golden pearls are good small frys.
here in philly, I get frozen shrimp 34/40 in 5lbs for $18 so its not bad compared to the imported pellet. frozen shrimps are good for color and protein and they are natural.
I have tried grandsumo, haifeng, and the old chingmix as a test to see if there was any difference in term of color and head growth.
grandsumo is good at building up bulk of the fish and as far as chingmix, I did not notice and difference. Haifeng is good for color but I would not feed them regularly to my fish because I don't know what is in it that makes my fish so red. You will notice a big difference in color. I experimented on several fish. I gave my waterhead fh the cheap goldfish pellet and the head still comes up.
In the end, its all up to you. I am just stating what I have noticed from what I have done in the past.