Hi MFK members, I have a question: is it ok to feed a variety of freeze dried foods exclusively? What I am considering is crickets, grasshoppers, mealworms, river shrimp, krill, tubifex, bloodworms & brine shrimp. I work at a pet store and can get a really good discount but I don't trust feeding goldfish (because of all the bad press). My fish are mainly juvi CA/SA cichlids with a few cats and bichirs. Thanks for any help, I just don't trust the big companies with all of the chemicals that go into fish foods. BTW I do sometime include homegrown veggies for my pleco and some foods from the seafood section at the grocery store.
Feeding freeze dried only
- Thread starter Brazzen1
- Start date
While freeze dried is generally more nutritionally dense than frozen so from that respect it not too bad (I wouldn't use tubaflex). I would feed a high quality pellet such as NLS as the staple and then you can supplement with freeze dried foods. That's how I would do it. Also you should soake the food in some tank water as opposed to feeding a steady diet of just dry food. I always soak freeze dired krill before feeding as an example.
Ok, but what kind is best for color and could I use marine tablets or should I just stick with FW? Thanks
As a staple pellet I like NLS Cichlid Formula or Thera A+ sized appropreatly for the fish you are feeding. As far as any supplemental food sources go for color krill is hard to beat.
Cool, is there a difference (besides the size) of the thera+A or the large fish formula? My cichlids are only around 3"-4" but one is a managuense with a big mouth.
Thera A+ contains a higher inclusion rate of garlic. Otherwise basicly the same thing. You should be good with 1 to 2MM pellets at that size NLS is nutritionaly dense food so the pellet doesn't need to be large. Of course as the fish grow you can use increasingly larger pellets. One mistake I see frequently is people using pellets too large for the fish.
I think I'll try the Thera A, could I still feed my fd for variety? Right now I'm mixing it up with 3 feedings a day. Thanks to your advise I'm thinking 1 NLS feeding in the morning and 2 fd later in the day, or should I do something different?
You could still feed a varity if you like it just wouln't be necessary but isn't going to hurt. You could feed two NLS and one freeze dried or visa versa. I would go 2 NLS 1 FD but either way you'll be fine. GL
+1, except I don't pre-soak anything, but otherwise that's an approach to ensuring solid nutrition that takes the guesswork out of it imo.
One approach I experimented with temporarily was using the pellet as a supplement, while feeding primarily freeze dried mysis. Was kind of a special case, not what I normally do, but something I may experiment a little more with again at some point. Here's an example why imo mysis is a better candidate as a freeze dried staple than some of those you mention above (scroll down to "Mysids as Food"). Some have fed fish in the seahorse family, which are difficult to feed and keep alive, on a mysis diet. Still, don't think I'd personally take the leap of altogether eliminating a good quality pellet as part of the diet for my fish. Even with my plecos, I like to include an NLS wafer once a week or so to help ensure good nutrition.
To each their own, so that's just me.