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The Magic Mix - Astaxanthin boilies

Yeah I thought it’s only purpose was to feed salmon and turn the meat pink. Didn’t know it was a wonder attractant for fish.
 
You can get 50g pots of these for 4.99, do you think it would do the same thing?

aquaplantscare.uk

Astaxanthin Pro High Protein Premium Fish Food £1.69 | Aqua Plants Care

The fish food produced in a form of small granules with the high content of protein. This is food for feeding most types of aquarium fish and crustaceans. Thanks to a unique and well thought through selection of elements, this food meets energy demands entirely and beneficially influences an...
aquaplantscare.uk aquaplantscare.uk
 
Found this one too, like was mentioned before most pellets back in the day seems like it came from the Aqua feed industry and was of a superior quality.

www.purepellet.co.uk

TOP KOI - Pure Pellet

COPPENS TOP KOI Professional quality Available in 15kg bags TOP KOI is the professional top feed for koi. To give this feed high attraction, digestibility and constant quality we have selected the highest quality ingredients. The protein/fat ratio is balanced to maximise the growth of your koi...
www.purepellet.co.uk

GROWER ASTAX

www.alltechcoppens.com www.alltechcoppens.com
 
Only problem is they don't tell you how much they put in or what potency. Adding it to your own baits you can tweak it how you want.
 
Richard Dawson said:
Only problem is they don't tell you how much they put in or what potency. Adding it to your own baits you can tweak it how you want.
Click to expand...
And more importantly keep it consistent and accurate.
I don’t use this particular ingredient but I’ve been making my baits with jb bases and various spice levels of my own for years and there is definitely a huge advantage to controlling your own ingredients and a huge sense of pride in catching on them.
You’ve made something that obviously works Rich so stick with it, gain confidence in it and it can only work better as you use it more and more.
It’s nice to help people out when you make a discovery but don’t post all your secrets away. The absolute best edge a bait can give you is putting something out there that they haven’t and won’t see before.
When you take it to the next stage and evolve it further……. Keep that one under your hat and you take advantage of the hard work and experimentation. Good job 👍🏻
 
Astaxanthin was in carophyll red which was supposed to be an ingredient in the original robin red. It's the ingredient that stains everything. After reading through this thread however it seems that many people are thinking or using astaxanthin as an ingredient in its own right which should not be the case. The correct level to use it at is 2g per kg. Its a bit like spirulina on steroids! I'm not sure many people would advocate using that a 50g per kg.
 
Peter Hayes said:
Astaxanthin was in carophyll red which was supposed to be an ingredient in the original robin red. It's the ingredient that stains everything. After reading through this thread however it seems that many people are thinking or using astaxanthin as an ingredient in its own right which should not be the case. The correct level to use it at is 2g per kg. Its a bit like spirulina on steroids! I'm not sure many people would advocate using that a 50g per kg.
Click to expand...

I didn't have a starting point to aim for really so started at 50g as it wasn't prohibitively expensive and turns out it's not at all repellant to the fish.

There is scope for people to experiment and reduce the amount as they see fit.
 
Peter Hayes said:
Astaxanthin was in carophyll red which was supposed to be an ingredient in the original robin red. It's the ingredient that stains everything. After reading through this thread however it seems that many people are thinking or using astaxanthin as an ingredient in its own right which should not be the case. The correct level to use it at is 2g per kg. Its a bit like spirulina on steroids! I'm not sure many people would advocate using that a 50g per kg.
Click to expand...
You mention spirulina….

Me and a mate once had some carp bait made with that as the key ingredient. we had been top rods the year before on a difficult low stock pit and wanted a different bait to confuse the opposition. We fished with it for several weeks before we realised that the fish wouldn’t eat it ! We should have tested it on fish that we could see…So we had another batch rolled with the spirulina reduced by 75 %.

My mate had a 28 and a 36 in 2 evenings the next week and I ended up as top rod again that season even though I’d not had a bite at the best time of year !

Moral of this story - it is very easy to put too much of these ‘super’ ingredients into a bait.
 
Peter Hayes said:
Astaxanthin was in carophyll red which was supposed to be an ingredient in the original robin red. It's the ingredient that stains everything. After reading through this thread however it seems that many people are thinking or using astaxanthin as an ingredient in its own right which should not be the case. The correct level to use it at is 2g per kg. Its a bit like spirulina on steroids! I'm not sure many people would advocate using that a 50g per kg.
Click to expand...

Reading a little more the stuff the aquaculture industry uses is synthetically made and close to 100% pure. The stuff I'm using is 10x less potent being an algal extract.

So I could probably get away with 20g per kilo but 50g wasn't massively off the mark.

I'll definitely experiment 🙂
 
Tim Marks said:
You mention spirulina….

Me and a mate once had some carp bait made with that as the key ingredient. we had been top rods the year before on a difficult low stock pit and wanted a different bait to confuse the opposition. We fished with it for several weeks before we realised that the fish wouldn’t eat it ! We should have tested it on fish that we could see…So we had another batch rolled with the spirulina reduced by 75 %.

My mate had a 28 and a 36 in 2 evenings the next week and I ended up as top rod again that season even though I’d not had a bite at the best time of year !

Moral of this story - it is very easy to put too much of these ‘super’ ingredients into a bait.
Click to expand...

The thing I have noticed with spirulina is that the freeze dried stuff is really quite harsh.
 
Neil Smart said:
Ļ

The beauty of luncheon meat is its attraction, FRESH OUT OF TIN, sorry for shouting but for me that is the crucial attraction with meat. Don't really think you need any additional additives.
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Yes, of course. I like fresh meat and believe they are the best. But in case I have some leftover from a season, I tend to add some attractions and freeze it for the next season.

I know they are cheap, but why waste if you can reuse.
 
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