Fish Food For Thought

[JayP]

So I was pondering fish food because, as I've mentioned before, I have no life. I see there was a post a few years back about feeding tetras but only a couple replies.

It seems, since we are primarily an aquatic plant enthusiast community, we tend to keep smaller species of fish. That's not to say some of us don't have big Cichlid tanks we don't discuss here much, but in general I think most of us are keeping fish in the sub 4" range. So what foods do you feed your smaller fish, especially the sub 2" species?

My primary go-to for my tetras, rasboras, dwarf gouramis, and platys, is Xtreme Nano pellets, Once a week I give them some frozen baby brine shrimp and/or daphnia. I do have a baby brine shrimp hatchery kit and have used it a few times, but I don't know that the fish really care if its live or frozen because their reaction to it is the same. I also go with Xtreme Community Peewee pellets occasionally but at sub 2", they seem to take the Nano pellets more easily. The shop I bought my first fish, told me they feed their smaller fish the Xtreme Nano so that's why I initially went with it. I've also tried various flakes including Bug Bites, but my fish don't seem to care for it as much and it just pollutes the tank.

Interested to hear what works well for others as I'd like to experiment and see if there's something else the fish might like even more. I imagine the responses for someone keeping the smaller cichlid species might be much different but interested to hear that as well since I might look into some of those species, like rams or even angelfish, on future larger tanks.

 

[MrJG]

I’ve been feeding this
https://a.co/d/07L17oRA
In tandem with what I think is extreme nano pellets, I transferred to another container a bit back so can’t quite recall.

Little pigs battle the Pygmy Cories for their wafer bits and the shrimp for their protein and calcium wafers too. The shrimps get “shrimps pro seafood patties” of the same brand.

I’d love to try live foods but no place to keep anything going.

 

[CincyScaper]

Currently my tank has 6 CPDs and couple of Pygmy Cory, I feed them Hikari micro pellets which the CPDs seem to love and Cory lap up the rest that get to the bottom. Interested in this thread.

 

[TRyan]

This is a good question. I'm still looking for a food that my rummy nose tetras, cardinal tetras, pygmy corys and strawberry rasboras will all love and eat.

I've tried quite a few different foods and I still don't have one I or my fish really love. They all will eat NutriDiet flake food, but it's a pain because the flakes are so large,I need to crumble them up. They'll sparingly eat Bug Bites tropical formula, but they are pretty big and need to be crumbled. I also feed mini blood worms, which they all like, but the rasboras struggle with the size. The rasboras really like live baby brine shrimp, but me... Not so much. It's a pain to keep hatching and rinsing them. The corys like Legit Bottom Feeder pellets.


I'll try the Xtreme .5mm pellets you suggested.

 

[JayP]

I’d love to try live foods but no place to keep anything going.

This doesn't take up much space, but as @TRyan alluded to, it does require some prep and planning.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery

 

[Kwyet]

These are my go-to foods for fish, plus occasionally some other things like brine shrimp, daphnia, tubifex etc.

 

[TRyan]

This doesn't take up much space, but as @TRyan alluded to, it does require some prep and planning.
Brine Shrimp Hatchery

That's the exact one I use.

Don't be like me and feed the fish with a 1mm pipette full of salt water/live baby brine shrimp every day without rinsing first. It may seem like a small amount of water, but that salt water will build up and slowly kill your plants. That's the second time this year I've about killed my Hygrophila 53B stems.

I use this and it works great for rinsing and feeding. https://a.co/d/0clEKSs0

Just squirt a pipette or two into this, rinse under the sink and dump in tank. That hatchery comes with a little collection screen, but if you remove it, you only get 1 feeding with it. When you put it back in the hatchery, it stirs up the hatched eggs and you end up with a bunch of shells in there.