Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding Old fish food

Just bought a bag of Zieglers fish food, got home and discovered it’s dated 2/21. It’s been stored in a dry, cool room in the feed store. Haven’t opened it yet but should I be concerned?

If you want to be able to 'return' it, I'd contact the store and tell them you're a bit concerned that it's old, and that if you open it and it seems funky, you're going to want to get your money back, or a bag of timely feed.

I've heard Lusk say that if the feed is discolored, then you don't want to use it. Now, I think he meant that if you see some feed that is colored differently out of a bag of feed, that means some of the feed is spoiling. I say that because if the entire bag of feed has changed color, you wouldn't be able to know that.

Thank you Sunil, I’ll open it and see how it looks. Might also call Zieglers and see what they have to say.

Tyler, I would do what Sunil suggested about contacting the store. My thought is that I wouldn't feed a dog food that was a year and a half old. No fish food bags that I know of are air tight, so the contents have to age over time. Twinkies never go bad, but animal food does.

Tyler, good advice from Al; he knows about Twinkies!

I threw you a softball. You're welcome.

I know! I could have done more with it, but didn't want to abuse your recent weight gains.

Tyler, my tipoff is gray or whitish splotches on the feed. Fungus. Happened to me big time when feed sacks were transported in heavy rain, as sacks are not waterproof.

My theory would be, I dont know if I would want to feed it if its that old, it almost at a minimum has to be inferior to fresh feed. Im not a fan of being picky but I would guess it cost the same amount as fresh feed.

The key is cool, dry storage. If it had been frozen or wet, I might say differently, But I think it's OK to use.