# Pre-Soaking Pellets



## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

I was just reading a product description on some cichlid pellets and it said not to pre-soak the pellets because it washed out the vitamins/color enhancers and other nutrients in them. Does this hold true for all pellets such as Hikari ? Recently I've been soaking mine in tank water for about 15 minutes before feeding them to the fish and I'm wondering if I should stop doing that.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

i vote that you stop the practice of presoaking your choice of pellet... if the pellet size is appropriate to the size of fish you are feeding. i am also curious what provoked you to start in the first place :?:


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## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

I started doing it because two of my kenyi's are pretty small and one hasn't grown much, if at all, since I bought him a few months ago and I thought soaking them would help as they were eating. They seem to stuff three Hikari baby pellets into their mouth at a time. I thought that if they ate three of them then they expanded inside of them it may cause some problems.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

you could always consider to crush the pellet if the concern is bigee sized portions. the only trouble i can think of, with presoaking the pellet, is that you may be shortening the time that the pellet may appeal to your fish. you don't want feed to fall apart into the substrate before eaten. HTH.


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## noddy (Nov 20, 2006)

I was talking to a guy reccently that said he puts his pellets in a pepper grinder.


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## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

All the fish eat the pellets within 45 seconds time. None of them ever make it to the bottom of the tank.

I never thought about crushing them. I think I'll try that tomorrow morning when I feed them again. 
Thanks


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## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

noddy said:


> I was talking to a guy reccently that said he puts his pellets in a pepper grinder.


That actually sounds like a really good idea. I'm going to pick up one of those clear pepper mills with adjustable coarseness.


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## Bmay1011 (May 23, 2007)

> I was talking to a guy reccently that said he puts his pellets in a pepper grinder.


This is precisely what I do. I found the NLS community pellets were a little too large for my smaller tetras, and as I already purchased them, the logical step was to grind them up. I bought a clear pepper grinder and it works like a charm.

-Brad


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## yogurtpooh (Jul 28, 2005)

only goldfish' pellets need to be presoaked since some might expand in their tummies and cause the fish to float.


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## lloyd (Aug 24, 2005)

yogurtpooh said:


> only goldfish' pellets need to be presoaked since some might expand in their tummies and cause the fish to float.


 i'm not too experienced with goldfish feed, but if i found a pellet that expanded when wet, i'd research it's value and consider to go shopping for something new. IMO.


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

One of the main reasons I feed my fish pellets is that they are a very clean food. I don't think a single pellets goes uneaten and they never cloud the water. If you use flake food, or if you grind the pellets up then some of the smaller pieces are likely to get lost in the gravel or sucked into the filter.

A concern with pellets though is that its easier for your fish to overeat on them then on flake food so you have to devise ways of keeping any one fish from getting too many at once. I manage this by dropping the pellets directly into a strong surface current. The pellets disperse in such unpredictable patterns that no one fish can get too many.

There's been quite a few threads in the past that discussed soaking pellets. You might try doing a search and read over them. It's one of those subjects that has a lot of differing opinions. 
I think the most important things to consider when choosing food for your fish is finding fish food that is appropriate to the species you're keeping and more than anything else: NOT overfeeding them.

Robin


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## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

I did search and read over a lot of them. I figured I'd make a new thread rather than bring one back from the dead.

I put my pellets in current from my filters to spread them out also.


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## mcdougy (Nov 16, 2006)

*Robin*
help


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## Yellow-Cichlid (Dec 15, 2007)

Help with what ?


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## msolano (Mar 14, 2006)

I know that this is an old thread but I'm not clear if the pellets must be pre-soak or not.

My fear is pre-soaking them could make them lost their nutritional value. But if I don't pre-soak could sick my fish with bloat.

I use Hikari and Spectrum.

Is there some definitive reply or article about this issue?


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## bulldogg7 (Mar 3, 2003)

If you're concerned over the hardness of the pellet, I love HBH supersoft pellets, they're chewable and the fish love them.


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## Hawks (Feb 7, 2008)

I've always presoaked pellets with the thought that fish will have a greater chance of overeating if the pellets are not presoaked.

When presoaking, the pellets get larger due to them absorbing water. If you don't presoak the fish will eat as fast as they can until full, then the pellets will expand in their stomachs due to the absorption of water and can cause damage to the insides of the fish.

This is something that I had read about a long time ago...it may be bunk...just thought I would bring it up.

-----Ooooops sorry, someone else brought that up. Don't all pellets expand in water? All the ones I have tried do withing 3 mins. Currently I use O.S.I.


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## Number6 (Mar 13, 2003)

for the love of...

the irony of yellow-cichlid saying he didn't want to resurrect an ancient thread and then someone doing that to his is priceless... almost as priceless as the expanding/exploding fish myth.

For goodness sakes people... quality pellets will not expand in the fishes gut and cause bloat. (I don't actually know cheap ones will but I know that high quality fish feeds will never! )

I have no idea where the myth came from, nor how it manages to survive, but there is no credible evidence that this can happen nor do many fish even swallow pellets whole! Most fish grind pellets up on the way down.


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