FYI If you do a little research, you'll realize it's been trademarked by XTREME waaaay before the coop did their first video and opened their store. This wasn't an attack on anyone.Most likely just a mistake. I've only used Xtreme and Northfin and love equally.
Yeah. I recall New Life Spectrum having nano food a while back, too. I don't know if that's still a name they're using, but, as you say, it seems like too much of a vague term to trademark.
@@authmal yeah I used to sell tons of that stuff....come to think of it I think it was called community formula and they had on the label the mm size which I believe was .5mm
I like the honesty in your videos, as I know you have generally been pretty positive about the Coop as a brand. Gives your reviews and opinions a lot of integrity.
As ever a balanced and informative review. Aquarium Coop have a unique combination of pros and cons. As a relatively small company with a large social media following. Their owner and founder Cory gives all of their products extensive long term testing before releasing them. While maintaining a close eye that the suppliers of their products keep to high standards and quality at all stages of materials, build, and reliability. With a very low percentage failure rate before fix it or lose the contract clause with any of their suppliers. Maintains one of the best returns policy in the industry. Yes they have one main store. They are allowing many more locations to stock their products. As for ordering online the range of products including probably the best sponge filter on the market. Same for brine shrimp eggs, Easygreen ect. Most fish keepers with more than a handful of tanks even a small fish room would easily justify several orders per year of Coop products.
Cory is def a great salesman, but don’t think just because he’s out here showing his face that other companies arnt also doing their do-diligence. Cheers
My small fish, chili rasboras, blue emperor tetras, Congo tetras, all go crazy for the Co-ops Magic Nano. I also use the Xtreme Nano, and have never used the Northfin. I like the Xtreme, but it would fall too fast to the bottom. It was also too big for my chilis. So, I like the Co-ops food the best. As an aside, my adult angelfish also like the Co-op Magic Nano and it is funny watching them trying to get those tiny little pieces (I feed them the Xtreme too as they love it, but I have to do small feedings of it as it sinks fast and my angels like to feed off the surface). Another aside, my neocaridina shrimp love the Co-op Magic Nano and they clean up any over feeding and they are in the tank with my chilis who will not always eat it all. My tetras in another tank don’t leave any of the Magic Nano to sink, but just in case I have a large school of Cory’s to clean it up. My fish give Aquarium Co-op Magic Nano 5 stars.
Looks like the Aquarium Co-Op food would be good to have in your back pocket if you were breeding a lot and accidently ran yourself out of brine shrimp. I've used Xtreme foods, and have been very happy with them in combination with some Hikari sinking wafers for my coridoras.
@@Trains-With-Shane it would be decent as a backup fry food as long as the fry in question can eat something that's at a 200 micron size. As an example, rainbow fish fry for the first about month of their life need food that is somewhere between 5 and 50 microns. So for someone like me who's a primary rainbow fish keeper It's too big. But after the fish get to say 2 months or so of age it's great mostly because of how it keeps floating in the mid water column.
Good video, you showed you're not biased to a certain company as you made your points in a fair and logical manner. I hope those that watch you appreciate that fact, keep doing what you're doing.
I will need to try ordering some extreme Nano reading about the mm sizes I had assumed it was the same as the northfin since both say 0.5mm.... but the one thing i have noticed working at a salmon hatchery is feed size seems to be based off the thickness of the pellet so we can get a 1.5mm pellet thats almost the same as a 2mm pellet because they cut it the same length as the 2mm if that makes sense.... but if you are looking for something small from northfin i just tried there fry starter (250 micron powder) the cpds and chili rasboras like it. i had never heard of the nano bits before i use the 0.5mm community formula it tends to float for a while and sink pretty rapidly once it starts. north fin also has a community flake food now as well
Thanks BP. Merry Christmas! Comments: 1. I get your concern about coop & Xtreme relationship. I tend to agree but coop ‘nano’ definitely acts differently. Also, Xtreme needs competition to keep prices reasonable. It’s cheaper in this case. (2) I usually love NF foods. Haven’t tried this one. Probably won’t based on your review. I’ll still keep buying their Community Flake and Bug Pro. (3) I’ll check myself but would have liked you to quickly comment on the ingredients of each. My experience is all three brands are pretty darn good. QC is key though.
@@dareqmaynard1551 I do discuss the granule size and where there are benefits. Maybe it's not because I'm saying it directly like this is the best because X, but I think each food has a situation where it's the best. If you need a quickly sinking food because you're using a lot of bottom feeders, that is where the North fin would be better. If you're using a lot of very small fish that especially tend to feed out of the mid and upper water column, then the aquarium co-op food is probably the best. If you need a combination where you want some to stay at topwater but some sink and you need something slightly bigger because maybe you have mostly fish that are say 3 to 5 in in size. Then you might want to look at the Xtreme. From a pure quality of ingredient standpoint, I would say it's a tie between North Fin and Xtreme. From a pure perspective of how long it floats in the water column that's going to aquarium co-op. I think it's about finding the right balance for the fish you keep.
@BentleyPascoe Thanks for such a comprehensive response to my comment. Some people just sometimes give a 👍, or some such. I fully understand, much appreciated
I can probably just look this up myself. but would you happen to know what the size difference is between the co-op's food and Hikari's.Fancy Guppy food? That stuff is minuscule, and I was just wondering how it compared.
ACO already had/have another competing nano/fry food (which my Tetras love) the entire time they were working with Xtreme, they just decided they could improve upon their own already existing product, so I really don't think its at all a big deal in any way. And for all we know, Corey did try working with them and they weren't interested. Even if it was some underhanded thing by Corey, Xtreme are also the ones who trademarked a super commonly used term in fishkeeping and went sending out the lawyers over it, which is equally slimy. Soon I'll be buying a bottle of the ACO magic small fish food to try out, and in that same order will be another bottle of Xtreme's shrimp pellets that I'm a huge fan of. They both make great stuff, and my aquatica being well fed is the only thing I'm worried about at the end of the day.
Very thorough breakdown. I appreciate you taking a look. The magic small fish food is really insanely good, at least where I've been using it. It does have great hang time and visually looks SO close to baby brine shrimp. I think your concerns are super relevant and honest though RE: China manufacturers
12 дней назад
Love this comparison. I know what you mean about the relationship between ACO and Xtreme. However, aside from the similar name, they are very different products. ACO likes to make products that they like for their fishkeeping: primary examples the light, and the sponge filter. Never used the light, haven't needed a light since they came out. Like the quality that it seems to offer, not a fan of yellow lighting. I do have the sponge filter, not as a primary filter, but I keep a couple running in my sump to keep the bacteria active to have the filter as a ready to run backup. If it was my primary filter, I'd rather have a slightly finer sponge. Cory talks about how people don't like the pore size, but he likes it and doesn't want to change it. Perhaps Xtreme didn't want to make a food to his specs? He has been saying for years how he wants his own food to his specs. So I can't imagine that he just went behind Xtreme's back to do it. I can see not doing a copyright search for nano food though. I seem to remember he has always said Xtreme is overpriced though. I do worry about working with China manufacturing, who knows what changes they might decide to make just for their own profits. Look what happened to the light manufacturer. Also the CO2 regulator, didn't he stop it because of the quality didn't quite keep up to his specs? So can we assume that the food will go the same way?
I'm glad you kind of defined what you meant bt, it sucks. But I wish you had done it a little bit more clearly. I don't think northfin sucks. I have no Nano fish though so it's hard for me to compare it to the same thing you are. I can say that my cory cats absolutely love it. I know my raphaels love it too. they just they sift through the gravel all the time. Even my bumblebee catfish from South America love it. I see my EBA picking at the gravel all the time, always on the hunt for more. So I mean, it's a good food, but like you said, and I did catch that at the end, it's just not made for your application.
I used xtreme nano for a while and love it, purchased the new coop nano and love it also, purchased the new coop floating and love that as well. Besides my plecos which none of these foods are appropriate for, most of my fish are nano & smaller apistos. I feed them all and love them all. I have been feeding more of the new coop foods at the expense of the xtreme but feed them all Admittedly a little concerned with the made in China aspect. Wish Cory would announce some independent states side testing.
I may try extreme when I get low on my northfin. My only truly nano are my rosy loaches. But it's why I rotate Northfin flake, bug bits, veggie, and kelp wafers. I do also do live, frozen, and Aquarium Coop easy fry food. I am trying the Aquarium Coop freeze dried tubifex worms.
Well, I've been looking for quality tiny sinking pellets for my cory farm, and I guess I'll be trying the northfin so it gets to the bottom. Thank you for your reviews Bently
I hope Northfin never changes to make their food float more like other companies. They’re my go-to and I absolutely love the sinking aspect of it. Not just this product but most of their products. It’s great for my frontosa, petricola, clown loaches, tiger barbs, and my boesmani get PLENTY of food as it sinks.. and my guppies have no problem going to the bottom if need be. If Northfin made their food float more like other companies (packed with air) I’d probably resort to exclusively frozen foods or have to use Repashy, or break up wafers.. giant pain. Long Live Northfin fish food!
@@robertjohnston25 I think I mentioned this and maybe I didn't put enough emphasis on it. But if you want a specifically quick sinking food, the North Fin is actually great. For my purposes. Personally it's horrible. There's only about one tank. I would actually use it in and that's not enough to justify purchasing it over and over again compared to some of the other fruits I use. What I will say is I do love the general quality that you get out of North Fin foods.
@ i bought a lot of Xtreme foods in the past and overall I didn’t have any issues with them. I recently tried their wrigglers food and they float a lot more than their other foods from memory. I know Cory has also been a big push to make food sink slower over the years, and given his relationship with xtreme I wonder if his opinion had anything to do with it. Different strokes for different folks. I can def see why sinking foods would be bad for some folks. And I by no means think all foods should sink as easily as Northfin. I just like there is still a choice and hope that doesn’t change moving forward .
We will not change what we do and the way we do. There are different feeding techniques can be implemented if the food sinks to much, but that falls in the hands on each hobbyist. What is important in the food is the ingredients and nothing else, for your fish longevity and health. Also Northfin using only highest quality North America proteins and nothing else. China proteins is the biggest concern as they are adulterating feed ingredient proteins with inexpensive melamine and other compounds, such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide, and this is common practice. Thank you.
I don’t think it is nefarious at all. Aquarium Coop is branding its own products as a trusted source. I think Cory is genuine and would not permit toxic food to be sold with the Coop branding.
Merry Christmas, Bentley. Mr. Crabs, thats great. Great show . I trust the Sham Wow guy more then Corey . I wish Dean would get away from him. Cory you get coal in your stocking this xmas. If companies want an honest and intelligent judgement. Bentley is the man. Thanks, Bren from the North. aka Canada
The northfin stuff has never floated for me. While I really like the ingredients, it's only good for specific applications. The xtreme stuff also comes in bulk sizes, and comes in different forms for bigger fish. The co-op stuff is fine for small/nano fish and fry, but I don't have much that would need that tiny size. I'm basically going to continue using mostly xtreme with some northfin and Hikari mixed in. No interest in the co-op stuff for my application.
Hello, I was hoping you could help me problem solve with this. I’m having plant issues that have me extremely close to leaving the hobby. I have a 20g tall tank that has java fern a banana plant, Anubis bartri, nana petite, and nana. And floating salavina. I am randomly having problems with assumingly Anubis rot. And i can’t figure out why. It just happens randomly and I’m losing whole plants. (Rhizomes not buried) I have light 6-8h a day, use the dosage for easy green, and add extra potassium.
@@dominusdraco5382 when you notice the rot, we want to look for patterns. Is it after cutting a rhizome? Is it relatively soon after gluing the rhizome into a surface? Is it after several months? Is it always on one spot or attached to a specific surface? Are we seeing any other potential problems in the leaves?
@ it’s pretty random, so I don’t propagate/cut for any reason unless it’s rotting and I’m trying to save a bit of it. It’s happened on both rock and drift wood. 99% of the time the leaves are perfectly green and look like there is nothing wrong until I see them moving a bit and I notice the hold ryzome is rotted. The other day though I noticed a barti leaf was yellow with some brown where the stem meets the leaf and the banana plant had one leaf go yellow and die I have never had that. However at the same time a petite and a nana were rotted. I bounced between the idea of phosphate or nitrogen but I also read too much nutrient could cause rot.
If a order one and it rots right away I just assume it was already an issue but the ones that I’m struggling to understand do it after a month or more and it may just be one or two not all of them so I find it really difficult to pin point the issue
@dominusdraco5382 it's possible more aggressive growing plants are getting more nutrients leading to the issue. I've struggled to solve this puzzle when it's happened to me as well honestly
I like your review, I'm still using Fluval Bug Bites for small fish which is 0.5mm in conjunction with crushed flakes and/or Aquarium Co-ops fry food. It all depends on which fish tank and which fish I'm feeding I adjust the ratio accordingly. I might give the "magic" a try on my next order but so far in my limited experience, the 0.5mm gets eaten by most of the fish I keep including smaler tetras, guppies, angel fish, rasboras, corydoras etc. But bug bites also sinks quite fast. I guess I will not know until I try it on my fishes, and most fish keepers will try new products just to see if it works for them.
Hi Bentley, Thank you very much for making this video. You always give us the facts with the pros and cons :). I have a question for you, how do you know how much to feed? Do you follow a certain measurement per fish?
I have the same issue with extreme big fella food. For one thing, it’s not nearly big enough of a pellet size to feed my biggest fish, and it also sinks too fast for them to even see it. I think I’m going to follow your lead and go back to the extreme flakes.
Excellent comparison video. While I do have the Magic food, and quite like it, I also have an issue with it origin. Due to their history, I won't buy Chinese food products for my own consumption. Gladly pay the extra for Canadian/American produced/grown food for my dinner table. Electronics are one thing (built in spyware aside lol) but personal health is another.
I also wonder why did they go after Aquarium Co-Op when there are several other Nano foods out there. Maybe the co-op is just the one not fighting it. The name was Magic Nano Feed which is no less a violation than Northfin’s Nano Bits. I would be surprised if the change and publicly discussing the legal issues was just a phone call between the two CEOs to make it easier for them to go after others later. If so, that would be Cory helping them out. I see these as just general competition. There is no product that is truly unique to what they sell from competitors I also see this as a replacement to their old fish fry food. Personally, I don’t use the Xtreme nano. I don’t like the way it reacts in the water I would rather just ground up flake food. The Coop one will make me give it a try.
@@BentleyPascoe all my own speculation. We will never know the definitive backstory, but friendly speculation is fun. As long as people don’t turn it into trolling.
@@BentleyPascoe By the way, since you are online today. Have you ever seriously considered doing a whisky channel. My son is totally into whisky (especially Bourbons). So I have been getting a little into it too. I know with your work/life schedule today, that is not a near term thing, but maybe down the road in a year or so? Just wanting you to keep a thought for some day.
I have containers per tank mixed depending on the fish I have per tank. I haven't tried Aquarium Co-Op though. I can understand the animal instinct. It's like me going after baby back ribs 😂BTW Merry Christmas to you and your family 😊
@@cheeseballs3825 I do agree that certain trademarks are a little egregious. I think we're seeing that right now, especially in the video game industry. If you look at the Nintendo pokémon lawsuit. Unfortunately, this is a mechanism of how our patent offices and trademarking offices in the United States function.
You are right, American standards isn't as great as you may think it is. I have worked with some quality control(qc) and they was hired from the streets with no clue or care for their job.
I have a decent amount of fish food choices literally within walking distance of my 14 gal cube.There aren't many foods that my community fish have refused . So it's difficult for me to justify shipping to buy fish food on line.
I have a container ACOP Magic Nano. I guess I will keep the container for posterity's sake. LOL Also, I love this food. Everything except my largest fish absolutely love it. In particular my shrimp go nuts for it. They even come to the surface to feed to get some they love it so much.
@@TheScrumTV I didn't think about shrimp with how well it cut it carpets everything in a tank. It could actually be a pretty interesting shrimp fruit if you had a really big colony
I like Dr. Bassleer nano its small and sinks a bit slower and its has a lot good ingredients for the smallest fish. Legit is good but sinks fairly fast which I don't like. But Legit is another food fill with healthy ingredients. The NF foods other than flakes sink way too fast. But good video and information.
Someone should ask Cory. Maybe I will when I catch a livestream how they check on quality control. They may have a hired representative that checks in on the factory regularly to inspect when they do a run of Coop product. I know when my dad worked for a seafood processing plant. For red lobster rubs, they had an inspector from them that watched the whole run and would do his own testing. That’s why my dad only ate seafood at red lobster. It is a great point you brought up about food manufactured in china. My thought goes even further to food that is outsourced in any country. If you don’t do it yourself, you are never sure.
Xtreme might not have wanted to develope the new food. Can't force a company to make something it doesn't want. Example, I called up a company to make a product that they already made just with some different ingredients for an entirely new market. They told me to get lost. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.
There's no single food that is great for all fish. And even a single species of fish will benefit from a mix of foods, as we do in our own diets. These three foods all work great for a specific purpose. The Co-op food is great for tiny, midwater-feeding fish, but not great for much else. The larger Xtreme nano-pellets are good for a wider range of fish (larger than tiny fish), but not ideal for surface and midwater feeders. I won't be replacing the nano-pellets with the Co-op product, but I will keep it around for certain fish. In short, a tank with a variety of fish that feed at different levels are going to do best with a variety of foods, not a single product.
Being made in China isn't the problem, even here American made dog food, our fruit and vegetables are being recalled ppls and animalshave died. Almost everything come from China one way or another, but We are not willing to destroy our environment for those manufacturing plants they have. If you buy a cheap Chinese made product you get something cheap, They also make alot of nice quality stuff, the average customer isn't going to pay more tho. I haven't try to aquarium coop new food yet, but from the ingredients it looks very simple and I like that. I have used the other 2. Northfin isn't good. Xtreme my fish like but not my wallet, it also sink too fast for my liking. I have a fishroom with 40ish aquarium and none of those fishfood make sense for me. But it's not aim for ppls like me. It's aim for the average fish keeper, trying to make their store bought fish look good and healthy. If I fed tetra flakes to a species of fish for 3 to 4 generations they would look just as good and just as healthy. Most ppls won't keep fish for that long tho.
My fish don't really get excited with Northfin foods, except my Florida Flag Fish with their veggie granules. They've always been excited for Xtreme foods. But recently I've been getting a brand called Ultra Fresh, from Thailand. I've already had food from them that acts just like this "magic" food. Ultra Fresh, would like some of my fish keeper content creators to look at it.
I have the same issue with extreme big fella food. For one thing, it’s not nearly big enough of a pellet size to feed my biggest fish, and it also sinks too fast for them to even see it. I think I’m going to follow your lead and go back to the extreme flakes.
The thought that a company can trademark nano is ridiculous almost like I want to trademark the word water
Agreed
FYI If you do a little research, you'll realize it's been trademarked by XTREME waaaay before the coop did their first video and opened their store. This wasn't an attack on anyone.Most likely just a mistake. I've only used Xtreme and Northfin and love equally.
Let me clarify. I meant most likely a mistake on the coops' end, not Xtreme. Things happen, no one is perfect.
Yeah. I recall New Life Spectrum having nano food a while back, too. I don't know if that's still a name they're using, but, as you say, it seems like too much of a vague term to trademark.
@@authmal yeah I used to sell tons of that stuff....come to think of it I think it was called community formula and they had on the label the mm size which I believe was .5mm
"Mr. Crabs can you tell us why you opened another Crusty Crab right next to the old one" "Money"
@@hectorlara1864 literally read that in the Krabs voice 🤣
I like the honesty in your videos, as I know you have generally been pretty positive about the Coop as a brand. Gives your reviews and opinions a lot of integrity.
Thanks Bentley, and Merry Christmas.
As ever a balanced and informative review. Aquarium Coop have a unique combination of pros and cons. As a relatively small company with a large social media following. Their owner and founder Cory gives all of their products extensive long term testing before releasing them. While maintaining a close eye that the suppliers of their products keep to high standards and quality at all stages of materials, build, and reliability. With a very low percentage failure rate before fix it or lose the contract clause with any of their suppliers. Maintains one of the best returns policy in the industry. Yes they have one main store. They are allowing many more locations to stock their products. As for ordering online the range of products including probably the best sponge filter on the market. Same for brine shrimp eggs, Easygreen ect. Most fish keepers with more than a handful of tanks even a small fish room would easily justify several orders per year of Coop products.
Cory is def a great salesman, but don’t think just because he’s out here showing his face that other companies arnt also doing their do-diligence.
Cheers
My small fish, chili rasboras, blue emperor tetras, Congo tetras, all go crazy for the Co-ops Magic Nano. I also use the Xtreme Nano, and have never used the Northfin. I like the Xtreme, but it would fall too fast to the bottom. It was also too big for my chilis. So, I like the Co-ops food the best. As an aside, my adult angelfish also like the Co-op Magic Nano and it is funny watching them trying to get those tiny little pieces (I feed them the Xtreme too as they love it, but I have to do small feedings of it as it sinks fast and my angels like to feed off the surface). Another aside, my neocaridina shrimp love the Co-op Magic Nano and they clean up any over feeding and they are in the tank with my chilis who will not always eat it all. My tetras in another tank don’t leave any of the Magic Nano to sink, but just in case I have a large school of Cory’s to clean it up. My fish give Aquarium Co-op Magic Nano 5 stars.
Looks like the Aquarium Co-Op food would be good to have in your back pocket if you were breeding a lot and accidently ran yourself out of brine shrimp. I've used Xtreme foods, and have been very happy with them in combination with some Hikari sinking wafers for my coridoras.
@@Trains-With-Shane it would be decent as a backup fry food as long as the fry in question can eat something that's at a 200 micron size. As an example, rainbow fish fry for the first about month of their life need food that is somewhere between 5 and 50 microns. So for someone like me who's a primary rainbow fish keeper It's too big. But after the fish get to say 2 months or so of age it's great mostly because of how it keeps floating in the mid water column.
Thank you for the information. I've been using the co-op magic small food the past couple of months and have really been enjoying it.
Love the aquarium coop nano, but what im more intrested in is 'will the original coop nano labled container be collectable?' 🤔😃
Good video, you showed you're not biased to a certain company as you made your points in a fair and logical manner. I hope those that watch you appreciate that fact, keep doing what you're doing.
Love the Panda Garras in the Guppy Mansion
I will need to try ordering some extreme Nano reading about the mm sizes I had assumed it was the same as the northfin since both say 0.5mm.... but the one thing i have noticed working at a salmon hatchery is feed size seems to be based off the thickness of the pellet so we can get a 1.5mm pellet thats almost the same as a 2mm pellet because they cut it the same length as the 2mm if that makes sense.... but if you are looking for something small from northfin i just tried there fry starter (250 micron powder) the cpds and chili rasboras like it. i had never heard of the nano bits before i use the 0.5mm community formula it tends to float for a while and sink pretty rapidly once it starts. north fin also has a community flake food now as well
Thanks BP. Merry Christmas!
Comments: 1. I get your concern about coop & Xtreme relationship. I tend to agree but coop ‘nano’ definitely acts differently. Also, Xtreme needs competition to keep prices reasonable. It’s cheaper in this case. (2) I usually love NF foods. Haven’t tried this one. Probably won’t based on your review. I’ll still keep buying their Community Flake and Bug Pro. (3) I’ll check myself but would have liked you to quickly comment on the ingredients of each. My experience is all three brands are pretty darn good. QC is key though.
I wish you would have given an overall best, since you evaluated them on how quickly they sink and not just how small they are
@@dareqmaynard1551 I do discuss the granule size and where there are benefits. Maybe it's not because I'm saying it directly like this is the best because X, but I think each food has a situation where it's the best. If you need a quickly sinking food because you're using a lot of bottom feeders, that is where the North fin would be better. If you're using a lot of very small fish that especially tend to feed out of the mid and upper water column, then the aquarium co-op food is probably the best. If you need a combination where you want some to stay at topwater but some sink and you need something slightly bigger because maybe you have mostly fish that are say 3 to 5 in in size. Then you might want to look at the Xtreme. From a pure quality of ingredient standpoint, I would say it's a tie between North Fin and Xtreme. From a pure perspective of how long it floats in the water column that's going to aquarium co-op. I think it's about finding the right balance for the fish you keep.
@BentleyPascoe Thanks for such a comprehensive response to my comment. Some people just sometimes give a 👍, or some such.
I fully understand, much appreciated
I can probably just look this up myself. but would you happen to know what the size difference is between the co-op's food and Hikari's.Fancy Guppy food? That stuff is minuscule, and I was just wondering how it compared.
ACO already had/have another competing nano/fry food (which my Tetras love) the entire time they were working with Xtreme, they just decided they could improve upon their own already existing product, so I really don't think its at all a big deal in any way. And for all we know, Corey did try working with them and they weren't interested. Even if it was some underhanded thing by Corey, Xtreme are also the ones who trademarked a super commonly used term in fishkeeping and went sending out the lawyers over it, which is equally slimy. Soon I'll be buying a bottle of the ACO magic small fish food to try out, and in that same order will be another bottle of Xtreme's shrimp pellets that I'm a huge fan of. They both make great stuff, and my aquatica being well fed is the only thing I'm worried about at the end of the day.
Very thorough breakdown. I appreciate you taking a look. The magic small fish food is really insanely good, at least where I've been using it. It does have great hang time and visually looks SO close to baby brine shrimp. I think your concerns are super relevant and honest though RE: China manufacturers
Love this comparison. I know what you mean about the relationship between ACO and Xtreme. However, aside from the similar name, they are very different products. ACO likes to make products that they like for their fishkeeping: primary examples the light, and the sponge filter. Never used the light, haven't needed a light since they came out. Like the quality that it seems to offer, not a fan of yellow lighting. I do have the sponge filter, not as a primary filter, but I keep a couple running in my sump to keep the bacteria active to have the filter as a ready to run backup. If it was my primary filter, I'd rather have a slightly finer sponge. Cory talks about how people don't like the pore size, but he likes it and doesn't want to change it.
Perhaps Xtreme didn't want to make a food to his specs? He has been saying for years how he wants his own food to his specs. So I can't imagine that he just went behind Xtreme's back to do it. I can see not doing a copyright search for nano food though. I seem to remember he has always said Xtreme is overpriced though.
I do worry about working with China manufacturing, who knows what changes they might decide to make just for their own profits. Look what happened to the light manufacturer. Also the CO2 regulator, didn't he stop it because of the quality didn't quite keep up to his specs? So can we assume that the food will go the same way?
I'm glad you kind of defined what you meant bt, it sucks. But I wish you had done it a little bit more clearly. I don't think northfin sucks. I have no Nano fish though so it's hard for me to compare it to the same thing you are. I can say that my cory cats absolutely love it. I know my raphaels love it too. they just they sift through the gravel all the time. Even my bumblebee catfish from South America love it. I see my EBA picking at the gravel all the time, always on the hunt for more. So I mean, it's a good food, but like you said, and I did catch that at the end, it's just not made for your application.
I used xtreme nano for a while and love it, purchased the new coop nano and love it also, purchased the new coop floating and love that as well. Besides my plecos which none of these foods are appropriate for, most of my fish are nano & smaller apistos. I feed them all and love them all. I have been feeding more of the new coop foods at the expense of the xtreme but feed them all
Admittedly a little concerned with the made in China aspect. Wish Cory would announce some independent states side testing.
I may try extreme when I get low on my northfin. My only truly nano are my rosy loaches. But it's why I rotate Northfin flake, bug bits, veggie, and kelp wafers. I do also do live, frozen, and Aquarium Coop easy fry food. I am trying the Aquarium Coop freeze dried tubifex worms.
Well, I've been looking for quality tiny sinking pellets for my cory farm, and I guess I'll be trying the northfin so it gets to the bottom. Thank you for your reviews Bently
Fair points made all around.
I hope Northfin never changes to make their food float more like other companies. They’re my go-to and I absolutely love the sinking aspect of it. Not just this product but most of their products. It’s great for my frontosa, petricola, clown loaches, tiger barbs, and my boesmani get PLENTY of food as it sinks.. and my guppies have no problem going to the bottom if need be.
If Northfin made their food float more like other companies (packed with air) I’d probably resort to exclusively frozen foods or have to use Repashy, or break up wafers.. giant pain.
Long Live Northfin fish food!
@@robertjohnston25 I think I mentioned this and maybe I didn't put enough emphasis on it. But if you want a specifically quick sinking food, the North Fin is actually great. For my purposes. Personally it's horrible. There's only about one tank. I would actually use it in and that's not enough to justify purchasing it over and over again compared to some of the other fruits I use. What I will say is I do love the general quality that you get out of North Fin foods.
@ i bought a lot of Xtreme foods in the past and overall I didn’t have any issues with them. I recently tried their wrigglers food and they float a lot more than their other foods from memory. I know Cory has also been a big push to make food sink slower over the years, and given his relationship with xtreme I wonder if his opinion had anything to do with it.
Different strokes for different folks. I can def see why sinking foods would be bad for some folks. And I by no means think all foods should sink as easily as Northfin. I just like there is still a choice and hope that doesn’t change moving forward .
I agree. Hard to find a company with better ingredients than north fin
We will not change what we do and the way we do. There are different feeding techniques can be implemented if the food sinks to much, but that falls in the hands on each hobbyist. What is important in the food is the ingredients and nothing else, for your fish longevity and health. Also Northfin using only highest quality North America proteins and nothing else. China proteins is the biggest concern as they are adulterating feed ingredient proteins with inexpensive melamine and other compounds, such as cyanuric acid, ammeline and ammelide, and this is common practice. Thank you.
@northfinfishfood I actually really appreciate this comment and that you watched. Cheers Northfin team!
My fish go crazy for the co-op nano food
I don’t think it is nefarious at all. Aquarium Coop is branding its own products as a trusted source. I think Cory is genuine and would not permit toxic food to be sold with the Coop branding.
Merry Christmas, Bentley. Mr. Crabs, thats great. Great show . I trust the Sham Wow guy more then Corey . I wish Dean would get away from him. Cory you get coal in your stocking this xmas. If companies want an honest and intelligent judgement. Bentley is the man. Thanks, Bren from the North. aka Canada
The northfin stuff has never floated for me. While I really like the ingredients, it's only good for specific applications.
The xtreme stuff also comes in bulk sizes, and comes in different forms for bigger fish.
The co-op stuff is fine for small/nano fish and fry, but I don't have much that would need that tiny size.
I'm basically going to continue using mostly xtreme with some northfin and Hikari mixed in. No interest in the co-op stuff for my application.
I like the Xtreme nano in my Hillstream Loach breeding tank as I always have plenty of babies and they love it as well.
Hello, I was hoping you could help me problem solve with this. I’m having plant issues that have me extremely close to leaving the hobby.
I have a 20g tall tank that has java fern a banana plant, Anubis bartri, nana petite, and nana. And floating salavina.
I am randomly having problems with assumingly Anubis rot. And i can’t figure out why. It just happens randomly and I’m losing whole plants. (Rhizomes not buried)
I have light 6-8h a day, use the dosage for easy green, and add extra potassium.
@@dominusdraco5382 when you notice the rot, we want to look for patterns. Is it after cutting a rhizome? Is it relatively soon after gluing the rhizome into a surface? Is it after several months? Is it always on one spot or attached to a specific surface?
Are we seeing any other potential problems in the leaves?
@ it’s pretty random, so I don’t propagate/cut for any reason unless it’s rotting and I’m trying to save a bit of it. It’s happened on both rock and drift wood.
99% of the time the leaves are perfectly green and look like there is nothing wrong until I see them moving a bit and I notice the hold ryzome is rotted.
The other day though I noticed a barti leaf was yellow with some brown where the stem meets the leaf and the banana plant had one leaf go yellow and die I have never had that. However at the same time a petite and a nana were rotted. I bounced between the idea of phosphate or nitrogen but I also read too much nutrient could cause rot.
If a order one and it rots right away I just assume it was already an issue but the ones that I’m struggling to understand do it after a month or more and it may just be one or two not all of them so I find it really difficult to pin point the issue
@dominusdraco5382 it's possible more aggressive growing plants are getting more nutrients leading to the issue. I've struggled to solve this puzzle when it's happened to me as well honestly
I like your review, I'm still using Fluval Bug Bites for small fish which is 0.5mm in conjunction with crushed flakes and/or Aquarium Co-ops fry food. It all depends on which fish tank and which fish I'm feeding I adjust the ratio accordingly. I might give the "magic" a try on my next order but so far in my limited experience, the 0.5mm gets eaten by most of the fish I keep including smaler tetras, guppies, angel fish, rasboras, corydoras etc. But bug bites also sinks quite fast. I guess I will not know until I try it on my fishes, and most fish keepers will try new products just to see if it works for them.
Hi Bentley,
Thank you very much for making this video. You always give us the facts with the pros and cons :). I have a question for you, how do you know how much to feed? Do you follow a certain measurement per fish?
@@IsabelleC-mp3gf mostly it's just guessing, I watch my fish, see how much they eat over 3 minutes or so, if there's a lot of excess, I fed too much
@ thank you :)
I have the same issue with extreme big fella food. For one thing, it’s not nearly big enough of a pellet size to feed my biggest fish, and it also sinks too fast for them to even see it. I think I’m going to follow your lead and go back to the extreme flakes.
@@LadyKej man I love their flake. Though there are some others I'd like to try
Excellent comparison video. While I do have the Magic food, and quite like it, I also have an issue with it origin. Due to their history, I won't buy Chinese food products for my own consumption. Gladly pay the extra for Canadian/American produced/grown food for my dinner table. Electronics are one thing (built in spyware aside lol) but personal health is another.
My surface feeders and slow eaters do best for me if I feed the Co-op food. They love it.
I also wonder why did they go after Aquarium Co-Op when there are several other Nano foods out there. Maybe the co-op is just the one not fighting it.
The name was Magic Nano Feed which is no less a violation than Northfin’s Nano Bits.
I would be surprised if the change and publicly discussing the legal issues was just a phone call between the two CEOs to make it easier for them to go after others later. If so, that would be Cory helping them out.
I see these as just general competition. There is no product that is truly unique to what they sell from competitors
I also see this as a replacement to their old fish fry food.
Personally, I don’t use the Xtreme nano. I don’t like the way it reacts in the water I would rather just ground up flake food. The Coop one will make me give it a try.
@@jerryghirardo6111 I'm not sure on that front, the legal stuff is beyond me, I just heard about Cory explaining it.
@@BentleyPascoe all my own speculation. We will never know the definitive backstory, but friendly speculation is fun. As long as people don’t turn it into trolling.
@@BentleyPascoe By the way, since you are online today. Have you ever seriously considered doing a whisky channel. My son is totally into whisky (especially Bourbons). So I have been getting a little into it too. I know with your work/life schedule today, that is not a near term thing, but maybe down the road in a year or so? Just wanting you to keep a thought for some day.
@jerryghirardo6111 it's coming! Working on it during the holidays, first video will be out before New Year
@@BentleyPascoe woohoo !!!
I have containers per tank mixed depending on the fish I have per tank. I haven't tried Aquarium Co-Op though. I can understand the animal instinct. It's like me going after baby back ribs 😂BTW Merry Christmas to you and your family 😊
In my opinion the word nano shouldn't be allowed to be trademarked. It's a common enough word in the hobby.
@@cheeseballs3825 I do agree that certain trademarks are a little egregious. I think we're seeing that right now, especially in the video game industry. If you look at the Nintendo pokémon lawsuit. Unfortunately, this is a mechanism of how our patent offices and trademarking offices in the United States function.
I think thr Nano trademark for fish food is ridiculous. Do they hand out medium pellets trademark too?
You are correct about toxic additives in Chinese food but America actually encourages toxic additives even in human food.
You are right, American standards isn't as great as you may think it is. I have worked with some quality control(qc) and they was hired from the streets with no clue or care for their job.
I have a decent amount of fish food choices literally within walking distance of my 14 gal cube.There aren't many foods that my community fish have refused . So it's difficult for me to justify shipping to buy fish food on line.
Your analysis makes sense, however, i guess the only reason to make it in China is cost to compete with Xtreme.
I have a container ACOP Magic Nano. I guess I will keep the container for posterity's sake. LOL Also, I love this food. Everything except my largest fish absolutely love it. In particular my shrimp go nuts for it. They even come to the surface to feed to get some they love it so much.
@@TheScrumTV I didn't think about shrimp with how well it cut it carpets everything in a tank. It could actually be a pretty interesting shrimp fruit if you had a really big colony
Hello, Me Bentley. I have a question.
@@robertbaker3174 shoot!
My fish like the NorthFin nano bits, but I don't see how anybody can trademark the word Nano.
I will agree that it sinks way too fast, but my Cory's eat it all up. I still prefer flake food over pellets of any brand.
I like Dr. Bassleer nano its small and sinks a bit slower and its has a lot good ingredients for the smallest fish. Legit is good but sinks fairly fast which I don't like. But Legit is another food fill with healthy ingredients. The NF foods other than flakes sink way too fast. But good video and information.
I’ll just keep using tetra and omega one for the same price without having to pay shipping or wait for it to come in the mail
Someone should ask Cory. Maybe I will when I catch a livestream how they check on quality control.
They may have a hired representative that checks in on the factory regularly to inspect when they do a run of Coop product.
I know when my dad worked for a seafood processing plant. For red lobster rubs, they had an inspector from them that watched the whole run and would do his own testing. That’s why my dad only ate seafood at red lobster.
It is a great point you brought up about food manufactured in china. My thought goes even further to food that is outsourced in any country. If you don’t do it yourself, you are never sure.
Xtreme might not have wanted to develope the new food. Can't force a company to make something it doesn't want. Example, I called up a company to make a product that they already made just with some different ingredients for an entirely new market. They told me to get lost. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.
So how can Northfin use the word "Nano" in their product but Co-op can't?
@@jaredl2239 I would imagine but they haven't received or responded to a similar legal notice yet. I'm not entirely sure
There's no single food that is great for all fish. And even a single species of fish will benefit from a mix of foods, as we do in our own diets. These three foods all work great for a specific purpose. The Co-op food is great for tiny, midwater-feeding fish, but not great for much else. The larger Xtreme nano-pellets are good for a wider range of fish (larger than tiny fish), but not ideal for surface and midwater feeders. I won't be replacing the nano-pellets with the Co-op product, but I will keep it around for certain fish. In short, a tank with a variety of fish that feed at different levels are going to do best with a variety of foods, not a single product.
Being made in China isn't the problem, even here American made dog food, our fruit and vegetables are being recalled ppls and animalshave died. Almost everything come from China one way or another, but We are not willing to destroy our environment for those manufacturing plants they have.
If you buy a cheap Chinese made product you get something cheap, They also make alot of nice quality stuff, the average customer isn't going to pay more tho.
I haven't try to aquarium coop new food yet, but from the ingredients it looks very simple and I like that.
I have used the other 2. Northfin isn't good. Xtreme my fish like but not my wallet, it also sink too fast for my liking. I have a fishroom with 40ish aquarium and none of those fishfood make sense for me. But it's not aim for ppls like me. It's aim for the average fish keeper, trying to make their store bought fish look good and healthy.
If I fed tetra flakes to a species of fish for 3 to 4 generations they would look just as good and just as healthy. Most ppls won't keep fish for that long tho.
My fish don't really get excited with Northfin foods, except my Florida Flag Fish with their veggie granules. They've always been excited for Xtreme foods. But recently I've been getting a brand called Ultra Fresh, from Thailand. I've already had food from them that acts just like this "magic" food. Ultra Fresh, would like some of my fish keeper content creators to look at it.
I have the same issue with extreme big fella food. For one thing, it’s not nearly big enough of a pellet size to feed my biggest fish, and it also sinks too fast for them to even see it. I think I’m going to follow your lead and go back to the extreme flakes.