Fish Food

[prismsand]

What is the shelf life of fish food? And how long is the fish food good for after opening?
I've had this question for a long time.

Thanks
Sandra

[crazyred]

I guess it depends on the type, for freeze dried and flakes I would say 6 months? On frozen, as long as they never thawed, maybe a year? Y'all jump in here, I may be waaaaay off! :o

[AngelMom]

It not only depends on the type of food, but the brand as well. I just spent some time researching this as it was a question I couldn't answer. Frozen is easy.......if I'm supposed to use frozen meat (to feed my family) within 6 months, I doubt that frozen fish food would last any longer. Flakes & pellets on the other hand.............I can't find any info on shelf life, even from the manufacturers. I suspect that the higher quality foods last longer (New Life Spectrum, Ocean Nutrition, etc). NLS claims to be good for 12 -18 months and that most others are only good for 2-3 months. Not sure I believe this as I can't find much anywhere else, other than some dry foods (flakes or pellets) can lose their nutrients in as little as a month.

Here are a couple of sites I found that may help:
http://www.bestfish.com/tips/030598.html
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/feedingfish/a/choosingfood.htm
http://freshaquarium.about.com/od/feedingfish/a/flakefoods.htm

[DevinJM]

I just get what I think will work, like if I have a 20 gallon full of barbs and stuff, then the 1lb humungous bag will obviously go bad, so I got the small container. That is what I still do, and you could probably email your brand of choice to see what their dates are.

[betaboi]

BTW, the first 5-7 ingredients on the label are what there is the most of in the food. This becomes helpfulif your looking for something rich in algae (mbunas, sharks, plecos etc.) or something with a lot of meat (oscars, pirhanas, eels etc.). Sometimes the proper food will bring out the colours! Also to add to you question, meat-based foods generally don't last as long as vegies.