Well cant say I swear by the stuff, but my experiences with NLS pellets have been fantastic.
I started using NLS pellet back when all I had was African Cichlids, they loved it. Attacked the food more varatiously than any other flake or pellet I tried. The fry did great on first two weeks, cyclop-eeze then I switche dto the NLS growth formula. Never had troubles raising the frys and most are still out there in Calgary and areas.
When I switched to saltwater, I tried the conventional wosdom of mysis, flakes and various other forms of food. What a pain, multiple foods and only soe fish would eat some foods, alot of waste IMO. Tried the NLS marine pellets, all the fish responded favouritely to it.
My fish at the time were:
2 firefish
1 purple firefish
pair of perculas
1 yellow tang
1 Coral Beauty Angel
After over a year now, feeding solely NLS pellets to my fish, I can't say I have lost any to mal nutrition, a few jumpers and one beaten but that happens.
Presently I have, and all eating NLS exclusively:
3 Orchid Dottybacks
1 Sunshine Dottyback
pair of perculas
1 mandarin
1 Bi-Color Blenny
1 Allens Damsel
1 Purple Firefish
1 Yellow Matchman Gobie
1 Flame Angel
1 Coral Beauty Angel
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Fire/Blood Shrimp
Various Hammers, Candy canes and mushrooms all eat NLS when it falls on them.
plus clean up crew gets the leftovers.
and two new acquisitions:
1 Copperband Butterfly (just getting over being moved)
1 Purple Tang (barely 1 week in the tank)
neither are actively eating NLS but neither are getting really thin either.
One thing that surprised me was the day I caught my Mandarin swiming to mid tank to get some of these pellets.
And the real oddball of the groups, I have a Volitan Lionfish that will take NLS H2O wafers from time to time, trying to ween it on to then completely. This was inspired by a thread in on the NLS Forum as to Pablo having 4 Volitans fat and eating only NLS pellets.(read that and had to try - no more live or frozen foods
)
Have pics I can post of the fish, but I honestly never figured out hoe to post them here.
By the way Bob, sorry for leading you to these pellets and them not working out for ya. If you need a small bit to continue your present experiment, let me know I will help you out.
Oops long winded responce here, but just wanted to be thorough.
NLS is not the end all be all of prepared foods, but in my experiences it is the only pellet I now use and will remain that way. The only other things added to my reef tank are Kents phyto & chromo max and trying reef roids for the corals but all the fish are eating NLS marine pellets. Not to mention that Neil is really great to deal with, and don't have to order from BigAls online or an American distributor.
Feel free to PM me any question, or better yet direct them to Neil Wagner, either from his webpage
http://www.cichlid-food-canada.com/index.htm or his persona RD on Alberta Aquatica -
http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showuser=20 .
And if anyone can help me post pics I will gladly pass them along.