Hikari Crab Cuisine?

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Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by Xenpurgisn@cht » Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:03 am

Thoughts on this food?

https://www.amazon.com/Crab-Cuisine-Foo ... s&sr=1-121

Hikari is generally known for making higher-end fish food related products, but I was wanting to see what other people think about this food. I was in petsmart a few days ago to pick up a new heatmat and I saw this, but I didn't had the time to sit down and a take a good look at all the ingredients. I know processed foods generally are frowned upon, mainly for ingredients such as CS, etc. The main article on here about copper sulfate was written 15 years ago and I'd like to think we have a more better understanding of these negative compounds.

Crabs do need some amount of copper in their systems, and as long you're not constantly giving it out processed food at every other feeding then I don't see the crime in it. ( For example, my rotation does have SOME processed food every so many days, but I like to make freeze-dried fruits, frozen dried coconut and vegetables, crickets and red shrimp the main staples- also, there's oak bark in my tank at all times which my crabs take the fullest advantage of. )

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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by wodesorel » Sun Jun 28, 2020 12:53 am

I've been surprised by how much hardcore fish keepers have moved away from Hikari in recent years. I used to be brand loyal for my bettas, but have also stopped using it because it seemed to be contributing to premature deaths. Was not impressed by their turtle food, either. However, I do like some of their goldfish/koi stuff! Really want to try their new gecko gel, too.

The longer I go, the more commercial stuff I feed to my hermits. I doubt it's harmful. In a rotation it may even be beneficial, since we aren't guaranteeing a fulfilment of all needed vitamins and minerals by giving things randomly. My fiddler crabs used to go nuts for the stuff.
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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by Xenpurgisn@cht » Sun Jun 28, 2020 1:05 am

I think a part with the bashing on Hikari is that people in general will always have strong opinions against ANYTHING that's popular. Sure, no one is perfect with their products, but I think that can be said about any company no matter the quality. Hikari it's self has been around for more then 100 years, so there obviously has to be considerable trust behind the name.

Also, along with these crab sticks, I'm thinking of offering algae wafers to my crabs too.

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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by JoeHermits » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:50 am

My own crabs ate nothing but commercial pellets for the first eight years I had them.

After a few conversations behind the scenes I’ve also been wondering if we’re making a bigger deal out of commercial food than necessary. I’ve been reintroducing pellets back into their food rotation. I don’t feed Crab Cuisine but they do get some Hikari (Saki-Hikari Marine Herbivore), which they seem to enjoy.

Hermit crabs haven’t been well studied, but shrimp have since they’re human food (economically important). Studies done by fisheries found positive growth and survival rates when diets were supplemented by copper sulfate, which is why it’s still added to many foods for our pet crustaceans.


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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by JoeHermits » Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:54 am

wodesorel wrote:I used to be brand loyal for my bettas, but have also stopped using it because it seemed to be contributing to premature deaths. Was not impressed by their turtle food, either.
Any idea why? Are there ingredients we should be aware of?


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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by aussieJJDude » Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:09 am

Hikari IMO has dropped the ball, as a lot of their prodicts contain fillers in pretty high concentration. Many prefer Northfin (if its called), New Life Spectrum (my fav, also feed it to the crabs every couple of weeks. They go nuts) and fluval bug bites... some of the Tetra products dont seem thay bad either.
I try to stick with foods that have whole ingredients in at least the first 3-5 in the list, and avoid any that contain meals in the first couple, as they usually are just offcuts and may have very little nutritional value.

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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by wodesorel » Mon Jun 29, 2020 7:28 am

JoeHermits wrote:
Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:54 am
Any idea why? Are there ingredients we should be aware of?
I'm really not sure, it may just be that pellets are harder to digest. I went back to tropical flakes and have been happier with it.
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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by Xenpurgisn@cht » Tue Jun 30, 2020 10:27 am

Replying to Joe, I could see think link that's made from shrimp and CS to Hermits.

Hermits ultimately after all from my understanding, more related to shrimps and crayfish then to actual crabs. It's probably safe to think that CS is only harmful to hermits when it's ingested for consistently for long periods time, which is why having some form of rotation is necessary to help keep those levels low.

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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by JoeHermits » Tue Jun 30, 2020 12:22 pm

Fisheries raise shrimp on supplements from birth to death. Shrimp, however, don’t live as long as hermit crabs, so while there’s plenty of evidence of short-term benefits we don’t know how it affects them long-term.

I doubt it’s harmful, though.


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Re: Hikari Crab Cuisine?

Post by wodesorel » Tue Jun 30, 2020 3:38 pm

I like to make the comparison to humans.

Our blood is iron-based - we need iron in our diets or we become anaemic and die. However, a fairly major cause of poisoning and death in little kids is an overdose of iron from eating too many vitamins and supplements. (Like, they steal the bottle and have them all like candy.) Little bit is essential, too much is deadly.

Hermit crabs are copper-based blood. Using the same idea, a little bit of supplementation is probably needed given that we take them away from the ocean and aren't providing them with as large of a selection of sea-related food items, which are higher in copper. A little bit would keep them healthy, but we know too much and they will also die from it.

When the original recommendations came out, everyone just focused on copper being a pesticide and a known poison to invertebrates. No one stopped to consider the actual amounts being used, or how vital it is to their lives.
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