Feeding Schedule -- Too Much Frozen?

[Silhouette]

I love doing research, every day I'm always looking up new articles or watching new youtube videos on fish keeping. Through my research I've found that a mix of different food varieties is best for fish, and needless to say I've... Gotten a bit carried away. I probably have more fun buying new food than my fish enjoy eating it lol. Anyway I've created myself a feeding schedule that incorporates all the different types of food I've bought. My issue is, there always seems to be a big debate between frozen food either being best for your fish (after live of course), or being something that should only be a treat for your fish. So for those of you that are better with fish nutrition than me, any opinions on my feeding schedule below? I want to make sure I'm not feeding too much frozen. I feed twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening, and it's the same food per day, but I'm wondering if I should switch it a bit so it's frozen in the morning and a commercial food in the evening?

For reference: I have a community tank with red neon rainbow fish, ember tetras, and corydoras, and another solo tank with a betta fish. I feed them all on the same schedule, except for the betta that has Monday as a fast day.

Monday
Frozen Daphnia
Omega One Veggie Round (for the corys specifically)

Tuesday
Fluval Bug Bites

Wednesday
Frozen Tubifex Worms

Thursday
Frozen Mysis Shrimp

Friday
Northfin Pellets
Omega One Shrimp Pellets (just one, for the corys)

Saturday
Fluval Bug Bites

Sunday
Frozen Brine Shrimp

[ange]

I think that the argument against frozen is largely directed at people who exclusively feed bloodworms, which aren't a complete diet. The best food for fish is the one that they'll eat, followed by the ones that help their environment to stay clean. Frozen foods are both enticing and relatively easy to tidy up which is part of why they're so awesome.

The way that I personally look (from the perspective of a hobbyist, I only have nutritional training with regard to canines and felines) at the different diets available is what their needs are from a behavioral and nutritional perspective. A few examples:

• Most fish prefer to eat at mid-water and food that goes to the bottom too quickly is often wasted. Foods that sink slowly are less likely to create waste because there is more time before the fish lose interest.
  • Another option (as most foods sink) if your schedule allows it is to feed less food per session but feeding more often. This is the real beauty of automatic feeders in my opinion.
• Fiber is pretty critical to fish, or at least the ones that I've kept. Parasites are extremely common and even in established tanks I find it easier to monitor for changes if I know that my fish are having regular movements and consistent quality of movements. Feeding things with tough exoskeletons like brine shrimp are amazing when it comes to getting fiber to carnivores. The old advice was to give them peas or blanched vegetables but this is far more palatable and also better for them nutritionally. I prefer San Francisco Bay brand for adult brine, as some of my fish are too large to go for the frozen baby brine that I preserve from hatches. Daphnia is another great example and you have both in your kit.
  • For herbivorous fish, spirulina and even dried duckweed are fantastic alternatives. I'm a DIYer so my favorite veggie diet is Repashy "Soilent Green" blended with dried duckweed. For my midwater feeding herbivores I attach it to a suction cup so that the food doesn't immediately sink and get wasted. Most of the fish that you've mentioned are omnivorous so this isn't necessary but I mostly mention this since you seem to enjoy the process of figuring out what works and what doesn't.
• Mysis shrimp are one of my favorite frozen foods next to cyclops. I don't have much to say other than that my fish love them and there is very little waste. Cyclops are what I feed to fish who tend to make a mess with frozen brine shrimp.
• Bug Bites is one of my favorite community foods. It doesn't feed as cleanly as Hikari formulations from my experience but it has a great price point and it has broad use cases.

I've avoided speaking about the Northfin/Omega One diets and tubifex worms that you listed because I don't feed them to my fish. Regarding the commercial diets, I have at least one tank that has a significant amount of waste in the formulations that I've tried. Omega One in particular has given me a lot of issues with water quality because the formulations that I tried weren't palatable to my fish. All of my bottom feeders get various Repashy diets and it's by far my favorite sinking food. Just about everything else is a food that I either currently feed regularly or occasionally feed.

The main difference between our habits are that I tend to feed vinegar eels or baby brine daily (sparkling gouramis) alongside a commercial diet for nano carnivores (either bug bites, powdered Xtreme krill flakes, or ACO easy fry food). I used to feed microworms but phased out because it really negatively impacted my water quality long term and none of the fish that I breed get separated from their main tank. When I go for frozen foods it's either Hikari blood worms or mysis shrimp for my larger fish. I don't feed frozen to my nano fish because of the availability of live foods that they'll readily eat. I end up wasting a lot of food and ultimately dirtying the water when I give frozen to those tanks because most of the food is too large for them to be interested in.

Thanks for giving me an excuse to geek out about food. I'll see myself out now 👋

Edited March 29, 2022 by ange
clarifying a few points that were phrased ambiguously