Fake fish food?

[Shane]

Received from Swiss Tropicals (ST) Sera's Catfish Tabs XXL. Loved them and ordered two more bottles from Amazon.

When they arrived yesterday I immediately noticed that the packaging and labelling was much cheaper looking and feeling than what ST had sent. I then fed a tab last night and seconds after I added it to the water it crumbled to a fine dust. Fish could not even eat it as all that was left was fine particles in the water column.

I pulled out the bottles to photo for this post and noticed the ingredients are totally different! The bottle from ST is spirulina, fish meal and wheat flour. The bottle from Amazon wheat germ, gammarus and fish oil.

Was I catfished?
-Shane

[Shane]

Ingredients listings.
-Shane

[fishguy1978]

I'm not sure. I ordered some Sera algae tabs that did the same thing you are experiencing. I was very disappointed. I will check to see if I still have the container. Reading the reviews on Amazon over the last 2yrs this is pretty common complaint.

[Koi-fantast]

I ordered spareparts for my Aquaclear 50/70 pump from Amazon a few years ago but they didnt fit at all so I dont order from Amazon any more.

[YSR50]

Is there an expiration date on the bottle from ST? Guessing that is an older version since it is not even shown on Sera's website

[bekateen]

Last year I bought some Sera pleco tabs from Petco and they too had the paper labels with low quality print. But I don't recall any food quality issues with those tablets.

Cheers,
Eric

[tuzexuk]

Have you tried to contact the manufacturer? Perhaps they changed the packaging and ingredients because they often do it. I advise you to clarify this issue with them.

[MarcW]

I have some with the same labels as your original ST purchased ones, I believe that's where I got the pack from actually. I am not pleased with them, some appear to have a more coarse texture with lots of beige coloured flecks, where as some are smoother and completely green. By the time I have fed all my tanks, there is just a pile of mush where the tablet was a few minutes previously. I did buy these a long time ago, probably 3-4 years, so hopefully the issue has been resolved by now, I'll try and remember to take some pictures later.

[MarcW]

Here is a picture of my tub, you can ignore my previous comment about some looking different than others, turns out they are more beige and rougher one side and green and smoother the other. Must be that some ingredients settle during the manufacturing process!

They still turn to mush way too quickly though.