Fish Food For Thought

[JayP]

So I was pondering fish food because, as I've mentioned before, I have no life. I see there was a post a few years back about feeding tetras but only a couple replies.

It seems, since we are primarily an aquatic plant enthusiast community, we tend to keep smaller species of fish. That's not to say some of us don't have big Cichlid tanks we don't discuss here much, but in general I think most of us are keeping fish in the sub 4" range. So what foods do you feed your smaller fish, especially the sub 2" species?

My primary go-to for my tetras, rasboras, dwarf gouramis, and platys, is Xtreme Nano pellets, Once a week I give them some frozen baby brine shrimp and/or daphnia. I do have a baby brine shrimp hatchery kit and have used it a few times, but I don't know that the fish really care if its live or frozen because their reaction to it is the same. I also go with Xtreme Community Peewee pellets occasionally but at sub 2", they seem to take the Nano pellets more easily. The shop I bought my first fish, told me they feed their smaller fish the Xtreme Nano so that's why I initially went with it. I've also tried various flakes including Bug Bites, but my fish don't seem to care for it as much and it just pollutes the tank.

Interested to hear what works well for others as I'd like to experiment and see if there's something else the fish might like even more. I imagine the responses for someone keeping the smaller cichlid species might be much different but interested to hear that as well since I might look into some of those species, like rams or even angelfish, on future larger tanks.

 

[MrJG]

I’ve been feeding this
https://a.co/d/07L17oRA
In tandem with what I think is extreme nano pellets, I transferred to another container a bit back so can’t quite recall.

Little pigs battle the Pygmy Cories for their wafer bits and the shrimp for their protein and calcium wafers too. The shrimps get “shrimps pro seafood patties” of the same brand.

I’d love to try live foods but no place to keep anything going.

 

[CincyScaper]

Currently my tank has 6 CPDs and couple of Pygmy Cory, I feed them Hikari micro pellets which the CPDs seem to love and Cory lap up the rest that get to the bottom. Interested in this thread.

 

[TRyan]

This is a good question. I'm still looking for a food that my rummy nose tetras, cardinal tetras, pygmy corys and strawberry rasboras will all love and eat.

I've tried quite a few different foods and I still don't have one I or my fish really love. They all will eat NutriDiet flake food, but it's a pain because the flakes are so large,I need to crumble them up. They'll sparingly eat Bug Bites tropical formula, but they are pretty big and need to be crumbled. I also feed mini blood worms, which they all like, but the rasboras struggle with the size. The rasboras really like live baby brine shrimp, but me... Not so much. It's a pain to keep hatching and rinsing them. The corys like Legit Bottom Feeder pellets.


I'll try the Xtreme .5mm pellets you suggested.

 

[JayP]

I’d love to try live foods but no place to keep anything going.

This doesn't take up much space, but as @TRyan alluded to, it does require some prep and planning.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery

 

[Kwyet]

These are my go-to foods for fish, plus occasionally some other things like brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex etc.

 

[TRyan]

This doesn't take up much space, but as @TRyan alluded to, it does require some prep and planning.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery

That's the exact one I use.

Don't be like me and feed the fish with a 1mm pipette full of salt water/live baby brine shrimp every day without rinsing first. It may seem like a small amount of water, but that salt water will build up and slowly kill your plants. That's the second time this year I've about killed my Hygrophila 53B stems.

I use this and it works great for rinsing and feeding. https://a.co/d/0clEKSs0

Just squirt a pipette or two into this, rinse under the sink and dump in tank. That hatchery comes with a little collection screen, but if you remove it, you only get 1 feeding with it. When you put it back in the hatchery, it stirs up the hatched eggs and you end up with a bunch of shells in there.

 

[gnatster]

It's a veritable smorgasbord here. The fish and shrimp have a more varied diet than I do.

Everyone gets either live or frozen baby brine shrimp daily. There's also frozen daphnia, cyclops, and mosquito larvae. I'll pick up live blackworms at the LFS now and again. The Darios, Clown Gobies, Sparkling Goramis, and Pygmy Cories all attack them with gusto. The worms are too big for the Chili Rasboras. The worms spook the Ruby Tetras.

Dry, the list goes on. Algae wafers, Aquarium Co-op Small Fish Feed, Kats Aquatics Wafer assortment, Tropical Micro Pellets and Shrimp Pro Micro Patties, various Shrimp Envy products. Crab Bites, Golden Pearls, various homemade shrimp/snail foods found on Etsy and r/aquaswap, Repashy, Snello, and more stuff I'm forgetting because the room is mostly dark now.

I overfeed, and I know it.

 

[RockyProndoa]

I'm probably in the vast minority here, but in the case of my new 235 build, I plan to create my own 'blend' something like:

Freeze-dried Calanus / calanoid copepods - 25%
Freeze-dried Mysis shrimp - 20%
Freeze-dried Artemia/brine shrimp - 15%
Freeze-dried Daphnia - 15%
Freeze-dried rotifers - 10%
Freeze-dried krill/Euphausia - 5%
Freeze-dried insect/blackworm-type aquatic food - 10%

I use all freeze-dried ingredients because I am using the Avast Marine Plank auto-feeder, which rehydrates the food before dispersing it. Pelleted foods tend to disintegrate and/or turn to mush too quickly in the rehydrating chamber which then causes it to clog. I find that the freeze-dried food stays suspended in the water column (where the majority of tetras/rasboras/etc feed) much longer than basic 'pellet' type foods, which quickly sink to the bottom and can get lost amongst the plants and other decor. This way, I am much more targeted in my feeding.

For my other smaller tanks, I use Eheim autofeeders loaded with a blend of Bug Bites, X-treme So-Fly Crumbles, and Ultra Fresh Tropical Excellent Bits.

All tanks are typically also fed just after lights out with sinking wafers (Hikari brand or similar) for the plecos/corys/bottom dwellers. I find the lights out approach allows these bottom dwellers to find and consume the food with much less competition from their tankmates above.

All in all, I don't personally believe that the type really matters 'much' in a community setting - as long as you are using a high-quality, reputable brand of food. In my smaller breeding-specific setups, I do find that live foods significantly increase spawning behavior and rates, but I don't believe that to be a factor in your question.

 

[JayP]

Don't be like me and feed the fish with a 1mm pipette full of salt water/live baby brine shrimp

I did this the very first time because it didn't even cross my mind until I piped some into the aquarium, than I'd just sucked them out of salt water.

 

[Capraquaria]

Nothing magical here. Mid-upper water fish get Northfin Nano, or Hikari Micro Pellets (I alternate). Those that lurk closer to the bottom I use Northfin Bug Pro, or Hikari sinking pellets.

Display tank gets live BBS once a week. Fry tank gets daily live BBS, and the Aquarium Co-op Magic Small Fish Feed blended with a small amount of organic Moringa powder. I use this hatchery from BRS for BBS. It's super quick to set up, tear down, and clean, but I am only making small quantities at a time. I set it up on my seed starting rack (as it already has a light), on top of a heat mat. Works great, and I didn't have to set up anything special.

I increased the light too much on the display tank recently, so the Otos have fresh algae right now, but when I don't mess up, I usually just drop in a few Hikari Mini Algae wafers to supplement them, or some blanched zucchini or cucumber.

 

[Rob23]

Thanks for starting this thread Jay. Lot's of good suggestions above.

For sub 2" species, I find it depends on the size of the species and whether we're talking about adults or fry. For those that are in the 1-2" size, live brine shrimp is great. I consider that a daily staple, and supplement it with a homemade spirulina and salmon gel food. To round it out, I have found Aquarium Co-op Magic Small Fish Feed to be taken by most species in this size range.

For species in the 1-2cm as well as other juveniles, the live brine shrimp gets supplemented with live nematodes. This combination works well for conditioning Boraras and Sundadanio species for breeding. Vinegar eels would also work well. These small species also do well with the Magic Small Fish Feed pellet size.

For fry that are too small to take baby brine shrimp, such as Boraras and Sundadanio species (very small 1-2mm fry), I've found live infusoria to be very helpful in getting them through the first month and then transitioning them to nematodes and brine shrimp.

For anyone interested in live food, if you can find a copy, Mike Hellweg's book Culturing Live Foods is excellent. Here's a nice video in which Mike share's some of his thoughts on live foods.