Best live food!

[snapcrackler]

I am looking for Live food ideas for general SW fish and shrimp population, so that I could mostly eliminate flake food. Besides the fish and hermits and snails, make that just one shrimp in the genpop, that would be a very hungry banded coral that races around to get flakes. I know I need to be feeding them some live or at least frozen stuff. 55SW only 3 months old (my first SW) 8)

 

[possum]

I only feed flake except to the eel and ive never had a problem

 

[jamal-188]

I'm pretty sure flakes would be much better nutritionally than live food for the fish.

 

[birman]

I feed my fishes and invertebrates with a mixture of cyclopeze, flakes, mysid shrimp, brine shrimp with garlic extract. They love it

 

[scuba_steve]

how would you like to eat frosted flakes every day all day??? the more variety the better bottom line imo

 

[BillyZ]

variety is not only good for psychological reasons, but biological as well. no single food is 100% nutritious, IMO. Feed a variety of types of food. flakes, greens and fresh. Some folks do this all at once by making a blender mush that contains different types of foods.

 

[snapcrackler]

I am going to make some blender mush and freeze it in flat sandwich bags, I am thinking fresh shrimp, fresh filet of fish, broccoli, squid, zooplankton?

Who has a really great blender mush recipe?

Thank you all for your input.

 

[wseaton]

Live brine/mysis shrimp have to be about as good as it gets for most species of fish.

In terms of frozen food, SF brand frozen brine shrimp followed by mysis seem to be the ones I'm having the best luck with along with the trusty beef heart brick. Another good one are the frozen dwarf angel meals, which my crew has learned to devour along with my dwarf angels.

I've had moderate luck with ZooPlankton, but not as good as many of the frozen foods. My bunch will spit out Prime-Reef. Too good for them I guess, or they saw the price tag on the pack and then decided to be fincky about it. They like 'fast food'.

I've never had any luck with any dry food for marine with the exception of the premium and better freeze dried frozen brine shimp foods like SF's, which I strongly recommend. My fish won't even look at flake, but they'll pursue the freeze dried brine shrimp provided I don't make it a constant menu item.

I feed a variety at mealtime by shaving off slices of variuos frozen foods with a razor blade, and dumping it into my back filter. Seems to work better and induces more ravenous feeding than one food at a time.

 

[jamal-188]

Yeah, I realized how dumb my comment about flakes was after I posted it. Some of my fish are just very picky and it seems whenever I try anything other than what they are used to they just let it sink to the bottom. I guess I need to try and do a blender recipe and see how it turns out. When you put it in the tank doesn't it just dissolve everywhere? Do you need to keep it in pretty big chunks or what?

I've been trying to get my copperband and yellow tang to eat anything but not having much luck after almost a week of having them

 

[BillyZ]

here's a great thread on Blender Mush and a few recipes I believe.

I think most here like ReefLady's Recipe the most.

 

[BillyZ]

Jamal - Fish can be very picky, especialy when they are first introduced to a tank. They can often take a week or so to start eating. Many recommend insisting your LFS feed them while you are there to see the fish you're buying eat so you know it is at least eating when you get it.

 

[HoopsGuru]

I am thinking fresh shrimp, fresh filet of fish, broccoli, squid, zooplankton?

As a general rule, terrestrial plants should not be fed to marine livestock and vice versa. I would replace the broccoli with nori or some other form of marine algae.