David Gamble
Aberdeen Fishkeepers Club Chairman & Scottish Supreme Champion

I started my trial of AquaThrive Nourish 2 weeks ago and I must say that overall I am very impressed. I had a pack of small pelllets and also 2 miniature packs of large pellets to trial. The large pellets were initially used with large angelfish but the pellets were too big for them so I gave them to Malawi cichlids instead. The pellets in the angelfish tank did not go to waste as soon after landing on the bottom my Synodontis cats were busy "hoovering" them up. The Malawi cichlids took to these pellets immediately, but care had to be taken not to feed too much at once as they tended to sink fairly quickly and Malawis are not ideal at picking food up from the floor. However they soon got the hang of grabbing pellets as soon as they landed on the surface and they seemed to like it. The food was all eaten and, unlike some foods, no particles of dust were expelled through the gills. Despite my obvious overfeeding the first twice I didn't see any sign of cloudiness or water pollution in my tank.

The small pellets were tried on small angelfish at 1" TL but the pellets were still rather big for them. Other angels at 2" TL were just perfect for the small pellets. Again there was no waste and the angels were quite agressively feeding on this food. I did try a one off feed to some Corydoras cats and they also liked it. Overall the small pellets are a great food for most 1½"+ fish and I would be quite confident to recommend it. Personally I would love to see an even smaller size pellet as I don't feel fish like small guppies, platies and small tetras will be able to handle the small pellets but any bigger fish do really well on them. An interesting thing I noticed was the small pellets took a long time to sink as opposed to the large pellets making the smaller size easier to feed to more shy fish such as dwarf cichlids.

All the AquaThrive Nourish pellets we tried had no overpowering smell and were easily handled. I found mine best fed in a plastic pepperpot and simply sprinkled on the surface. They are not too soft and do not look prone to damp and so it should keep good for a little longer than flake in warm damp areas.