Feeding fish a varied diet is important, but how?

[PYRU]

Well let me clarify. My fish that are able to take pellets I do like mentioned above. Puffers i switch it up little more, but still it's based around a staple like snails.

 

[PYRU]

Well let me clarify. My fish that are able to take pellets I do like mentioned above. Puffers i switch it up little more, but still it's based around a staple like snails.

 

[wfex4]

I have several different pellets, flakes, and frozen foods that I feed all my fish. I just feed them whatever I grab at feeding time. I probably have ten or twelve open food containers at any given time.

 

[esoxlucius]

It's easy to get a good quality pellet/flake from your LFS and you can feed your fish for life on such foods knowing that they're getting all the essentials they need. But let's just think outside the box for a moment. We're keeping our fish in glass prisons which is bad enough, and then to top it off feeding them the same boring food everyday!! No chance. My fish, especially my RTGG have literally 40 or 50 different foods i feed (not all at once i hasten to add). Yes, granted, you need your staple LFS type foods with all the good stuff in but feeding your fish lots of veggies, fruits and good old worms out of the garden as part of their overall diet is better in my view. Feeding well and water maintainance are the two most important aspects of our hobby.

 

[RD.]

Imo, there's an implicit assumption that a varied diet will be suitable simply because it's varied.

I've always found the logic behind that to be rather odd, and at times over the years rather entertaining. Most of the food fights that have taken place here and elsewhere over the years have been largely based on ignorance, and rarely science.

I'll be totally honest. I think the varied diet is bs. A quality pellet is all you need.

There's the rub, a high quality nutrient dense pellet IS a varied diet.

Krill, Squid, Fish, Spirulina, Chlorella, Kelp, Red Seaweed, etc. Fish Oil, Astaxanthin, Capsanthin, Zeaxanthin, Vitamins & Trace Minerals ......

Nutrient wise, is there something missing?

I've been asking that question for a LOT of years, and so far no one has been able to answer it. At least not intelligently. If you want to think outside the box, stop attaching some weird anthropomorphic feelings to your fish as though they are little people, they aren't. I have raised many a healthy thriving fish that without a shred of doubt ate better than they ever would have in the wild, on a single pellet formula. If they were missing anything, they were too small in brain to grasp the concept. I personally believe that a hungry fish is a healthy fish, so keep them on the hungry side and trust me they will never act bored when the food containers come out. My fish would most likely eat dried rabbit turds if I tossed them in. Go visit a commercial trout pond, catfish pond, African cichlid pond, whatever - the fish annihilate the food, and they don't get to pick dinner from a menu.

Having said that, I certainly understand that some fish cannot be pellet trained, and require fresh/frozen with vitamin supplementation - I have gone that route with certain species as well. I also feed more than one pellet formula now as the manufacturer makes too many good ones now to choose, just one.

Feeding multiple brands, or multiple foods is not wrong, nor is it necessarily better, than feeding a single foodstuff exclusively. It's all about nutrient balance, and choosing premium raw ingredients and nutrient dense foods over mediocre. 100 mediocre foods could provide less optimum nutrition, than a single high quality food.