What food do you use

I am wondering what kind of flake food to you use for your fish. Ive been seeing lately that Some people use high-quality foods and some use regular chain store brands. I only buy certain food for certain fish, such as my pleco, He gets a special formula algae wafer that my LFS sells. But my other fish get TetraColor tropical flakes (they use to have a topfin brand but It ran out) So what brand do you use and recommend I get next time I go to my LFS?

Tyler

 

Haha I use tetramin for their staple, they like it so hey, it works

 

No flakes! Pellets are a better choice for both the health of your fish and the cleanliness of the tank.

NLS thera A. ALL my fish eat it, and that it their primary food.

 

My only LFS carries mostly Omega One brand. I feed a variety which includes Super Veggie Kelp flakes, cichlid pellots, small shrimp pellots, algae wafers, frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworms. I've ordered online HikarI sinking carnivore pellots for another food for my Pictus Cats.

 

NLS and Kens. Kens has every kind of food imaginable at awesome prices.

 

I am with Jaysee, but I do use crushed flake for fry.

The only flake I will use is HBH.

Once fry are big enough to eat a 1.5mm pellet they get switched to that usually around an inch. Around 2" they go to a 3mm pellet. And for fish that are a bit bigger I use a 9mm pellet. The only pellet I will use is Xtreme Cichlid Diet.


Brian

 

I feed Omega One Super Color pellets for most of my fish and Omega One Super Color sinking shrimp pellets for my bottom feeders. I feed Omega One goldfish pellets to my coldwater tank. My betta boys get HBH Color Enhancing pellets, but that's only 'cuz there aren't any Omega One betta pellets in my area (just the flakes and they won't touch flakes) and they haven't ran out of the HBH yet. As soon as they do, I'll probably order some Ken's or Attison's.

 

brian those are for cichlids, right? I have 0.5 and 1 mm for most of my fish. My larger fish get 2 mm and the goldfish get 3 mm. A 9 mm pellet is HUGE

 

I just started making my own fish food frozen thanks to bubbly nutter and my fish love it

 

Mine get mostly Omega One foods but it is hard to find here so they get some of Kens foods also as well as frozen foods.
carol

 

Why no flakes?

 

So next time get pellets right? I will see if my lfs has some, but if not, I will see if they can order me some

 

I no longer feed flake food as pellets are simply cleaner/easier to feed. I prefer New Life Spectrum (NLS) pellets and also use some HikarI frozen food every once in a while.

 

FLakes don't hold their nutritional value well, because of the high surface area to volume ratio. Oxidation is a spoiler. Also, the flakes start breaking down in the water as soon as they get wet, which further reduces the nutritional value, while at the same time fouling the water.

Pellets, on the other hand, are better able to retain their value because inside the shell is protected. They don't disintigrate like flakes do, which makes it easy to remove any uneaten food. The fact that they don't disintigrate also goes a long way in maintaining water quality. And on top of all that, you don't need to feed as much because of the reasons previously stated.


One word of caution - if you have gravel, small sinking pellets will fall beyond the fishs reach. In this case, you want to make sure you get floating or semI floating (slow to sink) pellets. With a finer gravel or sand, sinking pellets will rest on top of the substrate, making it easy for fish to eat.

 

Depends on which tank I'm feeding. The Geos, Rainbows & Sev get NLS as their staple with a little Wardley Gourmet Tropical Flake. The Mbuna get a 50/50 mix of NLS & 8 Veggie Flake as well as fresh veggies. I'm attempting to get the new JD onto NLS after the mostly live food diet that my mate had it on. It's not very impressed at the moment & so far has refused to take it. It did take some Wardley Gourmet Tropical Flake though.
All but the Mbuna get twice weekly feeds of frozen bloodworm, brineshrimp or daphnia.
Oh & the Plecos get fresh veggies & Wardley Algae Discs.

 

OOOOHHHHH I get it now Ok next time I get food it's going to be pellets. do they make nls pellets small enough for young swordtails and guppies?

 

Yep. I feed all my fish NLS 0.5 mm Micro Pellets. They're very tiny, but substantial enough for even the kribensis when they get enough of a mouthful.

 

I use the Thera+A as a staple as well. Just sprinkle it across the top, the gups chase it down and then the cories get whatever happens to fall to the bottom. I also use Kens spirulina bits, Omega One veggie rounds and shrimp pellets, and occasionally golden pearls.

 

I have balloon red eye tetras, they are piggies, eat everything. My harlequin rasboras are finicky and only eat food that is sinking, my rummy nose tetras eat food that is sinking and will also pick food from the bottom, my corys only eat food that they find on the bottom of the tank. So they all have their individual eating habits.

I rotate the food to make sure they all get something to eat. I feed them a HikarI Tropical variety. Micro Pellets, Micro Wafers, Sinking Wafers, Algae Wafers, and Freeze Dried Blood Worms. Everybody's favorite Tetra Color Tropical Crisps, and as a treat, frozen Blood Worms. I also have TetraMin tropical granules but they sink too fast for the top and middle swimmers. And last and the least favorite for the fish and me, Aqueon Color Enhancing Tropical Flakes. The fish don't seem too crazy about them and I don't like how they end up all over the plants.

My fish seem to be happy with this diet, and everybody gets something to eat, plus, no mess.

E

 

I feed my fish HikarI micro pellets. This food is perfect for small fish. The pellets are like the size of sand, pretty small and my fish like them. I made the switch from flakes also.

 

OOOOHHHHH I get it now Ok next time I get food it's going to be pellets. do they make nls pellets small enough for young swordtails and guppies?

yes, as elodea said the 0.5 mm pellet is really small. Anything neon size and smaller should get this. The next size up is 1 mm diameter, which is good for most community fish. Then there is 2 mm, good for medium sized fish. 3 mm is the largest I have, which my goldfish and bichir eat.

 

yes, as elodea said the 0.5 mm pellet is really small. Anything neon size and smaller should get this. The next size up is 1 mm diameter, which is good for most community fish. Then there is 2 mm, good for medium sized fish. 3 mm is the largest I have, which my goldfish and bichir eat.

So that's how you feed your goldfish without the other fish getting it........

 

So that's how you feed your goldfish without the other fish getting it........

that's exactly right. If the goldfish were small, they would probably be out competed for food. The fact that they are big enough to eat foods that are too big for the other fish to eat is what allows me to keep them in the tank.

 

Good morning,

I've never been a big fan of flakes either. When I do use a flake I use the Tropical Crisps. There are more to them than the regular flakes, thicker. I only use them until my juvenile Bloody Parrots come out of hiding then I switch to pellets.

For treats, I use Ken's Freeze Dried Earth Worms, his Freeze Dried Krill. Big hits in my tanks. Ken's Earthworm sticks are a big hit too. Here is a link to Ken's. I highly recommend his fish foods and other supplies.


(always Pre-soak any freeze dried foods)

Ken (no relation to Kensfish.com)

 

I use .5mm kens growth pellets in my fry growout, works great for smaller juvenile fish, the 1mm/1.5mm pellets are a bit too big for them to efficiently eat.

 

Everything from staple foods to treats I get from kensfish.com except for frozen bloodworms which are San Fransico Bay cubes? Kens I mostly use regular, veggie, earthworm and beefheart. Flakes mostly but I do have some of his pellets.

Probably a very dumb question but you guys who order a variety of different foods from kens also, where/how/in what do you store it in? Or do you just keep them in the ziplock bags? I have foods all over the place and feel like I need to organise them into a bunch of separate containers and have each one marked.

Also I read fish food can get stale after awhile, is there a proper way to store it if you're buying in bulk supply?

 

I usually separate them into 2 oz portions and vacuum seal them. I've also separated them into ziplock bags and just kept them in the cupboard or fridge and that works fine as well. I try to use up everything I have that isn't vacuum sealed within 6 months.

 

What foods do you find all your fish love?

I have a rubbenose pleco, 4 habrosus cories, and 2 guppies.

Foods I feed:
A Nutrafin Max flake for the guppies - they get excited at first and then lose interest fast. I really need to crush it up because they'll spit out larger pieces and give up on it.
Aqueon Algae Wafer - no one gets excited about this one but it's always gone by morning.
HBH frog and tadpole pellets - I was feeding this for my frogs and everyone in the tank fights over it.
Tetramin Tropical "Crisps" - The guppies seem to like these and the cories will go after the bits that end up sinking
Nutrafin Max sinking pellets for bottom feeders - No one really goes for these but they're gone in the morning too. I don't feed them as often as the other foods.

I find it rather curious that everyone loves the food meant for the frogs. The cories zone in on it within minutes, everything else takes them at least 10 minutes to really find. They'll be munching on it, the guppies hover, and my pleco will watch from his hiding place, race out, snatch a pellet and race back to his hiding place. Is it okay to keep feeding it to the fish?

I go to the store and end up standing there, reading all the labels and not understanding why they all seem to have a lot of wheat and corn. Fish don't need that, do they? I don't want to buy foods that have that in the first few ingredients (in the same way that when I buy dog or cat food, meat has to be the first ingredient).

I also give veggies once in awhile for my pleco, mainly cucumber. I've tried spinach and my pleco doesn't go for it at all. Thawed frozen bloodworms are a treat, I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to them so I don't feed them as often.

And just something I'm curious about-I want to get some red cherry shrimp once my plants grow in more. What do they prefer to eat?

 

Brine shrimp wins hands down on this! All my fish love them!

 

my bristle noses and my pitbull plecs love tetra tabimin as do my amano shrimp,
cherry barbs and gouramis love the tetramin crisps, but they also love frozen brine shrimp and frozen bloodworm, and atleast once a week I give them some live brine shrimp or daphinia

oh and my red cherry shrimp seem to be happy to snatch little bits of what ever the rest are fed

 

Good morning,

I feed my fish a staple of several different pellets, sticks, wafers, tablets and not of it is ever refused. I kind of make my own mix.

For treats they love presoaked freeze dried krill and presoaked freeze dried earthworms. (purchased from Ken's Fish Foods (not my site).

My Silver Dollars get 2 Romaine lettuce leaves every day. My Pleco gets a slice of raw zucchinI stuffed with an algae wafer every morning also. Loves it!

Even my Bloody Parrots have learned to rip the lettuce leaves into shreds and eat it also.

Ken

 

My honey gourami loves spirulina flakes. My rasboras like nutrafin max micro granules but have also started to eat the spirulina flakes. They get dried blackworms on the weekend as treats, they go crazy for them!

 

I'm only a novice in the Saltwater world, but San Fransisco bay brand frozen stuff is pretty awesome. My fish love it.

 

Egg yolk flake and Lotsoffish Mix #2.

 

I have large silver dollars, limparenus, bala shark and they all just love romaine lettuce. They will finish a large leaf in 24 hrs. They just LOVE it!!

 

My fish seem to love whatever I feed them, we try to mix up their diet as much as we can, these are the foods on our shelf

Tetramin tropical flakes
NLS Thera + A 1mm sinking pellets with garlic
NLS cichlid formula 1mm pellets
Freeze dried blood worms
Algea wafers
HakarI cichlid pellets( was a freebie with our tank)
HakarI first bites
Wardley bottom feeder shrimp pellets

 

I feed my fish a mixture of Tetra Color tropical granules, Tetra Veggie spirulina enhanced flakes and freeze dried bloodworms. The bloodworms are a treat I feed them once a week, but ohhh do they love them! It's always a frenzy on bloodworm day!

 

All of my fish LOVE frozen baby brine shrimp. Its supposed to be really healthy too. Its more expensive then flakes of course, however its a favorite.

 

My fish's favorite food is NLS thera-A

Welcome to the forum dove!

 

HikarI Fancy Guppy is the way to go! I sometimes feed them NUTRAFIN Max flakes.