fish food question
Dan, Haven’t seen any replies to this, although I could have missed them. With the prepared foods such as what you are using, which would include flakes, wafers, pellets and probably freeze-dried foods as well, you should first buy them from a source that has a good turn-over of these foods — to help ensure it being the freshest you can get. This may, in some case, necessitate skirting you smaller LFS (even though I always prefer frequenting these outlets when ever possible), unless he does a brisk business in these foods. As fish food would normally be one of the fastest moving items anyway, there’s usually no reason for concern, but a much smaller shop may not sell this as fast.
Most better brands of these foods either include added vitamins and/or the foods themselves contain their complement of vitamins when prepared, depending on the composition of the food. The “use-before” date of March you are seeing is right in line with what a food being offered today should advertise. Without refrigeration, its quite important to use these foods before these recommended expiration dates whenever possible if you want to ensure your fish are getting the full benefit from them. The vitamins in these foods have an approximate shelf life of 2 to 2 1/2 months; beyond that, their effectiveness drops precipitantly. However, with storage in the refrigerator, the effectiveness of these vitamins can be preserved for two and a half times that (up to about 5 months). Much beyond that, while there will always be the nutritional value (proteins, carbs, etc.) of the food itself it will have lost any of it vitamin benefits.
The flakes that you have that don’t have expiration dates should be considered in the same manner. Their vitamins will start losing their effectiveness after about two months from the time you first buy it, considering that it may have already spent a couple of weeks at a dry- goods wholesaler or on the LFS’s shelf — unless you refrigerate it. Adverse storage conditions and summer heat will shorten this period, and while most of today’s LFS’s are air conditioned during the Summer, the wholesalers are not. Ray
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