food for thought

[esoxlucius]

I try and give my fish a very varied diet. At first it was mainly pellet and a little fruit and veg as occasional treats but nowadays it's mainly fruit and veg with a small scattering of pellet. One very noticeable downside of this shift in balance is the fact that my filters nowadays get clogged a lot quicker with indigestable fibrous matter (for want of a better description). I don't mean uneaten fruit and veg that the fish miss because they eat it all. It seems the fruit and veg that the fish eat just goes right through them and my filters are picking all this gunk up.

The burning question for me now is, what benefits are there to feeding fish fruit and veg when, lets face it, most have little or no nutritional value to the fish compared to pellets which are packed with everything the fish need. I'm thinking of going back to pellet only which i know will benefit my filters for one and give my fish more of the real nutrients they require. I will probably still feed fruit and veg but only very occasionally. At the moment i'd say i feed 75% fruit and veg with 25% pellet. What would you guys say is the best balance?

 

[Swoll929]

Obviously it all depends on the fish you keep, but i say no issues with 100% high quality pellet. The key is quality and what you prefer.

With that said i do feed a lot of frozen blood worms and live black worms currently to my predator tank purely because i like watching the way they react and how fat they make themselves. On the other end my communtiy tank gets only flake and bottom feeder pellets. Both tanks are thriving and the communtiy tank is full of babies born in the tank. In the end i say do whatever is easiest for you and just keep an eye on yoyr fish they will let you know if its not working.

 

[Swoll929]

Also as im sure you know, poor water quality can have equal or worse effects on your fishes health so if you are confident that what you are doing now is causing you to fall behind on filter maintenance it may be worth changing.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

I was mainly feed my trigger (saltwater) pellets when they are young and frozen marine foods, everything went really well until they are much larger and required larger pellet food size then now it's the mess here. They are Triggerfish so they love to grind their food and pellets become a bloody mess at feeding time and made water quality down really fast. Most clean up crew I tried all become food LOL. So, now I used mainly market prawns and soak in Liquid Vitamin overnight then feed my trigger.

 

[jmf]

Totally depends on the fish being kept.

 

[fuzzlebug]

The reason you would feed fish fruit and veg is to give them a little top up of vitamins and minerals that pellets sometimes lack, but a good high quality pellet has a good variety of nutrients. Don't dismiss fruit and veg, just feed the correct ones, I.e blanched broccoli, sea weed , algae, shelled peas.

 

[Drstrangelove]

What would you guys say is the best balance?

I gave my plecos blanched spinach, kale, cucumber, because I couldn't provide algae. I gave my other fish pellets, earth worms, crickets, and shrimp.

Not many fish evolved eating fruit although some in the aquarium trade did.

What is "best" depends on the fish and of course what the fish will eat in captivity and what we can provide may limit that further. I never cared about the effects on my filter or my tank. If I did I would have had a lot fewer fish.