bolivianbaby

All my giant schnazuer does is eat the gravel I drop when I'm cleaning new substrate.

Amanda

rofl, sounds liek somethinh a dog would do

mercurybebe

OMG, I just looked at Ken's site and WOW, they have so much stuff and it ALL sounds great!!!

Of course that just means that I have NO clue where to even start! I need 3 new heaters (2 for 10g, 1 for 30g) and I couldn't believe that they had them for under $10, where is the catch?

I could also use some new filter media, any ideas?

Lastly, the FOOD! I have NO idea where to start but considering the fact that I have 6 tanks, I think buying in bulk is a great idea!

If anyone has any suggestions as to which foods I should start with, that would be awesome...this is what I use now:

I go through a lot of algae wafers with all my cories and of course the other fish love them...they seem to enjoy the Omega One brand the most. I use the Omega One medium goldfish pellets for my Black Moors.
For general flake food I use the Nutrafin Livebearer blend with tubifex worms...and I offer Omega shrimp pellets, Top Fin seaweed, freeze dried bloodworms (although the cats just got into them and ate ALL of them!).

I also have some frozen food that they get from time to time...more as a treat than an every day thing...

My ADF get HBH Frog bites and my betta gets Omega One betta pellets and bloodworms.

Whew...I think I covered all the different fish! Now that I have listed all of that out, I feel like I am out of my mind for even considering MORE types of food!

Amanda

I bought tropical flakes with color enhancers for my livebearers.
I bought 5 stick blend for my Oscars & Cons.
I'm placing another order soon, proably next week for some more food to add more variety to their diets.

Shawnie

I can give some advice..and im sure other kens users can help also!!

for filter media, you can get that at walmart....go to the craft section and look for the 100% polyester quilting backing or pillow stuffing...either is great....make sure NONE has perfumes or dyes in the ingriedients...just the plain polyester....boil it prior to using for a few mins, and poof..works great and very reasonably prices

for foods,
cories and other bottom feeders http://kensfish.com/bits2.html they adore the 4 bits

heres a good page to read for your goldies http://kensfish.com/kensnocarbcolorpellets.html

for all your others, this link is great to read http://kensfish.com/kensflake1.html I love the veggie , spirulina, premium cichlid mix, and the vitamin booster flakes...

of course thats just a suggestion you can read the descriptions and make your own decisions on your own fish babies needs...good luck!

Amanda

I like sticks & bits better than flakes myself. But that's just me.

Shawnie

other than my food I make, which is mostly fresh frozen with veggies, all my fish have always been on omega one flakes (different kinds of course) and it works for me but everyone is different

Amanda

It's not that I don't like giving them flakes, it's that it seems to pollute my tanks faster than pellets/sticks.

Shawnie

oh ya it does specially if you overfeed(like me).....why do you think i spend my life water changing LOL ..but my fish have done very well on omega one and they are doing just as good on kens

Amanda

Yeah, I'm super excited to get my fish started on it.
I'm trying to use up some Veggie flakes I have, but I think the fish are SICK of them.
I am almost out of Oscar food...mainly because they eat anything...

mercurybebe

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I was really overwhelmed by all the options so it was really nice to have a starting point. I am looking forward to placing an order very soon!

One final question, is it okay to vary their diets so much? I dont feed them the same thing 2 days in a row (except for betta and black moors) and they are thriving (except for my recent rash of deaths...) overall and seem to enjoy the variety.

Amanda

Variety is great for fish! Everything likes a little variety in their diet.

Butterfly

I use the golden pearls (rotifers) and the decapsulated shrimp for my fry. They love them and you get a huge amount
Carol

Nate McFin

I ordered a bunch of small sample size packs from a member of plantedtank.net.
He buys all of Kens food and repackages into much smaller packages. I wanted to try before I buy so I ordered different varieties from him for my Cardinals.
I got the following-
Decapsulated brine shrimp eggs
Arctic Copepods
Daphnia
4 flake frenzy
color flakes
no carb micro pellets

By far the fish like 4 flake frenzy the best. Daphnia and the micro pellets are tied for second. They wont even touch the BSE and copepods.
Visionquest28 is the seller over there and is wonderful to deal with. Total for all of the trial size pouches was $9.00 including shipping. Its a nice way to try some of the stuff without having to get the giant size. If your interested here a link...I will also mention fishlore to him/her.Please note you have to hjoin the forum to access swap and shop so the link may not work.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sw...-added-11.html

SWilkins

All my cories and BNs love kens catfish pellets....I got loads of baby peppered cories to prove that out of just three little cories to begin with. I like kens crumbles and I got the growth crumbles and color crumbles...I do better with these and don't seem to overfeed as bad and if I do I don't have a cloudy tank. Those golden pearls WOW I love to watch the babies eat them and see their tummies turn just as gold as the pearls themselves. Of course that is not all the foods that I get from Kens but those are on the top of my list. They way things are multiplying around here I think my next order will be a bulk order since everything is packaged so well and stays fresh.

aquarist48

Good morning. I just want to elaborate on Shawnie's post #23. I get my filter media (filter floss) from WalMart as well. I use the "High Loft" batting material from the craft department. It's 100% poly and no additives. The label on the package is green. It can be cut to fit your filter very easily. I've never boiled it though.
Have a great weekend!
Ken

SWilkins

LOL Same here Ken. That is what I use but I never thought to boil it. Hey Shawnie apparently it is okay if you don't have time to boil your filter floss from now on....just to save you some time anyway.

Shawnie

lol ..my main reason to always include the boiling, is that will let some new fish keepers know if it has dyes or perfumes that they may have missed...boiling with either will turn the water colors, or you will smell it in the boiling state ...my bag of backing is also green hahah ...