the "best" fish food (?)

[coolchinchilla]

What is the "best" way to feed fish? We all seem to "know" what's "best" for our fish. I've seen a plethora of advice on what to feed fish much of which is contradictory. Some of us use a single brand of food exclusively such as NLS or Omega One. Others of us offer our fish a variety of food such that it becomes a weekly buffet of several staple flakes, vegie flakes, frozen peas, freeze dried krill, frozen blood worms and live brine shrimp. Other aquarists yet swear by their own home-made fish food.

I find it interesting that we become quite attached to a particular fish food or foods... For example, I went to a fish store and the clerk asked what I was feeding my goldfish and I told him New Life Spectrum. He had never heard of it and when I asured him that it was an excellent quality food he didn't believe me. The clerk told me to just feed Omega One and it has all the vitamins in it for my goldfish.

Just out of curiosity, what do you feed your fish and why? I think a healthy discussion would be helpful. I've been baffled myself. More than once I've felt guilty that I'm not feeding them right somehow. I know there is a broad range of fish feeding notions, so if we can respect everyone's reasoning it can be a helpful discussion. 8)

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

Well, I feed my fish omega one flakes, but I am switching to NLS because one of my swordtails swallowed a piece of bone from the Omega one and it ended up sticking halfway out of his side (see post "Bone in Omega One claims one"). I also feed occasional vegetables (they love cucumber fresh from the garden) and fry get live brine shrimp unless I'm lazy.

 

[Fishyfanatic]

All of my fish have a staple diet of New Life Spectrum. The Africans are also given vegs. I've found that NLS has greatly aided in the improved coloration in our fish.

 

[Felf]

my fish love NLS and they really do look better than when they were being fed tetra flakes

 

[igongora]

I feed mine with flakes, don;t kow the brand nor anything else, in my local pet store they sale it in transparent bags. and thats the only food I have been able to get. they don't have brine shrimo nor anything else I guess here in nicaragua is hard to find that type of foods..

 

[TwoHobbies]

I feed flake food, any brand, and I purchase different brands. (I have found no favorite)

Shrimp pellets, frozen blood worms, freeze dried blood worms, algae wafers, and frozen peas.

I try to rotate different foods during the week. The only thing I feed each day is flakes.

 

[ManiacMagoo]

I have always fed all my fish Hikari fish food. I've tried alot but my fish really liked the Hikari and it helped bring out the colors in my Jack Dempsaies alot. I also feed them peas since they love them.

 

[RoK]

NLS growth and community formulas
Freeze-dried bloodworms, brine shrimp, tubifex
Frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms
Algae wafers (NLS, Hikari, and Wardley), shrimp pellets, carnivore pellets
Hikari cichlid gold pellets
HBH veggie flake, Ken's premium spirulina flake
Peas
Tetra brand flakes and pellets occasionally

I just like giving as much variety I can.

 

[coolchinchilla]

I feed NLS to my tropicals almost exclusively. They get frozen brine shrimp and green peas maybe once a week. I was planning to feed NLS to my goldfish exclusively, but I read on the net that NLS doesn't quite have enough protien for growing goldfish. It's more suited to adult goldfish. So I've fed them frozen cocktail shrimp and frozen brine shrimp along with NLS. I recently purchased a new little lionhead goldfish still in QT and she doesn't seem to eat the NLS very well. I got her a different brand pellet. It could be that the NLS is too big for her and she'll "grow" into them. I want to buy her hilkari lionhead goldfish food, but I can't find it at a store.

I belong to a goldfish website and many people there make their own fish food (i.e., shrimp, sardines, kale, vitamin tab, frozen brocolli, plus some other foods all blended up and the binder is a couple packets of unflavored geletin). I tried making it myself but didn't have enough unflavored geletin and it stunk. I couldn't cope with it so I threw it all out.

 

[Daryth Darkmoon]

I've been using Tetra Min tropical flake, Wardley's shrimp pellets and Wardley's goldfish crumbles. I can't really say they're the best, but my fantails seem to like it and their color looks good.