Hi AT .. guess wad.. i've saved ur posting (i forgotten i have save it)about nori b4 it crash... i'll add it here..
What is Nori?
Nori is dried seaweed that is high in fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals.
Compared with dairy products, seaweed provides up to ten times more calcium and iron by weight, and contains other important trace minerals. It's no wonder that the Japanese who love seaweed lead long healthy lives.
Here's a link with more info on the nutritional profile of seaweed and another here!
So back to nori...?
Yup... it's the same dried seaweed that you put in your chinese dishes and soup! I believe it is classified as red/purple seaweed.
Don't get the wrong kind! You don't want the toasted and flavoured kind which the Japanese use for confectionary or as snacks.
I have been feeding my marine fishes, especially tangs with Nori since I heard about it. It's easy to find and cheap too!
You can buy a packet of vacuum-packed dried seaweed in the traditional chinese dried products section of your local NTUC supermarket. It's only like $1 a pack and if you buy it from chinese dried goods shops or even provision shops... it's possibly a lot cheaper and a whole lot more than you, your family and your fishes can consume in a long long time!
Alternatively, you can find Julian Sprung's Two Little Fishes brand of Seaweed Selects which more or less the same thing but at 50 times the price!
Anyway... this is how I feed nori to my fishes.
Dry and straight out of the bag: Dry nori will take time to soak in saltwater and then sink... by then it may be sucked into the overflow. Soaking your nori for a few minutes in saltwater before dumping in will ensure this doesn't happen.
Presoaked in good stuff: I tear pieces of nori into a airtight container... slosh in garlic juice, Selcon (a good Omega-3 supplement), Zoecon (vitamins and other stuff that is good for fishes and corals)... and within seconds, the nori has soaked up the liquids... ready for feeding. If I want smaller bits, I take a scissors and cut the soaked nori mass... when you use a finger to scoop out, it will break into many tiny pieces for your fishes to chase after.
Depending on the feeding habits of your fishes and their fussiness.. you can cut the nori to tiny bits or you can leave long strands that you can even tie to a piece of rock or a pvc pipe for them to graze.
My experience is that it is much better to shred it to tiny pieces rather than feeding long strips because they will float around and if they entangle on a coral long enough... it may irritate the coral enough to produce a lot of slime to 'fight' it off.
Nori is an all natural food which herbivorous fish will not be able to resist.... even a powder blue tang which I got that refuse to eat frozen food and pellets and only graze on liverock algae for a month... eventually ate nori bits which could fit into its mouth... larger bits it ignored!
Because Nori is high in protein and in nutrition, once your tangs are feeding off nori... you can be sure that they will put on weight in no time and be strong enough to pull through any negative effects of stress that they encounter. Because nori absorbs garlic juices and other supplementary vitamins, your tangs will be grateful for the good stuff that you are feeding them.
The best thing about nori is that uneaten nori is greedily eaten by hermit crabs and even copepods!
