Anybody else hate flake food?

I used to use flake food as a staple diet but I found it to be really messy, and the fish didn't eat it all and by the time it was like all over the tank.

Anyways:
I switched to Full Spectrum small fish formula. (Small sinking pellets.) My fish love them and they eat all of them. The tetras especially enjoy them.

And then I used to feed my corydoras Wardley's shrimp pellets but they got messy too, so I switched to HikarI sinking wafers.

I do not use any flake foods at all.
I feed frozen baby brine shrimp, FD bloodworms, live food (mosquito larvae), and other FD foods I can't spell.

But I dislike flakes so much. I honestly hate them.
Anybody else prefer wafers/pellets?

 

I hated fish food until I found Kens Flakes.

The spiralina is good for them and gone quickly. The medicine food combined with prozI pro remived internal parasites from my first patch of guppies with no losses.

The tetra stuff I threw in the trash.

NLS is awesome though

 

I don't mind flake food too much, though pellets are much easier to measure out and are more bite size. It seems harder to overfeed pellets compared to flake food.

 

Good morning,

I do not use flake foods. With my fish being so large, flakes are not enough.

A few links of interest while we are on the subject:

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/what-food-do-you-use.89333/
See post #14

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/why-pellets-over-flake-food.115047/

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/flakes-vs-crisps-vs-pellets-vs.131726/

Ken

 

I have a friend who makes his own food and he sells it to random people... my fish can't get enough of it I think it all depends on the type of flake...

 

I use flake foods and never had any problem with them.SERA is the brand I use.

 

Welcome to the Forum Angelico...

I use several types of foods. I use NLS (new life spectrum) sinking pellets, flakes, frozen foods.
I have started using garlic guard to soak my pellets first then give them.
Another thing I do is I do not pour a pile of food in at once. I give them tiny bits for the next 2 or 3 minutes. I find that garlic guard has made them ravenous for any type of food now. I do feed flakes to my shrimp.

 

I also use Ken's flakes and have no waste to speak of. Perhaps you were just feeding too much, which is very easy to do.

 

The better quality the food is, the more nutrients the fish get from it and the less they poo. Their bodies will keep the good nutrients while pooping out the fillers... so what ever food you get you want to ensure it's not full of filler junk.

I use a very tiny pinch of New Life Spectrum flake (Garlic is already in it) for daily feeding, and Brine Shrimp once a week for roughage to prevent bloat. Sometimes I'll mix the Brine Shrimp with a little bit of frozen Blood Worms.

 

I use NLS pellets also. I really like that food, so do my fish. It's made with whole fish, has Spirulina and garlic. (I still doubt the use of garlic in these products though. Fresh garlic is much better.)

 

In rotation Tetra flakes, frozen brine, Omaga One flakes, frozen brine. Then blood worms on Sunday. We also feed Marineland algae wafers, and the fish are all fat and happy.

 

I may check out NLS flake food, but I prefer pellets and wafers. There's almost no waste afterwards. Which is amazing, considering flakes would be pushed down by the filter and the fish sometimes wouldn't eat them. Red and green flakes only. :/ Maybe my fish are just picky.

They love frozen baby brine shrimp though. I feed it usually after a water change.

 

When feeding live or frozen foods I usually do it before a planned water change. The reason being is that uneaten frozen/live foods will foul the water quicker than processed foods so the water change can remove anything that the fish miss. Just a thought.

 

flakes would be pushed down by the filter and the fish sometimes wouldn't eat them

A lot of aquarists turn off filters and circulation pumps during feeding time. Some of the higher end timers will have a "Feed" button that turns off the filter and/or pumps for feeding. Some will even automatically re-enable them after a few minutes in case you forget to turn them back on (my boyfriends Saltwater Reef tank has one of these nifty gadgets).

At any rate, I turn off the filter and pump during feeding to ensure that the fish get all of the food before it hits the substrate.

 

I alternate between flake food and NLS

I also turn off the filters for two reasons - one, to signal to the fish its "feeding" time ( nothing worse than fish not noticing the food and having it hit the gravel )
and two, to keep the food from getting all over the substrate, swirling around every where and getting caught on my plants, etc

 

to signal to the fish its "feeding" time

With my fish, that's any time I walk into the room rofl. They all race to the right top corner of the tank (where I always feed them) and hang out there for a few minutes. I swear I can almost hear them "FOOD? FOOD? FOOD? FOOD? FOOD?". Of course, I try to feed them at the same time every day (15 minutes after the lights come on with the timer).

 

With my fish, that's any time I walk into the room rofl. They all race to the right top corner of the tank (where I always feed them) and hang out there for a few minutes. I swear I can almost hear them "FOOD? FOOD? FOOD? FOOD? FOOD?". Of course, I try to feed them at the same time every day (15 minutes after the lights come on with the timer).

I must confuse my fish because they eat only once EVERY OTHER DAY but I swear, sometimes they "know" the day too!!! LOL

 

I use tetra crisps and find the fish love it and there is less waste. What falls on the bottom is quickly eaten by the fish also.

 

I feed flakes fort the fish food, but it's only one meal. my fish also get a nother meal of vegetables.

 

Why do you turn off your filter just to feed the fish.I never heard this before.

 

To prevent the food being sucked into the filter and clogging it up.

 

In other words you have a sponge filter or internal one in your tank?

 

I have a Whisper hang-on the tank filter. It has a dial to control the flow of water.
I turn it all the way down when I feed the fish, and turn it back on once the food is eaten.

 

I do not like flake food. My fish like pellets worms and peas and frozen food.

My betta tiny pellets and peas only.

 

Who makes this filter ? Thanks

 

Why do you turn off your filter just to feed the fish.I never heard this before.

This ensures that the fish food doesn't get tossed all over the tank where it eventually settles to the bottom. With the filter off (or turned down low), then the food should get eaten long before it hits the substrate. Keeps the food from being wasted and causes less of a mess on the substrate.

 

I've also seen feeder rings. Anyone have any experience with these? It's a little ring with a short arm and a suction cup. The notion is that it's suction cupped to the wall and the ring sits on the surface and holds all the flakes in one place.

If you have bottom feeders, I don't see flakes drifting to the bottom to be any problem at all. If you're sparing than there should be hardly any left over.

 

I purposely toss my food in the flow of my filters out take just so the food gets dispersed everywhere, as I have fish who feed at different levels, and this ensures that the food ends up at all levels, and any left overs get eaten by the shrimp on the bottom, and some of my night inhabitants even come out if there is some food laying on the sand...

 

Yes.