King British Plecostomus Tablets

A plec spends the day stuck to the glass looking busy and does most of its real eating after the lights go out. By then the flake that went in at teatime has long since been intercepted on the way down by everything else in the tank, which is the whole problem with feeding a bottom dweller in a community aquarium.

These are tablets rather than flakes, made to sink so that they arrive where the catfish actually are. King British formulate them as a complete multi-vitamin food, and the composition runs maltodextrin, fish protein hydrolysate, wheat gluten, wheat, spirulina, brewer's yeast, alfalfa, xanthan gum, garlic and beta-glucane. Protein is 40%, fat content 1%, crude fibre 2% and crude ash 4%. The vitamin loading is where a lot of the work is: vitamin A at 22500 IU/kg, vitamin C at 400 mg/kg, vitamin E at 90 mg/kg, betaine at 1800 mg/kg and L-carnitine at 45 mg/kg. Despite the name, King British state they suit all types of aquarium fish.

• Sinking tablets, formulated as a complete food
• Protein 40%, fat content 1%, crude fibre 2%, crude ash 4%
• Vitamin A 22500 IU/kg, vitamin C 400 mg/kg, vitamin E 90 mg/kg
• Betaine 1800 mg/kg and L-carnitine 45 mg/kg
• Contains spirulina, alfalfa, garlic and beta-glucane
• Two pack sizes

The first ingredient is maltodextrin. Spirulina, the ingredient the marketing leans on for colour and vitality, is fifth on the list with no percentage published against it — so if you bought a plec on the understanding that it is an algae eater and you are looking for an algae wafer, this is not quite that. It is a protein-and-carbohydrate tablet with plant matter in it. It also contains wheat and wheat gluten, so it is not a grain-free food, and nothing published tells you how many tablets a tank of a given size wants.

Who it's for: keepers of plecs, corydoras and other catfish in a mixed tank, especially anyone whose bottom feeder is losing the race to a shoal of tetras every evening.