AF Marine Mix is Aquaforest’s suggested pellet food for marine fish, a food whose best shot is a healthy growth for your fishes.
This article is also available in: 
italian
As we always say, you know that pellet food is produced at low temperatures. That’s why it is one of the best feed to use in aquariums. In fact it is less polluting than frozen food, it doesn’t have cold-chain interruption problems, and it keeps most of its nutritional properties that are lost in high- temperatures treatments used to produce flake food (more details here). Of course the difference between one food and another or between two pellet feed depends on the starting paste.
Aquaforest AF Marine Mix food owns to this category, in a high level bracket.
AF Marine Mix is especially rich in Calanus finmarchicus and Mysis relicta, two small shellfish that provide your fish an excellent food supply. This feed is completed with fishmeal, vegetables, minerals, clams, shellfish, oils and fats.
Aquaforest AF Marine Mix is available in two sizes. S like ours and L. S version (small) has 1 mm pellet, while the L version (large) has 2,5 mm ones. In this way it’s easy to choose the correct size for your fishes.
Palatability value is excellent, fishes immediately run on the meal since the first feeding. Moreover, unlike all the feed I have experienced so far, this one stays moist once opened, and it will sink very quickly. This happens also when placing the food in a food-ring on the surface once a fish touches it and the sinking is quite marked.
Strangely a spoon is not provided for the dosing. This is the first time it happens to me. Moreover I would point out that the feed is not contained in a vacuum bag, but it lays in the plastic box. The only protection from the outside world is a plastic seal, to be removed at the first opening.
On the package is not printed the expiry date but the wrapping one. The expiring date is fixed in 24 months after the packaging date. It seems to me a good way to report this thing. But at a first sight, for how we are used to, we can think that it is expired while it is perfect.
Composition of Aquaforest AF Marine Mix
The feed is composed by the following ingredients, ad declared:
- Mysis relicta
- Calanus finmarchicus
- Fish meal
- Vegetables
- Minerals
- Clams and shellfish
- Oils and fats
The packaging includes the box, with an easy opening top, and the feed.
A very interesting nutritional analysis that confirms our first impressions:
- Crude protein 42%;
- Crude fats and oils 7%;
- Crude fiber 1%;
- Ashes 19,8%;
- Phosphor 0,9%;
- Calcium 1,1%;
- Moisture 26%;
- Other 2%
We can see the composition also in the following pie chart:
As we can see in the chart, the feed is mainly composed of crude protein (42%) but on average it is lean with only 7% of fats. For it we can categorize it a good base feed that should not stress fish liver. It has a very high level of ashes, and a high moisture, as we noticed by touch.
Aquaforest AF Marine Mix is a pretty lowfat feed, very good for everyday use for most fishes. 42% of protein is lower than the average 54% of all the feed we have analyzed so far, and 7% of fats against the average 10%. It has an high moisture, as we said before, of 26%, but on the other hand the other is only 2% against the average 14%. Of course we are talking about generic feed we analized up to now, and not the vegetable-based feed for algae eaters fish.
Vitamins
Let’s see the analytic composition of vitamins, trace elements and additives:
- Vitamin A: 15.000 IU/kg.;
- Vitamin D: 3.000 IU/kg.;
- Vitamin C: 1.000 mg/kg.;
- Vitamin E: 1.000 IU/kg.;
As always we have a high rate in Vitamin A that promotes an healthy growth, strengthens the eyesight, protects the skin and has a positive action on fecundity. However it is lower if compared to similar feed (21.000). The content of Vitamin C, D3 and E is a little bit higher than the average.
Please note the reddish colour due, in our opinion, to the Calanus finmarchicus.
AF Marine Mix S is available only in the 120 grams package.
Price
The 120 grams package costs 14,80 € (about 12,3 cents per gram).
To have a comparison Hikari Marine A costs 8,3 cents per gram, while the smaller Hikari Marine S 11,2 cents per gram. Then we have 10,4 New Life Spectrum, 11,3 XAqua Marine, 21 Equo Menu Marino, 29,5 Elos SVM2 and 15,6 cents per gram Unica Gran Premium Plus.
In Italy AF Marine Mix by Aquaforest is imported and distributed by Aquariatech.
If you want to enhance the topic about fish food, you can also read this article, although it is of a few years ago, it’s still topical: the fish feeding.
