The History of Dehydrated Fish Food

 

Revised 7/19/2016



The idea of Dehydrated Fish Food is simply providing the best nutrition for our fish. Most all fish food on the market is meant for aqua-culture fish, which is for us humans to eat. This food is designed basically to grow fish out fast and hardy to make the most profit selling fish by the pound, but doesn't consider the fish's health.

This runs us into a problem when this food is repackaged, because how it's massed produced and then sold to the fish hobby and industry. The food market is so much larger than the fish hobby, it usually dictates many things produced for us fish keepers.



Understand human nutrition is one thing, but bringing this understanding into the fish world is very rare, as it takes a lot of effort, time, and money to make it worth anyone's while. Well, this all changed, when a man named Clay Neighbors wanted to applied nutrition to his fish pets and fish he was breeding. He quickly realized, most all food commonly available to majority of hobbyist was not quality. It was over cooked, gain filled, supplemented, caused gut issues, and made in such as way that made excess energies store up as fats, and even excess protein be stored in organs, which lead to a shortened life of our fish.

This is where Clay did more and more research, taking from studies and human research, and really applying and experiments with his own food formulas. Clay Neighbors is the father of Quality Dehydrated Foods, which now, many companies are trying to replicate and rebrand.

First, cooking food at excess heat will cook off important vitamins and adjust chemical make-ups. This is the whole idea behind dehydration, instead of baking. Clay took the food to the next level with not only all important chemicals preserved in the important ingredients of the food, but the ingredients are in a perfect ratio for optimal fish health. Not only are each ingredient super important, but the amount of each ingredient is super important; as more or less is still missing the boat when it comes to a quality fish food. To little and the energies will not be enough for fish's normal activities, such as breeding. To much, and the excess energy is stored, which causes fats and organ issues.

So, the science behind dehydrated foods is important or you can still have a problem of a poor quality food... now it's just dehydrated. The person who's spent years and years studying these concepts again is Clay Neighbors. There's been others along the way to help the process including Carl Strohmeyer, owner of American Aquarium.

The fish keeping hobby is now in a place where people are understanding fish health, starting with what's being feed. Since this has now became such a popular idea for th hobby, mass manufactures are trying to get their hands into the market. Aquatic history has shown this to be typical in the fish keeping hobby.

Hobbyist will now find replications of the dehydrated food at a handful of retailers. These copy cat foods are not the same when it comes to the qualitiness of the food, which was just explained. The foods are still causing excess fats and organ damage. The foods don't even look the same. The original will look so much fresher. Take a look:





Orginal formula:


So, if anyone is looking for this food, which really is the best fish food on the market, look up Clay Neighbors or Carl Strohmeyer to find where the food is located. At the time of this article, the food is going under rebranding to keep up with the dishonesty in the industry. These two creators will be able to help anyone find a rebuttal source for the food.

AAP Custom & Paradigm Fish Foods

 

Paradigm Fish foods is a brand that quickly established itself as a leader in quality of nutrition based on the quality of the ingredients, use of natural ingredients (unlike even most other so-called premium brands such as Northfin), results, and even the fact many fish fed this diet would no longer accept any other fish food later.

After personal problems that sometimes occur with a small LLC, the company has dissolved.
However the founder of the ingredients, Clay Neighbors along with Carl Strohmeyer have come up with an even better formula that is now being released to the public through American Aquarium Products (AAP) and select retailers (at MAP pricing to protect professional sellers from discounters with little product knowledge).

A LITTLE HISTORY:
WHY "AAP PREMIUM ALL NATURAL" FISH FOODS?
Reference: Paradigm Ultra Premium- "AAP Premium All Natural" Custom Fish Food Crumbles:

"The original creator of of the ingredients and process for Paradigm and now "AAP Premium All Natural" fish foods has been breeding Rift Lake African cichlids going on 30 years now. We have tried every single manufactured fish food there is on the market and was never completely happy with any of them. The creator of the ingredients and process for Paradigm began studying the ingredients and nutritional analysis of each type of food by making comparison charts. This resulted in some new formulas in 2009.
Then he took all the knowledge he learned about the different types of fish and their dietary needs by breeding fish plus all the research he had compiled on the different fish foods on the market including Carl's in depth Fish Nutrition article which he and Carl discussed at length in an aquarium forum for some time. He then decided that he could make a fish food far superior to any other food available.

Now the creator (Clay N) has decided to step it up a notch even more with an even newer formula that is 100% natural, unlike how even most of the other better fish foods still have to supplement their food to hit the target needed for optimal fish nutrition.
This is to be sold exclusively as "AAP Premium All Natural" whereby the creator decided the protein make up could be improved. The creator felt the fish were getting more than needed, which made for unnatural bulky fish. It can also cause some health issues with over feeding as too much protein also can lead to premature renal failure, which unfortunately many of the otherwise very best competing foods tend to ignore this issue and go with "the more the better".

The binders of the food have also been reworked with kelp and peas

• First, he wanted to make a binder using a minimal amount of starch. He originally used egg whites with the Paradigm formula, but later switched over to pea flour that he personally grinds so as to make sure protein levels were not so high that it would produce fatty fish and early onset renal failure as many fish foods can do by not considering optimum protein sources.
  Reference as to protein:
  Fish Nutrition; Protein/Amino Acids
  


• Secondly; These "AAP Premium All Natural" along with Paradigm Foods are designed to maximize net energy gain.
  This makes feeding less and getting at least as much or more energy gain possible.
  When the fish can use more of the food it leads to less waste in your aquarium. Less waste in your aquarium obviously means a cleaner tank and therefore healthier and happier fish.
  What "AAP Premium All Natural"/Paradigm Fish Foods is offering is in depth research after working on it for over five years. With the help of their partners Paradigm actually found the low limit for energy aka fat, sugar and starch.
  In the study fish stopped breeding after being fed one of the last trial diets of less than 21-22% combined fats & starch. This means that the females didn't have enough reserve energy to produce eggs.
  Paradigm and now "AAP Custom" raised the energy a little and voila the fish started breeding again. With that being said you can rest assured your fish are getting the proper amount of energy and avoid their liver being covered in stored energy aka fat. We use the sugar and starch first since they can store very little if any.
  
  The end result is an all natural, no filler, 100% Grain Free fish food; Paradigm does NOT use the min/max system that every other label uses so you will never have to guess what percentage of starch, protein, fat, etc is in the food.


• Third; "AAP Premium All Natural" along with Paradigm Fish Foods are not a pellet or a flake ­ its a crumble. This way you only have to buy one size. You adjust the size of the food to tailor to your individual fish.
  More importantly, the process producing pellets and most flake foods often produces high heat that can destroy many important water soluble vitamins such as Vitamin C.
  While AAP Custom uses low heat dehydration to produce crumbles and no need to supplement other than the natural ingredients included.

Just compare the ingredients to another popular premium fish food (NorthFin)

AAP Custom Omnivore: Whole Menhaden Fish Meal, Kelp, Corn Bran, Green Pea Flour, Menhaden Fish Oil, Human Grade Spirulina Powder, Astaxanthin, Paprika, and Cayenne Pepper.
Naturally includes: Vitamins: A, E, K, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, C, M, H, D3, B12

Northfin: Whole Antarctic Krill Meal, High Omega-3 (DHA) Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Kelp (Organic Certified), Spirulina, Garlic, Astaxanthin (Haematococcus Algae), Calcium Montmorillonite Clay, Wheat Flour, Vitamin A Acetate, L-Ascorby-2-Polyphosphate (Source of Vitamin C), D-Activated Animal-Sterol (D3), DL Alphatocophero (E), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Thiamine, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Choline Chloride, Cobalt Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Selenium, Zinc.

Now booth use some top notch ingredients, however NorthFin still needs to supplement in part due to how the food is processed. Also NorthFin is using the typical shotgun approach of most brands of fish food of high protein instead of optimum protein.

Here is a quote from "Fish Nutrition":
"An analogy used at a pet food seminar I attended was this: You can achieve the protein analysis on many pet foods with a used pair of leather shoes, but leather shoes contain little usable proteins.
In this seminar the leaders demonstrated that either too much protein (instead of optimum protein) and/or less digestible proteins/amino acids led to premature kidney (renal) failure."

In the end, you will not find ANY better fish food on the market than the new AAP Custom from the originator of the formula for Paradigm fish foods!!

Recommended Resource:
"AAP Ultra Premium All Natural" Custom Fish Food Crumbles

Further Reading:
*Fish Nutrition; Complete
*from Everything Aquatic


RUMORS & FURTHER HISTORY:

Paradigm is simply the legal name of the LLC between Clay N and other investors. The formula is by Clay as well he was the only "cook" for the product.

Clay has been making fish food since at least 2009, long before Paradigm was founded. He consulted with Carl Strohmeyer and others, including here on this formula for some time before he founded what would become Paradigm Fish Foods. He also referenced his Fish Nutrition article in these discussions

Clay also wrote several articles for Everything Aquatic, so it is safe to say that Everything Aquatic is his home forum at the time this food was originally launched.
References:
Fish Nutrition 101
How to Read a Fish Food Label & Energy
Probiotics, Prebiotics, Soluble Fiber and Resistant Starch
Cyanobacteria (Spirulina) and Algae - Pond Grown vs. Naturally Grown
Whats wrong with making Dough in Fish Food?

Later, after the food was launched, AAP was an original seller, but as the company tried to expand too quickly, AAP was no longer able to sell the food for a few months they worked so hard to aid in development and promotion. AAP also found it for sell in discounters such as eBay rather full service retailer.
In AAPs final Paradigm order after they stated they would be going out of business, AAP asked for all stock left, yet somehow more was found and is now being sold under priced and under agreed upon manufacturer/retailer agreements.

Most persons seemed to have been told another story, so are therefore totally in the blind of what has happened and the history of this food as it relates to Carl S. Clay N, Everything Aquatic, and AAP