[Neil D]

Hey all,

Seeing as I will be getting my new fish this Friday, I think it's high time to consider food. I plan on cardinal tetras and tentatively thinking pearl gourami. I already have frozen bloodworms as well as freeze dried blood worms (to spoil my bettas). What types of staple pellet foods do you all recommend?

Thanks in advance!

 

[jentralala]

New Life Spectrum, Regular formula for your Gourami, and Small Fish formula for your cardinals. They could probably eat the regular formula, if cost is an issue.

Omega One also has good quality food that's a bit cheaper than NLS.

 

[Neil D]

Thanks for the options!

 

[jaysee]

NLS thera A. It's been 4 years since my fish have eaten anything else. The 1 mm size will be fine, but if you wanted to get the 0.5 mm you could feed both. That's what I do in the 125 - feed both 2 mm for the larger fish and 1 mm for the smaller.

 

[Neil D]

PetCo carries NLS Thera A. I think I'll go with that.

Are gourami and tetras good with frozen BW too?

 

[jaysee]

My fish eat the Thera A like they are blood worms - splashing water out of the tank they hit the surface so hard. Can you still feed them frozen foods? Sure, if you want to.

 

[AbbeysDad]

A lot of fish foods have the primary ingredient of fishmeal. For some, the primary ingredient is wheat! Not all fishmeal is created equally. Some is the waste product of fish processing plants and/or is the 'off grade' fish that could not be used for human consumption. Fishmeal is typically ground, dried, loaded with preservative and sits in a warehouse until an order comes from a fish food manufacturer. Because it is dried, fishmeal then requires copious amounts of starch (often wheat, oat, rice flour or gluten) as a binder and filler to increase the crude protein analysis.

The very best fish foods are made from fresh whole fish and kelp. Omega One (there are others) is one of these as they use whole Atlantic salmon, cod, herring...as the main ingredients. NLS is a close second as they use fishmeal, but it's fishmeal from whole herring and krill.

Buyer beware. Read the labels.

Note: when I switched to fish foods with less wheat binder/filler, my fish produce far less waste and are more vigorous with better coloring. I suspect more healthy as well.

 

[Neil D]

That was very informative, thanks! I'll definitely look into Omega then. Thanks again!

 

[Sanguinefox]

Blood worms are something a lot of fish absolutely adorable. Do be careful with it though because on smaller fish and bettas, it is very easy for them to gorge. Once they do they can literally kill themselves because they can't pass what they ate.

 

[fish monger]

You can't go wrong with the advice already given. I use various food textures in my tanks...Omega flakes for top and middle feeders, NLS pellets for bottom and universal feeders, and Omega veggie rounds in tanks with fish that require more vegetable matter. As Sanguinefox stated, do be careful with the bloodworms and other frozen foods. It's hard to beat the nutritional value of the quality staple foods out there today. I use the frozen foods as a very occasional treat.

 

[Neil D]

I give my bettas frozen BW once a week, usually once a month (because I get lazy)

But with even more tropical fish, I'm hoping once every two weeks would work. Thanks guys!

What have you heard about live feeding brine shrimp?

 

[AbbeysDad]

Live and frozen foods can be great in balanced amounts. They are best if used more as treats. chopped worms (redworms/nightcrawlers), insect larvae...
The only issue is that many of these are high in fat, but low in protein so should be fed sparingly. Fish love them and kids love candy, but it's not a good steady diet.
I often feed my fish frozen brine shrimp after the weekly water change as a treat.
(and I have some angel fry that I'm feeding frozen baby brine shrimp).

I give my bettas frozen BW once a week, usually once a month (because I get lazy)

But with even more tropical fish, I'm hoping once every two weeks would work. Thanks guys!

What have you heard about live feeding brine shrimp?

 

[fish monger]

Live baby brine shrimp are an excellent treat and very nutritious. They are often used as a first fry food and to encourage spawning in some species. The most difficult part in hatching brine shrimp eggs for me, is keeping the hatchery at a high enough temperature. There are hatcheries that are actually placed inside the aquarium. That takes care of the temperature issue; however, they are so small that the number of shrimp produced at one time is fairly low. I'm sure our members have some very good recipes. If you want to raise the brine shrimp to adult size, well, then you're almost getting into another type of tank.

 

[Byron]

As has been said, live and frozen foods should always be considered "treats" and not fed regularly.
Once a week or at most twice is all that bloodworms should be fed. Frozen daphnia is a good frozen food too, better (more nutrition) than shrimp. I personally wouldn't waste time and effort on live shrimp unless when raising fry, as the nutritional value is almost nil except in newly hatched brine shrimp.

And on the topic of nutrition, there is good nutrition in most prepared foods, esp if you stay with NLS and Omega One. If fish will eat these--and most will--they will have a better diet than any frozen or even live foods unless you are able to culture various insect larvae.

I have found most smallish fish like cardinals to be better with the micro pellet NLS food. My cardinals gobble this up, but fuss over the larger size. And larger fish will readily eat the micro; my Congo Tetra are so fast at grabbing these micro pellets as they sink that none reach the bottom.

Byron.