Healthiest Food for Fish

[Fish Tank Travis]

Ok, this may have been covered a bit in the past, but I would like to get some new and updated information on the subject.

What I'm looking for are the pros and cons of each type of fish food and what is the healthiest type of food. I'm not looking for what willgrow out the biggest and beefiest fish, but rather what will give the best overall health. So, the list of types I can come up with is as follows:

Frozen
Freeze Dried
Pellet/Flake
Live Fish
Other Live (worms, insects...etc.)
Produce

So, what do you all think?

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

I will start out with my current stock of foods. I have frozen krill, cut up shrimp, bloodworms, beef heart, and mysis shrimp. I also have live red wigglers, wax worms and meal worms. Lastly, I have shrimp pellets, Hikari carnivore pellets and tropical flakes (for my son's glofish tank).

All of these are eaten pretty well by my fish. Of course, the carnivore pellets (smaller size of massivore) are the richest in protein by far, but does that actually make them healthier than more natural foods, such as the live worms or frozen shrimp, worms and beef heart?

 

[Hendre]

Pellets are generally the most well rounded option, especially big brands like NLS.

RD. is an expert on this

 

[kewpiefishypewpie]

I've been an NLS man for a while now and stay away from Paradigm and a couple others. Too much fiber content.

 

[xraycer]

This topic always pop up 2-3 times a year and will half the time ends in heated verbal fisticuffs lol

With that said, I feed NLS 95% of the time and occasionally treat with live/frozen, except for my giant gourami who mostly get greens and fruits, with pellets twice a week

 

[Yoimbrian]

A) depends on fish.
B) Variety is key.

 

[PYRU]

http://www.tfhmagazine.com/aquarium-basics/foods--feeding.htm
That was a quick search.

This isn't spoon fed type of question. It's really on a fish by fish basis. A pellet is by far the easiest and has the most pros vs cons. If you have a fish that will eat pellets.

If you don't feel like googling I can write a report on each type of food listed for a slight fee

 

[Beetlebug515]

Fish Tank Travis , it seems your diets is protein focused. I'm assuming you're stocking a bunch of predators? The protein rich carnivore pellets you mentioned aren't any more healthy than frozen or fresh meats, they are just more nutirent dense. As stated above, variety is key. In my opinion, in order to keep good variety fresh and frozen foods should be more than an occasional treat. I try to feed a 50/50 mix of pellets and fresh or frozen foods. Pellets are always New life spectrum, frozen foods consist of shrimp, krill, mysis, redworms, tilapia, and bloodworms. Herbivores get romaine, zucchini, peas, broccoli, and many trimmings from my planted tanks. When looking at any dry food, be sure to look at the ingredient list and avoid excessive amounts of fillers and terrestrial products. Comparing the ingredient lists of NLS and hikari foods, NLS is way better.

 

[Fish Tank Travis]

Than

Fish Tank Travis , it seems your diets is protein focused. I'm assuming you're stocking a bunch of predators? The protein rich carnivore pellets you mentioned aren't any more healthy than frozen or fresh meats, they are just more nutirent dense. As stated above, variety is key. In my opinion, in order to keep good variety fresh and frozen foods should be more than an occasional treat. I try to feed a 50/50 mix of pellets and fresh or frozen foods. Pellets are always New life spectrum, frozen foods consist of shrimp, krill, mysis, redworms, tilapia, and bloodworms. Herbivores get romaine, zucchini, peas, broccoli, and many trimmings from my planted tanks. When looking at any dry food, be sure to look at the ingredient list and avoid excessive amounts of fillers and terrestrial products. Comparing the ingredient lists of NLS and hikari foods, NLS is way better.

Thank you. This is pretty much the approach I have been taking. Basically just mixing it up, but not on any particular schedule.

 

[pacu mom]

Ok, this may have been covered a bit in the past, but I would like to get some new and updated information on the subject.

What I'm looking for are the pros and cons of each type of fish food and what is the healthiest type of food. I'm not looking for what willgrow out the biggest and beefiest fish, but rather what will give the best overall health. So, the list of types I can come up with is as follows:

Frozen
Freeze Dried
Pellet/Flake
Live Fish
Other Live (worms, insects...etc.)
Produce

So, what do you all think?

Depends on if your fish are omnivores or carnivores.

For pacu, I would nix the produce. It's lots of fun to feed and watch my fish gnawing on whole carrots and slices of potato, however, the water gets full of chunks of food. They inhale almonds without chewing. I stopped giving them produce because water quality becomes an issue. Once I gave them unlimited quanitities of watermelon and ended up with a slight ammonia reading. For me, it is not worth feeding them stuff that directly impacts water quality. I don't use floating food either. Hate when the floating food enters the overflow box. My big guys are on a strict diet of algae wafers. For me, doing an additional water change to compensate for a couple minutes of entertainment watching them eat is not worth it, even though water changes are easy to do.

Here is old video of my pacu eating potatoe slices. Very fun to watch, but look at the chunks of food in the water