There are many fish foods and it's often heavily debated what to feed your fish, here is my take on them
1. Live Foods
Live foods come in many forms, from mosquito larvae and blood worms, to crayfish and shrimp, to guppies to crickets. I believe live foods are the best for fish IF you are able to provide the live food SAFELY and CONSISTENTLY. What do I mean by this? If you can provide healthy feeders to your fish consistently and are willing to do this then I believe it is the best method of feeding your fish because it is as natural as it gets. It sounds great, but it is very hard to supply constant live healthy food for your fish. Goldfish are popular as feeders, but they are very fatty and contain a lot of thiaminase, thiaminase breaks down thiamine (vitamin B1), thiamine helps the body metabolise energy, so by using goldfish the fish loses thiamine and the ability to metabolise energy and the fish becomes fat. For this reason, I recommend using guppies as live feeders, they breed prolifically and are low in fat. When you use live feeders, it is best recommended to breed them on your own because store bought ones are often diseased and unhealthy, but if you are unable to do this then you should quarantine them for 2 weeks if you're medicating them or 4-6 weeks if you are not medicating them. Once the quarantine time is up, you should gutload your feeders, to do this you feed them something very nutritious, some people even go as far as to use a syringe to force feed the fish even more food. Blood worms, brine shrimp, vitamin enriched food, mysis, and other nutritious items are great for gutloading feeder fish. Once this is done, you can then feed them to your fish. Disease is mainly in fish and in my experience not a problem with crickets, worms, shrimp, and other live feeders, but it is still recommended you do the same thing, but gutloading them is more difficult. For worms, you can use some vitamin enriched food and inject it into them, for crickets, you can feed them a store bought food, for shrimp, simple algae wafers work fine. To summarize
Pros: very nutritious when done properly, as natural as it gets for fish, entertaining to the owner (sometimes)
Cons: very time consuming to raise them properly so disease and malnourishment is a big risk, certain feeders (mainly crayfish) can harm the fish, can get expensive
2. Frozen Foods
Frozen foods are the next best thing to live foods in my opinion. Frozen foods are the frozen equivalent of live foods. Frozen foods include brine shrimp, mysis, clam on a half shell, blood worms, daphnia, krill, shrimp, and silversides just to name a few. Frozen foods are often gutloaded so that makes it even easier on you, unlike with live foods you don't need to breed them on your own, gutload them, medicate them, wait for them to reach adult hood, or anything like that, you just store it in your freezer and pop out a cube or break off a chunk when you want to feed your fish and you thaw it out and you're done.
Pros: just as good nutrition wise as live foods, more convenient, safer than live foods, even very picky fish will eat it
Cons: still needs to be frozen (not a big deal, unless you're wife or parents are upset over you having frozen food in the freezer), needs to be thawed out
3. Dry Foods
Dry foods are the most common and most convenient types of foods there are, I will split them up by type
3a. Freeze Dried Foods are freeze dried live food like blood worms, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex worms, or krill.
Pros: don't need special storage, just as nutritious as live feeders
Cons: fish may not be as interested in them as frozen food
3b. Pellets/Flakes are made up of ground up food items and made into pellets, sticks, flakes, wafers, and other shapes to feed your fish. The ingredients are often fish meal (dried ground up fish), wheat meal (coarsely ground wheat), shrimp meal (dried ground up shrimp), dried yeast, spirulina, and several other things.
Pros: very easy to find, don't need special storage, cheap
Cons: usually quite processed, some fish won't eat it, pollutes the water a lot more (in my experience atleast)
4. Gelatin Foods this concept may sound bizarre, but it's really good. Repashy Super Foods have made a gel like food that is just like making Jell-O, but for fish. You mix a powder with boiling water and can put it on decorations for fish to graze on, it may sound weird but it works very well, I used Repashy Morning Wood for my plecos, I use a potato peeler and slice off a piece from some that I made and my plecos love it.
Pros: Keeps it's shape and will last hours in your aquarium, lets fish graze like they would in the wild, lasts a few weeks at room temperature, a few months in the refrigerator and lasts months in the freezer (when already made, the powder lasts a few years)
Cons: some fish may not like it, not overly convenient
What food should you choose?
If you can raise live feeders, gutload them, make sure they are healthy, and consistently provide them to your fish then these would be your best bet (in my opinion).
If you want something very nutritious and close to live foods but don't want to go through all the work, frozen food is the way to go for you.
If you want something very nutritious and somewhat close to live foods, freeze dried is the way to go.
If you want something cheap and easy to get a hold of and you know how to make good decisions based on the ingredients list, then pellets and flakes are for you.
If you want something that gives the fish the ability to eat whenever they want, that's nutritious, and that will last awhile in the water, then gel foods are the food for you.
Thank you for reading, if you have any topics you want me to cover let me know and I will check them out and consider making a post on them. If you have any questions please let me know
1. Live Foods
Live foods come in many forms, from mosquito larvae and blood worms, to crayfish and shrimp, to guppies to crickets. I believe live foods are the best for fish IF you are able to provide the live food SAFELY and CONSISTENTLY. What do I mean by this? If you can provide healthy feeders to your fish consistently and are willing to do this then I believe it is the best method of feeding your fish because it is as natural as it gets. It sounds great, but it is very hard to supply constant live healthy food for your fish. Goldfish are popular as feeders, but they are very fatty and contain a lot of thiaminase, thiaminase breaks down thiamine (vitamin B1), thiamine helps the body metabolise energy, so by using goldfish the fish loses thiamine and the ability to metabolise energy and the fish becomes fat. For this reason, I recommend using guppies as live feeders, they breed prolifically and are low in fat. When you use live feeders, it is best recommended to breed them on your own because store bought ones are often diseased and unhealthy, but if you are unable to do this then you should quarantine them for 2 weeks if you're medicating them or 4-6 weeks if you are not medicating them. Once the quarantine time is up, you should gutload your feeders, to do this you feed them something very nutritious, some people even go as far as to use a syringe to force feed the fish even more food. Blood worms, brine shrimp, vitamin enriched food, mysis, and other nutritious items are great for gutloading feeder fish. Once this is done, you can then feed them to your fish. Disease is mainly in fish and in my experience not a problem with crickets, worms, shrimp, and other live feeders, but it is still recommended you do the same thing, but gutloading them is more difficult. For worms, you can use some vitamin enriched food and inject it into them, for crickets, you can feed them a store bought food, for shrimp, simple algae wafers work fine. To summarize
Pros: very nutritious when done properly, as natural as it gets for fish, entertaining to the owner (sometimes)
Cons: very time consuming to raise them properly so disease and malnourishment is a big risk, certain feeders (mainly crayfish) can harm the fish, can get expensive
2. Frozen Foods
Frozen foods are the next best thing to live foods in my opinion. Frozen foods are the frozen equivalent of live foods. Frozen foods include brine shrimp, mysis, clam on a half shell, blood worms, daphnia, krill, shrimp, and silversides just to name a few. Frozen foods are often gutloaded so that makes it even easier on you, unlike with live foods you don't need to breed them on your own, gutload them, medicate them, wait for them to reach adult hood, or anything like that, you just store it in your freezer and pop out a cube or break off a chunk when you want to feed your fish and you thaw it out and you're done.
Pros: just as good nutrition wise as live foods, more convenient, safer than live foods, even very picky fish will eat it
Cons: still needs to be frozen (not a big deal, unless you're wife or parents are upset over you having frozen food in the freezer), needs to be thawed out
3. Dry Foods
Dry foods are the most common and most convenient types of foods there are, I will split them up by type
3a. Freeze Dried Foods are freeze dried live food like blood worms, brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex worms, or krill.
Pros: don't need special storage, just as nutritious as live feeders
Cons: fish may not be as interested in them as frozen food
3b. Pellets/Flakes are made up of ground up food items and made into pellets, sticks, flakes, wafers, and other shapes to feed your fish. The ingredients are often fish meal (dried ground up fish), wheat meal (coarsely ground wheat), shrimp meal (dried ground up shrimp), dried yeast, spirulina, and several other things.
Pros: very easy to find, don't need special storage, cheap
Cons: usually quite processed, some fish won't eat it, pollutes the water a lot more (in my experience atleast)
4. Gelatin Foods this concept may sound bizarre, but it's really good. Repashy Super Foods have made a gel like food that is just like making Jell-O, but for fish. You mix a powder with boiling water and can put it on decorations for fish to graze on, it may sound weird but it works very well, I used Repashy Morning Wood for my plecos, I use a potato peeler and slice off a piece from some that I made and my plecos love it.
Pros: Keeps it's shape and will last hours in your aquarium, lets fish graze like they would in the wild, lasts a few weeks at room temperature, a few months in the refrigerator and lasts months in the freezer (when already made, the powder lasts a few years)
Cons: some fish may not like it, not overly convenient
What food should you choose?
If you can raise live feeders, gutload them, make sure they are healthy, and consistently provide them to your fish then these would be your best bet (in my opinion).
If you want something very nutritious and close to live foods but don't want to go through all the work, frozen food is the way to go for you.
If you want something very nutritious and somewhat close to live foods, freeze dried is the way to go.
If you want something cheap and easy to get a hold of and you know how to make good decisions based on the ingredients list, then pellets and flakes are for you.
If you want something that gives the fish the ability to eat whenever they want, that's nutritious, and that will last awhile in the water, then gel foods are the food for you.
Thank you for reading, if you have any topics you want me to cover let me know and I will check them out and consider making a post on them. If you have any questions please let me know
