I have bought & tried much of the other stuff out there, but these lil' pellets DEFINITELY 'take the cake' in regard to high quality and palatability (the fish really seem like the taste of this stuff!) as far as excellent fishie food goes! :)
PROS:
1) Taste & appearance: My Bettas (as well as the rest of my fish, unfortunately!) absolutely LOVE the taste of these pellets, and will easily choose this stuff first before eating flakes or any other types of pellets whatsoever...actually, my Betta will literally refuse to eat some other brands of pellets out there, unless there is absolutely nothing else left for him to eat! :o
It also seems to me that Hikari has truly used their expertise & research to create a very high quality food that obviously tastes good for the fish, and although I don't honestly know for sure, but appear to leave out a lot of unnecessary amounts of food coloring & useless additives I tend to see more of in other brands of food...Hikari's food really looks more 'normal' to me, like food should, not neon orange, fire engine red, etc...I realize the dyes are added to 'enhance' the colors of the fish, but sometimes i wonder if the fancy colors & hype marketing are really be there for OUR amusement instead!
:P Hmmm...Oh, and as far as adding MSG comments go, it is NOT an included ingredient in the newer batches of food, so Hikari must have listened & rethought their recipe choices for the pellets!...Maybe adding MSG is just an Oriental thing, you know, like when you order sweet&sour chicken from the Chinese restaurant, it just goes w/ the territory right!...can't imagine the Bettas really care if their food is salty or not though! ;)
2) The stuff actually FLOATS!...and for a very long time! ;) Long enough to gain some moisture so the fish can actually 'chew it up' and enjoy the food...honestly, the other brands i have tried do not float AT ALL, they just sink to the bottom within a few seconds, and let me tell you, Bettas are PICKY eaters!...once the food drops, my Betta Casper (hes completely white like an albino, no kidding!) says, 'Not touchin' it...there's more where that came from!' & then I have to add NEW pellets for him to nose around the tank, Lol! :)
CONS:
1) Honestly there are no cons to mention regarding the actual quality or performance of this product, other than the fact that the Bettas (and other fishies!) eat this stuff WAAY too fast, and in a whole lot more quantity than the 'usual' recommended 'one or two pellets twice a day' stuff!...Yeah right!? my Casper can kill maybe 9-12 of these pellets TWICE a day, not to mention the stray pellets stolen by all his other SEVEN! pals in the tank!
2) I suppose the only gripe I might have is the fact that this food comes at a premium above the cost for 'average' Betta food...not that its going to totally break you, its a few bucks for quite a bit of food that will last some time after all...but as a comparison, at your local 'Big Chain' stores, you can usually only find the tiny 2.5 gram dispensers of this stuff for quite a premium, around three bux or so, when you could literally buy the 'other' brand for almost the same money and get a little better than an ounce (28 grams!), basically over 10x times the amount of food for the same price! Ouch! :o
CONCLUSION!:
All in all, I am willing to spend a couple x-tra dollars on a product I believe to have been developed with some conscious thought & care involved for the actual benefit of the animals for which they were designed...and the fact that they really dig the taste makes me happy too!...Good Job Hikari!
Cheers! :)
Wheat flour, fish meal, soybean meal, gluten meal, krill meal, wheat germ meal, cuttlefish oil, brewers dried yeast, dried a. niger fermentation extract, astaxanthin, garlic, monosodium glutamate, DL-methionine, dried seaweed meal, vitamins (including stabilized vitamin C) and minerals.
