Selco

[Fartin'Gary]

Should I be including this in my mantis diet and how do you use this stuff?

[Dana42078]

Selcon? If thats what you ment, you just follow the directions on the bottle. It just adds nutritional value to frozen foods.

[Fartin'Gary]

I was looking a this stuff http://www.brineshrimpdirect.com/enr...elco-c108.html

What is the difference between Selco and Selcon?

[TundraGuy]

One is a gut loader for brine. The other is a source of fatty acids found only in aquatic animals that is sometimes damaged from freezer burn.
I have never seen an actual brake down of what’s in Selcon but I have seen some positive results from its use.
As for Selco I never heard of it but gut loading brine has been around ever since the first finicky eater was captured.

[Fartin'Gary]

I am going to pick up a bottle of the selcon and soak some of her food in it that I feed her a couple times a week. Thanks!

[Dana42078]

I have selcon.I use it sometimes, others i dont. Its cheap so its not like its hurting the pocket book.

[gweston]

I use selcon on frozen foods, didn't use it for over a year previously. Since using it the fish have colored up even more. I also put a drop or two of a vitamin supplement (such as Vitachem, etc) into the mix every so often. I try not to overdo it though, so I vary selcon by itself, selcon+vitamin, and food without supplements. No specific schedule though.

I've been feeding my smithii selcon soaked krill and mysis in addition to live snails and hermits. I've only had him for a few weeks, so couldn't say how it benefits mantis specifically long term.

[Recty]

I used to feed selcon to my entire FOWLR. I definitely think there are some benefits to it. From what I remember, it's a lot of proteins and amino acids that are sometimes lacking in the foods we feed. They are broken down too much or destroyed totally in the food making process, so you can add them back in with something like Selcon.

I definitely never saw any negative affects from using Selcon, and it's cheap and easy to use. My fish were always super colorful, so much so that people on this forum asked me all the time what I did to keep my fish so happy... I attribute at least part of their healthiness to dietary supplements like Selcon

Anyway, I say go for it. It's a little oily, you'll notice a surface skim after feeding if you use it heavily. I probably used too much, but my tank drained from the top so it pretty quickly sucked off the skim and processed it in the sump. I dont think you'll have a problem, just dont use tons.

[gnasher]

I believe Roy recommends occasional usage of a supplement in addition to their natural diet. The example he gives is Selco.

I sometimes soak food in Selcon, but I don't often use it more than once a week. Does anyone know if using it all the time would have the same effect as overfeeding?

[Fartin'Gary]

I think without monitoring it, it may be like if you took to much vitamins and that can be toxic. It's better to use to little probably. We would have to do some blood work on the mantis and see what his levels are. lol