deposition in the liver is in question, the fish should have a proper necropsy performed at the end of the feed trial and one would check for lipid accumulation in the liver. You can't just look at a fish, and know for certain whether severe vacuolation of hepatocytes is taking place, or not, yet this is exactly what Keita Harada of Kyorin's Yamazaki Research Institute did.

Mind boggling ........

 

[Adhlc]

global climate fluctuation? geez...what a crock. Maybe Al Gore invented Hikari too.