# [Wet Thumb Forum]-What do you feed your fish?



## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

What is your favorite?


----------



## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

my foods of choice are frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, beefheart and krill.


----------



## neonfish3 (Feb 12, 2004)

flake is my favorite because its easy to vary, feed, use. I do use frozen blood worms and brine shrimp also. I wonder what my fishes favorite is?


----------



## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

I feed all the types of foods listed, but picked flakes for my favorite because I feed it more often then the others.


----------



## lf11 (Nov 17, 2004)

I feed my fish pellet, wafer, and freeze dried foods.


----------



## dissident (Sep 6, 2005)

BloodWorms and BrineShrimp, and some sinking granuals.


----------



## imported_Creature (Feb 6, 2003)

Frozen "Freshwater Multi-Pak," frozen bloodworms and a mix of flakes and sinking granules. I alternate to ensure they get all necessary nutrients. I have yet to achieve those pinky-sized cardinal tetras!


----------



## cheesehazard (Mar 2, 2004)

Im using a combination of differnt foods. I have live black worms, frozen brine shrimp, frozen blood works, and some sinking granuals.


----------



## Lumeance (Jan 16, 2005)

too bad we could only vote for one lol

What's on the menu in my tank?...
fresh frozen daphnia and bloodworms(fav's of the loaches)
Hikari algea wafers - everybody goes crazy for these
Ocean Nutrition Formula Two w/garlic - corys sure go into hyper vacum after this is fed
Nutrafin Mysis shrimp - another fav
TetraMin Tropical Rich mix - this one they eat just because it's there(won't be buying it again)
freeze dried Tubefix - for dessert 2-3 times per week

The rest is rotated through about 3-4 feedings per day, and can you believe they still act hungry inbetween?


----------



## rwong2k (Jan 13, 2005)

Hmm, any recommendations or preferences in brands of fish food? I've been told OSI brand is one of the better brands? I'm using something I believe called formula one from ocean nutrition,


----------



## imported_russell (Sep 14, 2004)

being lazy, i usually just go with flake food, and walmart stuff at that


----------



## Margolis (Sep 22, 2004)

> quote:
> 
> Originally posted by russell:
> being lazy, i usually just go with flake food, and walmart stuff at that


And you wonder why your discus died?








I oughta report you to the aspca!!!









get them some real food, or at least something other than that poisonous walmart crap









In fact, stay out of walmart from now on and get your supplies at a pet store.


----------



## Scout (Apr 3, 2005)

I feed my fish everything from insects that wander within my grasp, crickets, brine shrimp, Krill, worms, pellets, Flake, wafers, salad shrimp and whole prawns with shell for my larger fish(Arowana)
I put my favorite as being bloodworms but only because they seem to be my fishes favorite


----------



## entireleaves (Mar 25, 2005)

I can't feed my fish bloodworms. The frozen type and the freeze dried type give me horrible hives on my hands. Very painful and weird.

I feed my fish several different flakes and pellets, freeze dried brine shrimp, algae waffers sometimes and frozen baby brineshrimp. My little fish and baby kribs LOVE the frozen baby brine.

I should probably do more frozen stuff for my bigger fish. Live is too much hassle. I just don't have the time.


----------



## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

Hey Scout, I have some large whole freeze dried shrimp I want to get rid of! Interested?


----------



## imported_chrismisc (Jul 25, 2004)

I voted frozen as the favorite because my discus prefer them, though the tetras and cories could care less, and everyone loves their flake. I feed three varieties of flake about half the time: tetra color, spirulina, and formula One flakes.

For frozen I buy the Hikari and Formula Foods' little ice cube trays: Brine shrimp, blood worms, Mysis, Discus Delight (which they seem not to like !?), Formula One, Formula Two and Special Formula VHP ("very high protein"). The discus can't get enough of any of the foods with the gel binder. If I hold a piece of a softened cube just under the surface, they come up and tear at it like piranha.

I also feed live blackworms as a treat, cooked zucchini (and sometimes spinach, broccoli or cucumber) for the otocinclus, and am trying to get the discus to eat Hikari discus pellets, since I read the thread on deworming and these are said to be a good medium for medicating.


----------



## sarahbobarah (Sep 5, 2005)

Yay! Pellets!

For me, I find it's the easiest to portion-control. Also, I think it smells fresher.









I use the brands Spectrum and Hikari for my cichlids, Discus, Angels, etc.

Rainbowfish and livebearers get Spectrum colorenhancers.

I used to feed tubifex until one discus batch was wiped out. 
And one LFS store employee told me that bloodworms are now illegal in California, though I don't know if that's true or not.


----------



## flagg (Nov 29, 2004)

> Originally posted by rwong2k:
> Hmm, any recommendations or preferences in brands of fish food? I've been told OSI brand is one of the better brands? I'm using something I believe called formula one from ocean nutrition,


I believe in using flake food that has the fewest amount of chemicals in it. I usually look for foods that have a large amount of "real" ingredients (as opposed to different typs of "meals (eg, fish meal, shrimp meal, etc...)) As a result I use primarily Omega One brand of flakes along w/ frozen and live foods (frozen blood worms and brine shrimp and live white worms (mostly for conditioning breeders)).


----------



## Paul Higashikawa (Mar 18, 2004)

Vegetables, fruits, seafoods. Whatever they can fit in their tiny mouths and wouldn't contaminate the tank.


----------



## Sockfish (Dec 6, 2004)

> I used to feed tubifex until one discus batch was wiped out.


This leads me to a question--I recently had an entire school of neons die off within 24 hours of a feeding of a batch of live bloodworms. You mean to say this may have been the cause?

Also, I just started to try "New Life Spectrum Small Fish Formula" for my school of 20 Emerald Eyed Rasbora [recommended by the breeder].

Thanks,
Fig


----------



## medicineman (Sep 10, 2005)

Perhaps I'm the stingiest of all









I fed the tank inhabitants with koi pellet.









Hikari HI grow, Nozomi, Izeki or other koi brand pellets will do just fine. They contain fibre, krill, fish meal, fat, all kinds of vegetable matter, spirulinna, b-karoten and all colour enhancing things. I just crush em up with a stumper to fit the tank inhabitant bite size. All neon tetras, corydoras, singodentis, glass shrimps, guinea rainbow and guppies are feeding well and love it. They look fine and grow up too. What could be better than utilizing my ready at disposal koi food?









I just take a bottle cap, pour 5-10 mL water into it and take two spatula full of crushed koi food and mix em and spread it into the tank. The particles sink slowly and eventually settles in 10-15 seconds. Every thing are able to get a meal just fine.

OK... it has been 2-3 months they are eating that stuff. I'm getting some treat of frozen blood worm tomorow as a boost.


----------



## eggplant.com.sg (Sep 20, 2005)

I feed my fish (cardinals and rams) mostly flakes. I like seeing the rams take in the big pieces and then spit it out into tiny crumbs for the cardinals to then feed on.

I tried feeding them freeze dried worms because someone told me its good for their digestive system but none of them seem to want to eat it. 

Even my goldfish in a separate tank don't particularly like them so I give my goldfish small pellets.


----------



## Jane of Upton (Jul 28, 2005)

Well, I voted live food, because it IS my favorite - this past summer, when I was regularly feeding live black worms, mosquito larvae (bucket-raised, not wild-caught) and brine shrimp, everyone was very happy. Courting, spawning.... it was great. 

That said, I cannot afford live food constantly, so its a treat every few weeks. 

I think variety is important, so I have flake, granules, freeze-dried (daphnia and bloodworms), a couple types of pellets, and feed some veggies whenever I get the notion. 

I really like to read the ingredients - and I'm amazed at how many fish foods include a bevy of artifical colors. Obviously, these are put in there for our benefit, not the fishes. 

Its kind of mindboggling, all the choices. Not to mention the range of expense one can go to - it really makes me wonder how much is marketing hype (probably a sizable portion) and how much is actual nutrition know-how.

Years ago, when I was first in the hobby, Hikari was the "new" kid on the market. It was WAY more expensive than other brands, but there was a certain cache to feeding it. Now, I think its image is still high quality, but it is one of the mainstream brands. 

I've been known to experiment, too. I found that back when I had bronze corys, they seemed to like a crushed garbonzo bean on occasion with their veggies, although they never ate the outer "shell", so I'd have to retrieve it later. I tried it again recently, and the loaches just kicked it around like a deflated soccer ball. The snails made a few passes at it, but I ended up removing it. 

I'm always fascinated with what the fish, shrimp and snails do or don't like.
-Jane


----------



## DataGuru (Mar 11, 2005)

My main problem with commercial pellets or flaked food is they contain grains that tend to cause gas problems for fancy goldfish. They use heat treated grains because they are a cheaper source of protein. If you'll read the ingredients, you'll also note they do ingredient splitting (e.g. corn gluten, corn middlings, etc), so they can list the fish protein as the first ingredient when it's not really the largest component of the food. they're also typically low fiber, and that may be good for keeping the amount of poop down, but I'm not convinced it's good for the fish. LOL

Mazuri makes an aquatic gel powder that's fairly high protein, and is just fish meal, spirulina, fish oil, vitamins and gelatine. I like to mix it into my homemade gel food and feed the powder to my livebearers. it's great for fry.

In the morning, I feed everyone homemade gel food. At nite, I usually feed flakes to everyone except the goldfish, They get fresh food (e.g. shrimp, oysters, peas, green beans, squash, spinach, greens, etc) or gel food. Occasionally everyone gets live food (daphnia, redworms, meal worms, whiteworms, grindals, fruit flies, snails, etc). My bettas are spoiled. they get live daphnia every day. Oranges or kiwi are also a good high vitamin C snack.


----------

