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What do you feed your fish?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Art
  • Start date Start date
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What do you feed your fish?

  • Pellets

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Flakes

    Votes: 2 18.2%
  • Frozen live food

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Live foods

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Combination (please explain in the comments)

    Votes: 8 72.7%

  • Total voters
    11

Art

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What do you feed your fish? Live, pellets, a combo?

Tell us in the comments. Would love to see if there's a food out there that many people are using.
 
I feed a mix of mini pellets, flaked food, wafers, and Repashy gel food.
The pellets are for mostly for the bottom feeders - cories, plecos, snails and shrimp, but I find that all my other fish go for them as well.
The flaked food for the less aggressive nano fish - the guppies, rice fish, ember tetras, and honey gourami, who like to feed at the top.
The wafers and gel food nuggets get fed after dark for the nocturnal feeders - L-134 plecos, kuhli loaches and the less outgoing bristle noses. I do run moonlights, and I think most of the other fish feed at this meal, too.
I have a bunch of frozen food, but I find that it makes such a mess that I am reluctant and too lazy to feed it very often.

There is a Canadian company called NorthFin that makes a fantastic line of food with premium ingredients and minimal fillers. I use this brand the most, including their koi food for my pond koi and goldfish:
https://www.northfin.com/

Look at the ingredients in the community formula - does not get better than this for dry food;

Ingredients: Whole Antarctic Krill Meal (Euphausia Superba), High DHA Omega-3 Whole Herring Meal, Whole Sardine Meal, Wheat Flour, Organic Kelp (Laminariales), Spirulina, Garlic (Allium Sativum), Astaxanthin, Montmorillonite Clay, Vitamin A Acetate, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate, Cholecalciferol, Alpha-tocopherol Acetate, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Riboflavin Supplement, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Thiamine, Calcium Pantothenate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Biotin, Choline Chloride, Cobalt Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Manganese Sulfate, Selenium, Zinc, Rosemary Extract (Rosmarinus Officinalis)
 
I mostly feed bug bite to my meat eaters; but i also feed some thing with greens (most larger cichild require a lot of greens); right now that green is nls algaemax mixed with other nls pellets. After i move I'll look into more live food or frozen live food - but a lot depends on the species. I do feed my guppies and other 'top' fishes flakes. Most of my dwarf cichilid do not eat greens (though that is species specific); and of course for my panda gara/cories/green eating plecos i feed zuc and soilent green mixed with igaloo explorer. So a lot depends on the fishes. Brand wise i'm mostly limited to omega-one, fluval bug bites and a little nls - i have some 'legacy' foods i'm working my way through but i think going forward i'll mostly stick just a couple of brands.
 
I am also in the group that feeds a variety of foods to my Rainbow fish. Probably the more unique food would be these flakes from my friend Alex. I also feed them New Life Spectrum "Insectum", "Thera+A" and regular Medium pellets. Being rainbow fish, they seem to attack pretty much what ever is thrown into the tank.
 
Hmm, so no one is making their live food? Bloodworms, etc.?
bloodworms are generally considered unhealthy for the dwarf cichlld and even the larger cichild (like angels) I keep. I know they have a recommendation as a favorite food but you really shouldn't. I do occasionally give my dwarves bbs but it is really intended for the frys even though the parents go wild for them. After i move and get those 550 and 450 aquariums setup I intend to hatch some worms of some sort - because when you have a basement you can do stuff like that ;)

Right now i don't want to mess with it in the condo for a multitude of reasons. I will say that the few wc fishes i do have getting them to go after dry food has not been that difficulit; though one i had to mix in bug bites with bbs to get them to eat but once they started....
 
I didn't know that about cichlids. Is it because of lack of nutrients or some other issue?

I'm in a condo as well, atm. It's too difficult, if not impossible to do any sort of live food setup. However, I do believe that fish really love live foods and they reward you with much better coloring and health. That said, I also don't believe in it being exclusive or you will be a slave to your fish. A nice combo regimen is best, IMO.
 
I don't think my wife will accept the idea of live food (i.e., Worms ... etc.) in the house but I can try the frozen ones I believe nutrition wise they will be much better than flakes :unsure:
 
My wife wouldn't even accept frozen since they ended up in "our" freezer. Didn't like blood worms occupying the same space as the frozen pizza. We eventually got a second freezer for the garage and that was acceptable to her.
 
I didn't know that about cichlids. Is it because of lack of nutrients or some other issue?

I'm in a condo as well, atm. It's too difficult, if not impossible to do any sort of live food setup. However, I do believe that fish really love live foods and they reward you with much better coloring and health. That said, I also don't believe in it being exclusive or you will be a slave to your fish. A nice combo regimen is best, IMO.
Too fatty et all (but again it is species specific); also if you don't raise them yourself they frequently carry diseases (including frozen variety); a lot of what is a good diet depends very narrowly on specific species but a lot of 'common' consumer cichild like angels, festum and discus eat a huge amount of plant matter in the wild and very little 'fatty' meats.
 
I use mainly fluval bug bites and mix in frozen foods as a treat every once in a while
 
My Bows get a mixed diet. All of these plus Fluval Bug Bites and Hikari Vibra Bites. No frozen food. I have found it fouls the water particularly if over fed.

I've thought may times about growing live foods, but like those above my wife would likely go bananas if I did.

In the bigger picture I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is over feeding. Fish need much less than people think. If people saw how little I feed my tank full of seemingly always hungry Rainbows they would be shocked. Yet they are healthy, colorful, and very long lived.

And with a planted tank, over feeding can cause issues with plants. Algae loves excess decaying food in the water column.

Fish Food.webp
 
I feed my community with a variety of food. Dry and frozen. Dry is mainly Fluval bug bites and flakes. Frozen is Hikari daphnia and brine shrimp with spirulina. Wed and Sundays are frozen while the rest of the week is dry. I do a bit of controlled feeding by using a coral feeder. This way, my fish that normally stay in the bottom will get thier fill. I just fill a shotglass with water and put the food in it. Suck it up with my coral feeder and feed my fish at different levels of the tank.
 
Ok, well five people in this thread mentioned Fluval Bug Bites. So now it's in my Amazon cart. Thanks for starting this thread @Art You owe me $5.99 ;)
Love it. My point was to make people spend money! Er, I'm joking. I did want to see if we can spot some common food that people like. Looks like we did.
 
they frequently carry diseases (including frozen variety)
I read this a lot in internet places but I'm curious how it came to be - are people having disease show up with the frozen foods? Lots of people I know with beautiful, healthy fish feed the common frozen cubes of bloodworms and brine without issues AFAIK. Being careful not to overfeed is key, those blood worms do constipate.

My fish are an oddball mix of rainbows, pearl guorami, and cichlids, they get a variety:
blanched peas (my big severum eats about 2 dozen per day)
hikari vibra bites
bugbite spirulina flakes
xtreme pellets
Frozen bloodworms and brine (on occasion)
 
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