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How Many Fish Foods Do You Have?


RyanR
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I'm curious about this, but I' wondering if most people rotate a lot of food or stick to one or two foods.   I try to feed a different food each day of the week (Sunday they don't get fed).  I like that the fish get a variety and I think it's a little more healthy for them and it helps their color, in my opinion.  Beside the vegetables that I keep in the freezer, I don't have any frozen food.  I'm about to start hatching some baby brine to see if it's a pain and how much my fish like it.  Below is what I feed, some of it is going away and some of it is for bottom feeders, so it looks like a lot.

  • Blanched zucchini and canned green beans - everyone loves these two.
  • Xtreme Krill Flakes - I love this one and will keep reordering
  • Xtreme Sinking Wafers - I'm not crazy about it because my fish don't like it
  • Fluval Bug Bites Algae Crisps - My fish like it and I like the ingredients - going to try the smaller version below
  • Fluval Bug Bites Tropical Formula (small bites) - I like this one also and so do my fish - I'll keep reordering this one.
  • Fluval Bug Bites Bottom Feeder Granules - New - Trying to see if my plecos, shrimp, snails and ottos like this.
  • Fluval Spirulina Flakes - This is new also to see if the fish like it.
  • Hikari Betta Pellets - I'm not crazy about the ingredients in this.  It will be replaced as soon as it's empty (maybe sooner)
  • Hikari Freeze Dried Blood Worms - The fish love this and will keep this in the rotation
  • Hikari Vibra Bites - Not too crazy about the ingredients, but  wanted to see what the hype was about.  This will be replaced - I'm already feeding Krill Flakes, so nothing new here to see
  • Hikari Crab Cuisine - got this for the shrimp and snails for some calcium, but will try something new (Xtreme Shrimp or Denerle)
Edited by RyanR
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Ooo, great topic! I'm a fish food hoarder because I like to try out different things and see what works best for my fish. 🙂 My favorite ones right now are probably:

  • Favorite pellet: Hikari Nano - staple part of my community tank's diet that slowly sinks to feed all levels of the tank
  • Favorite gel food: Repashy Soilent Green - normally I'd say Community Plus, but I have a lot of algae eaters and livebearers
  • Favorite fry food: live baby brine shrimp
  • Favorite frozen food: I like them all! But maybe daphnia because I have lots of nano fish and it provides roughage 
  • Favorite freeze-dried food: recently I've liked Hikari tubifex worms because they break into smaller particles for nano fish
  • Favorite random food: Hikari Crab Cuisine - increased calcium for my amano shrimp (I prefer other shrimp foods for raising baby shrimp)

My refrigerator shelf:

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My freezer shelf:

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@Irene you were the one who made me realize I wasn't too crazy...lol and to not be afraid to expand my fish food pantry.  I haven't added them to the freezer yet, but that is my next project as I get new food.

What is your biggest disappointment?  Something that you hoped\thought the fish would love, but you were let down by the results. My biggest disappointment was the Xtreme Sinking Wafers.  I had such high hopes for that food, but I love their Krill Flakes and I'm going to keep trying some of their different foods.

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1 minute ago, RyanR said:

@Irene you were the one who made me realize I wasn't too crazy...lol and to not be afraid to expand my fish food pantry.  I haven't added them to the freezer yet, but that is my next project as I get new food.

What is your biggest disappointment?  Something that you hoped\thought the fish would love, but you were let down by the results. My biggest disappointment was the Xtreme Sinking Wafers.  I had such high hopes for that food, but I love their Krill Flakes and I'm going to keep trying some of their different foods.

What fish did you have not go for the Sinking Wafers? My plecos seem to love it as do my corydoras? These went a bit better than my previous sera chips. 

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Just now, Andrew Puhr said:

@Irene do you label all of your dry foods with your purchase date? 

They're actually labeled with the "open" date. When I get a new fish food, I promptly divide it up into lots of snack-sized ziploc baggies and store them in a larger gallon-sized ziploc bag in my garage freezer (labeled with the date I packaged the food and the manufacturer's expiration date on the jar). When I open a little ziploc bag of food, I label the container with the month that I opened the little bag. I don't have a hard and fast rule for how long I keep the food before dumping it, but since I store them in the refrigerator, I usually keep them around for 3-4 months. You can see my freezer/ziploc system starting at the 8:14 mark in this video: 

 

 

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Really only the snails ate it.  I have a zebra, clown, and lemon blue eyed plecos and a few ottos (in different tanks) and none of them ate it.  I had to vacuum most of them out.  The lemon blue eye is a ravenous beast 😁 when it comes to eating...he is so much fun to watch.  He took a little while to get on one of the wafers and when he did, he was off about 10 seconds later.

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5 minutes ago, RyanR said:

@Irene you were the one who made me realize I wasn't too crazy...lol and to not be afraid to expand my fish food pantry.  I haven't added them to the freezer yet, but that is my next project as I get new food.

What is your biggest disappointment?  Something that you hoped\thought the fish would love, but you were let down by the results. My biggest disappointment was the Xtreme Sinking Wafers.  I had such high hopes for that food, but I love their Krill Flakes and I'm going to keep trying some of their different foods.

Awww, I'm so glad my food collection inspired you! My community fish didn't take to the sinking wafers either, but maybe it's because I only own nano fish and it takes a while for the wafer to get soft enough to take bites out of. I probably should've tried it out longer. It took my otocinclus almost a week to get used to Repashy Soilent Green, and now they will hardly touch the green beans and zucchini I give them because they prefer Repashy so much.

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Repashy is on my list for my bottom feeders too,  Probably the Soilent Green.  I just don't know if I want to put that much effort into feeding...lol, but it looks very healthy for them and it's a little expensive for food.

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1 hour ago, RyanR said:

Really only the snails ate it.  I have a zebra, clown, and lemon blue eyed plecos and a few ottos (in different tanks) and none of them ate it.  I had to vacuum most of them out.  The lemon blue eye is a ravenous beast 😁 when it comes to eating...he is so much fun to watch.  He took a little while to get on one of the wafers and when he did, he was off about 10 seconds later.

Huh well I have a ton of pleco fry that seem to be pretty voracious but every fish is different and maybe they are just extra hungry lol. I feed zucchini to them as well. 

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I only have guppies, shrimp, and a few CPDs, so I don't have a lot of different foods yet.

I have that Hikari fancy guppy food that I mixed with some Omega one flake and the Xtreme nano pellets that seem to come as samples in all the fish I buy online. I also have some freeze dried brine shrimp.

Oh and the sera shrimp food from the Co-Op. 

I've only been fishkeeping for the past 3 months, I'm sure my collection of foods will grow quite a bit over the coming months.

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Here goes Xtreme krill flakes, Hikari Vibra Bites and Algae Wafers, Discus pellets from Germany, Sera ONip tablets (the old yellow container} two sizes of Cobalt pellets, 2 different New Life Spectrum medicated pellets, Ocean Nutrition discus flakes, San Francisco Bay freeze dried tubifex and brine shrimp, frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, and beef heart, BBS and Aqeuon flakes (2) varieties and pellets (2 varieties) that they sent me as a mea culpa for having to have a 1/2 inch cut off one the panels of their 40 gallon breeder lids so it would fit one of their 40 gallon breeders. Some get fed to the fish more than others but they all get used.

 

Edited by Paul
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3 minutes ago, Paul said:

Here goes Xtreme krill flakes, Hikari Vibra Bites and Algae Wafers, Discus pellets from Germany, Sera ONip tablets (the old yellow container} two sizes of Cobalt pellets, 2 different New Life Spectrum medicated pellets, Ocean Nutrition discus flakes, San Francisco Bay freeze dried tubifex and brine shrimp, frozen brine shrimp, bloodworms, and beef heart, BBS and Aqeuon flakes (2) varieties and pellets (2 varieties) that they sent me as a mea culpa for having to have a 1/2 inch cut off one the panels of their 40 gallon breeder lids so it would fit one of their 40 gallon breeders. Some get feed to the fish more than others but they all get used.

 

Wow and I thought I had a lot.

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Xtreme Krill has been a hit.  Fluval Bug Bites ( the original one) and the fluval Spirulina flake also get inhaled.  Hikari Freeze dried blood worms, hikari wafers, live baby brine, some hikari Cichlid pellets, zucchini.  The Cichlid pellets don’t seem to go over well.  Everything else gets eaten no problem.  I’ve got a Mbuna tank, a guppy tank, and two Betta tanks (and an angelfish tank coming soon)🤪

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1 minute ago, Phill D said:

For that, i rotate the food at each meal just a simple 1-2-3 pattern. 

That's a good idea. I also use a rotation pattern with my frozen foods. I feed from the frozen food packet at the front of my freezer shelf and then move it to the back after it gets used.

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At the moment I only have 1 betta so my food drawer vs what I’m actually feeding atm differ. Currently feeding fluval bug bites betta pellets and flakes, hikari freeze dried bloodworms, and aqueon betta pellets (which I probably won’t buy more of when I run out). Awaiting me to get more fish, I have hikari mini and normal algae wafers, xtreme nano pellets, cobalt flakes (I almost never touch), I think I have somewhere some sera spiralina tabs I rarely use, some fluval bug bites tropical pellets, and probably some other random things. Normally I’d also have frozen blood worms but I had to toss em when I had to move and I haven’t gotten around to getting my freezer back out of storage. Once I do, I plan on getting frozen bloodworms, frozen daphnia, and maybe one or two other types of frozen foods. Down the road I plan on attempting to hatch bbs but I have a lot of other things on my to do and to buy list first. Oh I almost forgot the sera onip tabs. I have my parents using those and frozen bloodworms for my fish back home (tetras, pea puffers, and some algae wafers for Plecos). When I get them back up with me I will also be offering blanched zucchini for the plecos

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ive definitely fallen into the might be a hoarder territory. i try to give my fish something different each day so they have as balanced of a diet as possible. they get pellets 4x a week, repashy 1x (sometimes 2), and frozen 2-3x a week. 

 

back when they sold it i bought the pound of coop fry food, it didnt come with the little dispenser but i fell in love with the idea and now use them for all my pellet food. this way im not constantly opening bags and making the food go bad quicker, instead they’re opened every month or two when i need to refill the bottle

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repashy  the igapo explorer is one of my favorites but i just ran out. i also usually have redrum and super green as well but i ran out a couple weeks ago. every 3-4 months i refill the little super gold container from the big one so the big one doesn’t get as much exposure. 

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some freeze dried foods i picked up cause they were on sale. i hate feeding freeze dried by itself so i mix these into repashy.

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flake food, i feed the gvg, krill, and bb spirulina almost daily alongside pellets. not a fan of the zoomed spirulina flakes  

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frozen food add ins, i always add some spirulina powder, a little garlic, and some vitamins to the frozen food i feed.

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bottom feeder foods: not a fan of the algae wafers on the far left (the fish hate them) or the sera spirulina tabs (these fall apart as soon as they hit the water). all of my fish go crazy for the bb pleco sticks, my goldfish swallow them whole which is a pita.

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veggie pellets, the fluval ones are terrible  the omega one pellets actually have decent ingredients and i mix these with the other pellets i feed to get some more greens in their diet.

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photo bomb, he wanted to try some of the food out

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main daily pellets: mostly goldfish but i love vibrabites and the tetra color granules. i also have the fruit fly culture i feed my tanks with for some live foods.

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for frozen i have: mysis shrimp, blood worms, brine shrimp, baby brine shrimp, clams, oceanic plankton, fish eggs, cyclops, daphnia, and an assortment of random foods i bought to try out like this veggie mix meant for reefs made by a local hobbyist. 

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Here's my current hoard, categorized by brand. I have a problem, please send help. My shrimp alternate between shrimp cuisine, crab cuisine, and snowflake food however I ran out recently and decided to sample Shrimp King (this was a mistake). Feeding schedule was feeding every other day and rotating what they got. My fish have krill flakes and vibra bites as their staple diet.

Aquarium Co-Op
Easy fry food
Brine shrimp eggs

Fluval
Bug bites tropical formula (small granule)
Bug bites shrimp formula

GlasGarten
Bacter AE

Hikari
Algae wafers
Crab cuisine
Fancy guppy
First bites (my least favorite fry food)
Freeze dried bloodworms
Frozen krill sticks
Micro pellets (my least favorite community food, if you're in doubt just get Fluval bug bites instead)
Shrimp cuisine
Vibra bites

Omega One
Frozen blood worms (my LFS was out of Hikari and I regret this purchase)

Repashy
Soilent Green

San Francisco Bay
Frozen freshwater multi-pack (freshwater frenzy, emerald entrée, spirulina brine shrimp, and bloodworms)

Shrimp King
5 formula sample pack (will not repurchase, I wanted to try something new when I ran out of Snowflake and I'm not impressed)

Xtreme
1.5mm slow-sinking pellets (my fish LOVE these but the pellet size is too big for most of my bottom feeders, a lot of my angels also eat them while they're on the way down)
Krill flakes
Nano pellets

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1 hour ago, RyanR said:

Wow and I thought I had a lot.

Well my fish can never complain about getting fed the same thing day after day. I keep a wide variety of fish from Pencilfish with incredibly small mouths to 5" Discus. I have food for the cleanup crew of Cory's, Otto's and SAE. The medicated foods get fed to fish in quarantine. So I keep a few different types of food to keep them all happy.

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Here is what I feed to my assortment of greedy not-too-picky eaters:

  • live:  daily baby brine shrimp, occasional fruit flies and mosquitoes
  • frozen: blood worms, daphnia, brine shrimp, cyclops 
  • blanched: carrots, zucchinis (mostly for the snails and shrimp, guppies like them too)
  • dry: flakes, goldfish and blood parrot pellets, algae tablets, sinking koi pellets made by a local guy, small tropical fish foods that came for free with the tanks purchase. 

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Can I just say I love seeing all of these lists that everyone feeds! My husband always thinks I have way too many different fish foods, but I tell him we don't eat the same two things for every meal, why would they? I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with a bunch of fish foods.

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Flake foods - I've gotten away from these for the most part. My remaining three are medicated foods from Angel's Plus. These come out for the fish in quarantine, but otherwise live in the 'not for human consumption' fridge/freezer. Yes, I have a second unit out in the garage that is just for foods for all of my pets (not just fish). I am that person...

I don't plan on ordering more. I haven't found them to be amazing and capable of handling an infection on their own without me also treating the water.

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The usual suspects -  Dr Bassleer is similar to Bug Bites, just an even finer grain. For tiny mouths like cardinal tetras and guppies,  these are both enjoyed but Dr. Bassleer is preffered over the bug bites. Larger mouths will go for it too, but it really shines with small fish. I'll  get more Dr. Bassleer, I'll  pass on the Bug Bites.

Sera tabs were on a 70% discount as a store was getting rid of their Sera stock.  They are the favorite of the rainbow shark and SAE. Plecos like em too, so do the angels. I wish the otos would eat them but they don't.  Once my supply of bottles I snagged is gone, I won't  get more. 

Hikari algae wafers - the syno's favorite. But also eaten by all the other catfish and loaches. Guppies and swordtails like to pick at them too. Otos won't touch em.

Hikari Vibra Bites - the staple fish food of my house. Everyone loves these (except ottos, but they hate everything). I buy a large bag every three months and divide it down into smaller containers for ease of access near various tanks.

Cichlid Gold - came with a used tank I bought, they had a 2.5 lb bag of it that I'm still working through. The dojo loaches, pictus and syno eat these readily, but the smaller corydoras and kuhlis struggle with them as they're too big. Occassionally handfuls get thrown out to the pond goldfish. The angels and rams don't like them. Won't be getting more when I use them all.

Unnamed pellet in ziploc- a local fish breeder makes these and all of my catfish and loaches go ham wild for it. So do the rainbowfish and the congo tetras. The gourami fight over it. The goldfish snap it up too. It was originally a cheap bulk purchase to feed the rescue pond (all the goldfish people drop off to me) but its been such a hit with the fish I keep getting more. I have no idea what's  in it. I hope its not drugs.

 

Frozen foods - baby brine shrimp, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, krill, daphnia and two different brands of bloodworms - one brand has giant blood worms and the other has tiny bloodworms, this works out for me feeding both large and small mouths. 

Live foods - baby brine shrimp, blackworms, green water for fry, veggies such as cucumber, zucchini, spinach and bell pepper. And algae covered rocks for the picky picky otos!

Next to try (ie ordering from Aq Co-op) xtreme krill flakes and repashy soilent green. I tried super green with the otos before and they wanted no part of it, maybe soilent green will be more to their liking? If not at least I figure the other fish will enjoy it. 

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