What Is Fish Food Made Of? Ingredients by Food Type

The table gives the first items from each maker’s own page, in its order, quoted or summarized, with the printed analysis. We do not rank the foods.

Inside Each Food Type: Maker Labels Side by Side

The makers are Ocean Nutrition, New Life Spectrum, Northfin and San Francisco Bay Brand. San Francisco Bay Brand says that “In 2009, San Francisco Bay Brand, Inc. purchased Ocean Nutrition Americas”, so those rows come from one company group (our reading; both companies’ sites give the same Hayward, CA address).

Food (type)	First ingredients, maker’s order	Protein min / fat min / moisture max
Ocean Nutrition Community Formula Flakes (flake)	“Fish meal, dried fish protein digest, wheat gluten, salmon, wheat flour, plankton, wheat starch”	53.0% / 15.3% / 8.0%
Ocean Nutrition Spirulina Flakes (flake)	“Fish meal, spirulina, pollock, dried kelp”	45.6% / 10.8% / 8.1%
New Life Spectrum (pellet)	“Krill (Euphasia superba), Squid (Dosidicus gigas)”, then whole wheat flour and “Fish (Brevoortia tyrannus)”	37% / 8% / 10%
Ocean Nutrition Cichlid Vegi Pellets (pellet)	“Wheat flour, fish meal, wheat gluten, soy-bean meal”	40.4% / 4.8% / 16.5%
New Life Spectrum Insectum (pellet)	“Insects (Mealworms, Silkworm Pupa, Black Soldier Larvae, Crickets, Grasshoppers); Krill (Euphasia superba), Whole Wheat Flour”	36% / 7% / 10%
Northfin Kelp Wafers (wafer)	“Organic Kelp (Laminariales), Whole Antarctic Krill Meal (Euphausia Superba), High DHA Omega-3 Whole Herring Meal”	33% / 4% / 9%
New Life Spectrum AlgaeMAX (pellets and wafers, one list)	Seaweed (six species named), then “Krill (Euphasia superba), Squid (Dosidicus gigas), Whole Wheat Flour, Kelp”	34% / 8% / 10%
Ocean Nutrition freeze-dried mysis	“Ingredients: Mysis Shrimp.”	68.0% / 5.0% / 6.8%
San Francisco Bay Brand frozen brine shrimp (cubes)	“Ingredients: Brine Shrimp, water, guar gum.”	4.0% / 0.4% / 92.0%
Ocean Nutrition Brine Shrimp Plus (frozen)	“Brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, mussel, squid, plankton, fish oil”	7.1% / 1.1% / 89.0%

Northfin’s page lists 9% as its moisture maximum (shown in the page data and the Moisture tile).

Three picks from our tropical fish food roundup show the same split: black soldier fly larvae first in Fluval Bug Bites Tropical Micro Granules (Fluval says “up to 40%”), whole fish meal first in Aqueon Tropical Flakes and whole wheat first in API Tropical Pellets (the last two from their Amazon listings, per the roundup).

How to Read the Label

Order is by weight. The FDA, the US regulator, says: “Federal regulations require ingredients be listed on the product label by their common or usual name in descending order of predominance according to weight”. The Merck Veterinary Manual, a veterinary reference, writing about dog and cat food labels, adds that water counts: “Although a food ingredient (eg, chicken) may be listed first, if that ingredient is 75% moisture, it will contribute a much smaller percentage of total nutrients to the food dry matter than the same ingredient added in a dry form (eg, chicken meal).” The same page adds: “The value of comparing ingredient lists is limited; instead, the focus should be on analyzing nutrient contents of the diets because animals require nutrients and not ingredients.”

Merck says the analysis gives limits, not amounts (dog and cat labels). “This analysis does not specify the actual amount of protein, fat, water, and fiber in the product.”

Merck’s dry-matter method, written for dog and cat foods, compares wet and dry foods. Its formula is “(% nutrient [as fed]/% dry matter in diet) × 100 = ~% of nutrient (dry matter)”, where dry matter is 100% minus the moisture. Applied here to fish foods (our arithmetic, rough because the inputs are limits): the brine shrimp cubes come to about 50% protein on a dry basis (4.0 / 8.0), Brine Shrimp Plus about 65% (7.1 / 11.0) and the freeze-dried mysis about 73% (68.0 / 93.2). A frozen food’s low printed protein mostly reflects its water (our reading).

Fish Meal, Whole Fish, Krill and Insects

Fish meal. A technical paper on aquafeed ingredients from FAO, the UN’s food agency, reprints the 2008 definitions of AAFCO, the US feed-control officials’ association. Fishmeal “is the clean, dried, ground tissue of undecomposed whole fish or fish cuttings, either or both, with or without the extraction of part of the oil.”

Where it comes from. NOAA Fisheries, a US federal agency, writing about feeds for farmed fish: “About 70 percent of the fishmeal and oil are produced from the harvest of small, open-ocean (pelagic) fish such as anchovies, herring, menhaden, capelin, anchovy, pilchard, sardines, and mackerel.” and “The other 30 percent is generated from the scraps produced when fish are processed for human consumption.”

“Whole” versus “meal”: makers word it differently. New Life Spectrum’s view is that “The term ‘Whole’ is a better indicator of quality than the use (or non-use) of the term ‘meal’.” and that “many fish meals are likewise typically made up from the processing waste of the fish (not the whole fish)”. That is one maker’s claim about the industry. NOAA’s shares cover all fishmeal and oil, not aquarium food; the two sources measure different things. Northfin writes “Whole Antarctic Krill Meal” and “Whole Herring Meal”; Ocean Nutrition writes “fish meal”. The AAFCO definition covers whole fish, cuttings or both, so the words “fish meal” alone do not say which (our reading).

Insects. NOAA lists insects among the “Potential alternative ingredients already in use” in farmed-fish feed, alongside soybeans, wheat gluten, yeast and algae.

Animal or Plant Protein: Where the Sources Differ

• University of Florida IFAS Extension (an older university fact sheet, VM114): “Fish meal should be a major protein source in fish diets.” and “Low cost formulations in which fish meal has been eliminated and replaced by less expensive proteins from terrestrial sources (ie soybeans) are not recommended for fish.” It also notes that for ornamentals, “nutritional management is based on a combination of application of knowledge generated for the species mentioned above and the experience of successful aquarists” (catfish, salmonids and tilapia).
• PetMD (a pet-health site owned by the retailer Chewy; this article is by a veterinarian): “The best source of protein for fish is animal protein such as fish meal. Soy is the best plant protein option, but it does not contain all essential amino acids a fish needs to survive.”
• NOAA Fisheries (farmed fish, not aquariums): “While fish and shrimp don’t require fishmeal and oil in their diets, these ingredients have almost a perfect balance of the 40 or so essential nutrients that animals need to be healthy and grow”.

The makers’ labels differ too: Cichlid Vegi Pellets, Kelp Wafers and AlgaeMAX list wheat flour, kelp or seaweed first, yet each has fish, krill or squid within its next few ingredients (our reading of the lists). New Life Spectrum says AlgaeMAX adds them “along with marine proteins that even herbivorous fish need to mimic the zooplankton and invertebrate enriched diet they receive in the wild.”

The Merck Veterinary Manual’s fish-nutrition page notes: “Pelleted and flake diets are available for feeding fish; some claim to be especially developed for specific species, but detailed nutritional information is not always available.” Which fish a food suits is the maker’s own claim. Our beginner fish guide lists each species’ needs, and our betta food roundup compares pellets, flakes and treats made for bettas.

Frozen and Freeze-Dried Foods

On thawing, the two same-group pages differ: San Francisco Bay Brand’s flat packs may be thawed “in a cup”, and it adds: “Microwaving or thawing in hot water is not recommended, as this breaks down the nutrients contained in frozen fish food.” Ocean Nutrition says of Brine Shrimp Plus: “Thawing the cubes is not recommended as it is designed to ensure proper dispersion throughout the recommended feeding time frame.”

PetMD’s veterinarian, in a general statement about frozen and freeze-dried foods, cautions: “Live, freeze-dried, and frozen fish food should ideally only be fed to complement a pelleted diet, and not as a sole food option unless instructed by your veterinarian. These food items are not nutritionally complete for your fish. If fed alone it will lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies that can cause illnesses, decreased growth, and even death.” Brine Shrimp Plus is a fortified blend: its list goes on to vitamins and minerals.

Food is not a treatment. If your fish stop eating or look unwell, test the water and contact an aquatic veterinarian (find a fish vet).

Frequently Asked Questions

Eight of the ten labels above list a fish ingredient (fish meal, fish oil or a named fish); the freeze-dried mysis and the brine shrimp cubes do not.

Dried, ground whole fish, fish cuttings or both, by the AAFCO definition above. NOAA names anchovies, herring, menhaden, sardines and mackerel among the small fish used.

See our guides to how long fish can go without food, how long a betta can go without food and feeding fish while you’re on vacation, and our automatic fish feeder roundup.

Both Ocean Nutrition flake labels in the table list fish meal first, then a mix that differs by label: wheat gluten, salmon and wheat flour on Community Formula, spirulina, pollock and dried kelp on Spirulina Flakes. Makers differ: our tropical roundup gives whole fish meal first for Aqueon Tropical Flakes (Amazon listing) but dried black soldier fly larvae first for Fluval’s Bug Bites Color Enhancing Flakes.

Sources (10)

• Ocean Nutrition (maker): Community Formula Flakes, Spirulina Flakes, Cichlid Vegi Pellets, ON Mysis, Brine Shrimp Plus
• San Francisco Bay Brand (maker): Frozen Brine Shrimp, Company
• New Life Spectrum (maker): New Life Spectrum, Insectum, AlgaeMAX, Fish Food 101
• Northfin (maker), Kelp Wafers
• FDA (agency), Animal Food Labeling and Pet Food Claims
• Merck Veterinary Manual (reference): Dog and Cat Foods, Nutrition in Fish
• UF/IFAS Extension (university), Fish Nutrition
• FAO (UN agency), Feed ingredients for farmed aquatic animals, ch. 4
• NOAA Fisheries (agency), Feeds for Aquaculture
• PetMD (Chewy-owned pet-health site), What Do Fish Eat?

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.