I don't normally post on R/C since I am not a sponsor but someone alerted me to the direction this post was headed so I figured "why not." I don't think publicly defending allegations about a product is considered "advertising" and agains the RC rules?
To clear the air Ted and I have had a falling out as recently as 2/13/15 which resulted in me being unable to sell or supply him with LRS foods in the future. The "falling out" had zero to do with the contents of this thread. Infer from that what you wish.
With that being said there were issues with the juvenile Gp as noted by Karen just weeks before MACNA. After feeding she would experience a buoyancy issue and steps where made by LRS to try and determine the root cause. We mailed her frozen batches of modified foods without garlic, without any veggies, minus the probiotics, etc. over a period of a few weeks.
Several of the fish were separated into QT tanks and fed differing diets to try and determine what ingredients were causing the buoyancy issues. Meanwhile to confuse matters, others such as Andrew Sandler was feeding LRS daily with no deleterious effects and Todd Gardner who has a handful of Gp at his lab was seeing minor buoyancy issues an hour after feeding ANY food from any manufacturer, including brine shrimp. Karen stopped feeding the LRS to the juvenile Gp because the issue of what ingredient may be the culprit was never found. It seemed the fish would feed, become a little buoyant and then settle down in an hour or two. Karen continued to feed LRS to the broodstock but did say she was going to refrain from feeding LRS to the juveniles for a period of time.
To note, Karen received a fresh order of LRS foods this week including Herbivore Frenzy as well as the new blackworm and fish egg enhanced Fish Frenzy blends. Obviously she is not "gun shy" with LRS across the board and continues to feed it to broodstock.
Last month LRS was invited to be a sponsor of the Rising Tide Conservation Program and we have been sending foods to the Tropical Aquaculture Lab in Florida. The results documented by Kevin Barden, the on staff Biological Scientist were as follows:
"I've been feeding your diets exclusively to our broodstock here (blue tangs, yellow tangs, schooling bannerfish, Bartlett's anthias, milletseed butterflyfish, emperor angelfish and koran angelfish), and I'm impressed with what I'm seeing. What I really like about it is I can see fish eating things I've never been able to get them to select for specifically, and getting them a well-balanced varied diet."
Due to their results we have agreed to provide food to multiple locations for ongoing testing regarding egg counts and increased larval hatch rates when feeding LRS. In addition to providing foods to other facilities such as FishEye Aquaculture, LRS was just vetted and brought on board as a food vendor for one of the largest public aquarium chains in the world. After using our foods with great success they are now preparing to feed LRS to delicate exhibits in public aquariums. LRS continues to ship food to elite fish keepers such as Koji Wada and others in places such as Hong Kong and recently Lebanon Beirut and no negative effects have been reported.
I spoke with Andrew via email just now and his response was "no issues" when asked how his Gp were doing. Next week while attending the NERAC conference in Long Island I will see Todd Gardner and since we recently shipped him LRS I will confirm he has no issues as well when feeding LRS to the Gp under his care.
It seems suspect that after shipping thousands upon thousands of packs of food each month to hobbyists, retail stores and breeders with nary a complaint over the past three years that this thread takes a downward turn after I de-friended Ted on Facebook two weeks ago. Disappointed to say the least.
Larry DuPont
Owner
LRS Foods, LLC