# Food choices



## Vivid-Dawn (Jan 18, 2005)

I got to wondering about what the best food is. Somewhere I read that color enhancing actually isn’t really good for fish. I’m sure a high protein one would be good...but how high is ‘high’? I keep seeing stats around 45%, which seems fine with me. And some foods have vitamin C...so how much of _that_ would I need? And what other nutrients?

Right now, I just have a Molly and an algae sucker (everybody else died), so I think I’ll just use up the rest of my “Nutrafin Max” flakes. I also give dried baby shrimp and blood worms as a treat. But the staple/main part, I think I want to get high quality next time.

Anybody know the best kind to get, that isn’t so hyped up on color enhancing?
(I have black gravel, and that’s supposed to make them naturally want to be more colorful anyway...I’m more concerned about *health*, really)

On a side note, not so important I guess, is there’s flakes...and I keep seeing ‘crisps’ in some descriptions of food? Is that like thicker flakes, or what?


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

crisps are supposed to be thicker than flakes and they are a more standardized "round" shape where as the flakes are ... well just whatevr shape they broke into the last time they broke :lol: 

I've heard alot of good things about new life spectrum but you have to mail order that. Something at your LFS would be like your "max" that you have from nutra fin or tetra's "pro crisp" or some other flake like that. 

I'm feeding the pro crisps now but when that runs out I'll be using th enew life spectrum :wink: 

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## malawi4me2 (Jan 18, 2005)

Different fish have different nutritional needs, but regardless of the species, variety is important. My Malawi haps/peacocks eat NLS Cichlid Color Enhancing as a majority of their diet (the LFS I shop at carries it...), but also Kent Color X-treme, Hai-Feng Fast Color, and several other high-quality pellet diets. All of these foods are fairly high in protein, which is good for the species I keep, but not for all fish. They also occaisionally get a Sera Spirulina tablet (they're made for bottom feeders, but my cichlids love it), or frozen blood worms (thawed in declorinated water). Once a week, they get some live brine shrimp, and a few ghost shrimp. If you decide to feed live shrimp to your fish, be sure that your LFS does not keep them with feeder fish which may increase the risk of transmitting diseases to your fish. 

Your Molly and Algae-Eater (I'm assuming a pleco?) will benefit from some fresh veggies in their diet, along with a high quality tropical fish food. Romain lettuce, spinach, cucumber, carrots, and peas a few times a week are good choices. Just leave them in there for about 30 minutes to an hour. They'll also enjoy sinking algae wafers, or the spirulina tablets that I mentioned earlier. 

Color-enhancing food is fine for your fish, as long as it isn't *hormone* enhanced. Hormone enhanced foods not only shorten the life-span of your fish, but they can make males sterile. 

I hope this helped. This is probably a topic that you'll get _a lot_ of differing opinions on. I just stated what's worked for me! :wink:


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## fishfreaks (Jan 19, 2005)

we feed a variety of brine shrimp, bloodworms, and high quality cichlid pellets, flakes, and sinking pellets. we also feed lettuce to our fishies every so often.


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

Well, livefood will provide your fish with protein, carbonhidrate,fat, vitamin and minerals as well! To day, manufacturers of fish food ensure that there's enough vitamins in your fish's flake foods. Sometimes it's even more than the fish's actual needs. The benefical vitamins are A,E and C. 
Go'luck!


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## Vivid-Dawn (Jan 18, 2005)

Malawi - That's alright, the more information I have, the better decision I can make! I've just been doing general searches in 'fish food' on pet websites. If I have actually brand names, it might help.

And I'm not sure what my "sucker" is. I assume he's a pleco. Brown with spots... if he ever comes out of hiding, I could take a picture! And yes, I feed him algae disks... though I think my molly eats them too, since he was picking at them when I first put them in this morning.
My husband puts zuchini in his tank, but I thought that was for snails... they clamber all over it, within half an hour (and he has about 50 apple snails). Maybe I'll make him share with me LOL


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## maxpayne_lhp (Jan 19, 2005)

Good! Good luck on the research!
That sounds like a pleco, sucking catfish huh? What is zuchini ? Sounds quite Asian but I don't know 
BTW, you're page is down  Hey, you use 50mpgs? That's a free hosting, right?


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## Vivid-Dawn (Jan 18, 2005)

Zuchini is a squash...dark green and kinda long. I always confuse it with cucumber. My husband takes a few thin slices of the skin off, because it seems none of the critters can get through it. The snails and his pleco are usually the ones that eat most of it. Sometimes the fish will nip at it ever so often.

And yes, 50megs has a free package, but it's limited in how many visits you can have, and other stuff. I get 100megs and pay about $75 a year, and get much more bandwidth too...but it still seems to go down ever so often - try again tomorrow, since it's the beginning of the month.
If ya wanna see all my other fish (which are now dead, except for the dalmation molly), they're here:
http://vivid-dawn.50megs.com/Love/
Along with my cat, my husband's cat "Junior" and my bird. And some wedding pictures. The file "Love" is my family stuff ^_^


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## Lexus (Jan 19, 2005)

I use Tetramin Tropical Flakes, Warley Shrimp Pellets, Wardley Algae Wafers, Wardley Spirunlia tablets (my silver dollars pick these up in their mouth and carry them around, everyone nibbles on these). 
~Tetramin Crips,didnt like them, the small tetras couldnt eat them cause they are to hard/crispy, my other fish didnt like them either. 

~Tetramin Color, I really liked this but it is more expensive. 

~Wardley Tubex worms only my gold fish and catfish liked these. 

~Tetramin Granules, they sink to fast and the fishies with small mouths cant eat them and they are too hard so they get regurgitated a few times before eaten.

Shrimp- little pink bottle of shrimp and no one eats these, i think they are too hard and too big. My old cichlids did like them though. 

Warley Tropical flakes- they are natural colored and my fish hated them with a passion!


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## joe kool (Jan 24, 2005)

Vivid-Dawn @ Mon 31 Jan said:


> Zuchini is a squash...dark green and kinda long. I always confuse it with cucumber. My husband takes a few thin slices of the skin off, because it seems none of the critters can get through it. The snails and his pleco are usually the ones that eat most of it. Sometimes the fish will nip at it ever so often.


I slice mine in 4 pieces long ways like "pickle spears" and stick a stainless steel fork :lol: in the wedges to hold them down ... that way they can get straight to the "meat" and my pleco will eat the skin too so I make sure to clean it well with hot water to get off any "waxes" the store may have put on it to make it "look" more appealing to us :x 

:mrgreen: :mrgreen:


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Zucchini is called courgette in the UK (and in France), so you may know it by that name.

I feed my fish random flake food (currently JBL NovoBel since it came free with some mail order stuff I got), defrosted bloodworms and brine shrimp, and real food. The real foods are generally small bits of things that I eat. So far, they like boiled eggs and peas (with the skins removed). They didn't like spinach and green beans. I have zebra danios and rosy barbs. I also hillstream loaches, but so far I haven't gotten them to eat anything but algae. I leave two walls of the tank uncleaned for them to nibble on.


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## Gunnie (Jan 20, 2005)

Omega One is the staple fish food in my house. I use several different varieties of the flakes and am now trying the bloodworms, brine shrimp, and shrimp also. I haven't found a product Omega One makes that my fish didn't like, and they all appear very healthy. Good stuff!


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## DavidDoyle (Jan 18, 2005)

I have been Nutrafin Max as my staple flake for about three years (go thru about 2 lbs/year). I feed it to all my fish from fry to adult and even to my discus. They all love it. In addition I also feed the following:

Zuchini
Green Beans (canned, salt free)
Live Rd Worms
BBS
Hikari Algae Wafers
Hikari Sinking Tablets
Spirulina Flake
Spirulina Sticks
Earthworm Sticks
FD Blood Worms
FD Brine Shirmp
FD Cyclo-eeze (for fry and small fish)
FD Daphnia
FD Plankton
Frozen Blood Worms
Frozen Brine Shrimp
Frozen Mysis Shrimp


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