Knowing What To Feed Your Fish

Once you've got your fish, you need to feed them, right? I'm going to quickly run through a few points about feeding fish (and snails/shrimp), and how certain foods can affect/help them.

There are a few main components of food, the main ones being:

• Amino acids (ultimately converted to protein)
• Carbohydrates (energy)
• Fat & fatty acids (energy, organ health & absorption of some vitamins)
• Fibre (healthy gut & metabolic regulation)
• Nutrients & minerals (for colour enhancement & general body upkeep)

To ensure your fish are getting these main components, take care when choosing food for your fish.

Sources of protein/amino acids:

• Prepared foods (dried flakes, pellets, crisps & wafers)
• Meaty frozen or live foods (brine shrimp, daphnia, bloodworms, Beefheart, blackworms, infusoria etc.)
• Spirulina algae
• Shrimp
• Diced legumes

Sources of carbohydrates:

• Starches from prepared foods

Sources of fat/fatty acids

• Garlic
• Spirulina algae
• Hard-boiled egg yolk

Sources of Fibre:

• Peas & beans
• Daphnia
• Bloodworms
• Brine shrimp
• Tabasco (Just kidding )

Nutrients can be found in all foods, but keep in mind that the longer foods are boiled, the fewer nutrients there are.

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Various fish have different digestive systems, so this should be kept in mind. Generally, herbivores like plecos have very long digestive tracts that take some time to process food, so they don't need to be fed every day. This is because they eat plant and algae matter, which takes longer to digest than animal matter.

On the other hand, scavengers like goldfish have very short digestive tracts and should be fed frequently (once or twice daily). Goldfish, especially fancy goldfish, also need lots of fibre or their digestive tract can press against their swim bladder. This causes swim bladder disorder.

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One common ingredient in fish foods is fish meal. Fish meal is usually offcuts of fish that aren't considered edible for humans, so there isn't much nutrition there. Flour meal & gluten do provide carbs, but there's often more than there needs to be.

Most aquarium fish don't even eat fish, so there is too much fat in fish meal for it to be nutritious. Try to avoid foods that have fish meal at the top of the ingredients list.

 

Curious how you feel about additives and feeding your fish things like
Fish meal
Flour meal
Gluten

 

Curious how you feel about additives and feeding your fish things like
Fish meal
Flour meal
Gluten

By the way, I had my response merged into the OP.

 

By the way, I had my response merged into the OP.

Yes I saw this lol, it works better that way anyway. Glad you had some good input!
Now the real issue, how do we find good quality fish food without meal that is cheap!

 

Yes I saw this lol, it works better that way anyway. Glad you had some good input!
Now the real issue, how do we find good quality fish food without meal that is cheap!

Make it yourself?

 

Curious how you feel about additives and feeding your fish things like
Fish meal
Flour meal
Gluten

Nothing wrong with fish meal. There are skin, bones, guts, heads, not to mention there are still plenty of meat between the vertebrae and rib bones. Probably a lot more rich and nutritious than many insect-eating fish are typically used to.

 

Nothing wrong with fish meal. Skin, bones, guts, heads, not to mention there are still plenty of meat between the vertebrae and rib bones.

Yeah maybe nothing wrong if the fish eats fish normally.

Bare with this example:
But you don't see betta splendens sitting out in a pond waiting for a fish carcass to drop in so they can chow down lol

A bichir or a snake head, yeah, they'll love a carcass. But that shouldn't be the staple diet of an insect eating fish.

 

Yeah maybe nothing wrong if the fish eats fish normally.

Bare with this example:
But you don't see betta splendens sitting out in a pond waiting for a fish carcass to drop in so they can chow down lol

A bichir or a snake head, yeah, they'll love a carcass. But that shouldn't be the staple diet of an insect eating fish.

I think we both agree on that. Maybe I missed what you were really asking?

My point was when people make an issue between whole fish vs fish meal or by product, they don’t realize that they’re both probably good—especially in regards to most aquarium fish sold in the hobby, where their diet isn’t even seafood.

 

I think we both agree on that. Maybe I missed what you were really asking?

I didn't ask it the way I should have hahaha

Since most fish don't consume other fish, I was hoping for foods that don't contain a lot of things that fish doesn't normally eat.

Most fish won't need flour or soy added to their food, since they mainly eat insects and sometimes plant matter around their environment.

Something like a predator who normally hunts fish, they would most likely be fine with this food so long as they are offered other options as well.

But with people going around tying to buy quality food for their bettas, they end up not looking at the ingredients real well, so their fish gets a lot of fat that can sometimes mke it's life worse.
Sometimes poor diet can really affect a fishes health and lead to premature death.
So for people to be feeding almost all their fish soy and fish meal, I wish there was a better, cheap, healthy and natural alternative that contains mostly insects, rather than mostly fats.

 

I didn't ask it the way I should have hahaha

Since most fish don't consume other fish, I was hoping for foods that don't contain a lot of things that fish doesn't normally eat.

Most fish won't need flour or soy added to their food, since they mainly eat insects and sometimes plant matter around their environment.

Something like a predator who normally hunts fish, they would most likely be fine with this food so long as they are offered other options as well.

But with people going around tying to buy quality food for their bettas, they end up not looking at the ingredients real well, so their fish gets a lot of fat that can sometimes mke it's life worse.
Sometimes poor diet can really affect a fishes health and lead to death.
So for people to be feeding almost all their fish soy and fish meal, I wish there was a better, cheap, healthy and natural alternative that contains mostly insects, rather than mostly fats.

The thing is, under proper care, most fish live longer than their wild counterparts. Yes, the foods we feed aren’t natural, but still meets their requirements—in an aquarium enviroment just fine. That said, for my betta, I used to feed him Dennerle Betta Booster, which is based entirely on insects and aquatic invertebrates, instead of using fish. The company’s motto: fish are friends, not food.