Fish food options
The food provided to your fish must be safe, nutritionally balanced and appropriate to the livestock.
Flake and pellet foods
Flake
and pellet foods are available in a range of formulations designed for specific
types of fish: community fish, saltwater fish, herbivores, carnivores and so
on. These can form an excellent staple diet for most fish.
However,
once exposed to air, the nutritional value of flake and pellets quickly
declines; what was once appetizing and nutritious becomes stale and
functionally worthless. Flake and pellet foods should be discarded within three
months of opening.
Flake and pellets are
often low in fiber, leading to constipation, and this in turn can cause swim
bladder disorders and bloating in your fish. High-fiber foods such as Daphnia and vegetable
foods will help to prevent this.
Freeze-dried
foods
Freeze-dried fish food contains valuable fiber, as well as an excellent balance
of nutrients. Freeze-dried fish food can be used successfully either as the
staple fish food item or as a supplement to flake and pellet foods. Freeze
drying kills any potential pathogens, making such foods very safe, and most
fish seem to find them highly palatable.
The key drawback is
expense: compared with frozen fish foods, freeze-dried fish food costs a lot
for what you actually get.
Frozen foods
Aquarium stores sell a
wide variety of frozen fish food
items ranging from zooplankton to whole fish. Though less expensive than live
foods, frozen foods are just as readily accepted by aquarium fish. This makes
them valuable for feeding fussy or predatory fish. Frozen fish food is also
less likely to carry pathogens than live fish food, and some manufacturers
irradiate the food to make sure that it is completely safe.Because it is
unprocessed, frozen fish food is nutritionally excellent and also tends to be
high in fiber. No one fish food should be used
exclusively, though, and
it is a good idea to alternate between foods through the week: mysids one day,
chopped mussel the next and so on. Frozen food-blends tailored for community
fish,cichlid fish, saltwaterfish and so on sidestep
this problem by including a carefully chosen mix of foods, sometimes with added
green foods and vitamins.
Seafood sold for human
consumption can also be used, including whitebait, squid, clams, mussels and
prawns. Unshelled prawns and shrimp are of particular value for feeding
triggerfish and pufferfish by wearing down their fast-growing teeth.
Feeder
fish
Serving feeder fish as food is controversial, with many experienced aquarists
rejecting them as unnecessary and unsafe, regardless of any ethical dimension.
Cheap feeder fish are reared in squalid conditions and very likely to carry
diseases and parasites, and should never be used. The most commonly sold feeder
fish are minnows and goldfish, and these are too rich in fat and thiaminase to
be of value. Over time the fat causes damage to the internal organs while the
thiaminase breaks down vitamin B-1. Noted saltwater aquarist Bob Fenner
has gone so far as to state that the use of feeder goldfish is the prime source
of lionfish mortality in home aquaria.
Why use feeder fish at
all? Some fish are predators in the wild, and offering them live fish may be
the easiest way to get them to eat in captivity. But frozen fish foods or alternative
live foods (see below) can almost always be used instead.
If you must use feeder
fish, then the only safe approach is to raise your own. Livebearers are
recommended, being nutritionally balanced as well as easy to rear. They should
be maintained in a healthy environment and provided with a good-quality diet.
Live
foods
The value of live food is that they are immediately recognized as prey even by
newly imported wild-caught fish. Otherwise piscivorous fish will usually take
earthworms, river shrimp and large insects, while fussy bottom feeders, such as
spiny eels and mormyrids, will usually eat worms and insect larvae.
Live food is expensive
and inconvenient; frozen fish food in particular is just as readily accepted by
most fish and far less costly. Aquatic live food can also introduce pests and
diseases. Among the pests known to hitchhike their way into aquaria alongside
live food are snails, hydra and dragonfly larvae. Tubifex worms are
notorious for transmitting diseases caused by myxosporidian and microsporidian
parasites, such as nodular diseases and whirling disease.
Brine shrimp are often promoted as being
very safe compared with other live food, and this is certainly true, but adult
brine shrimp are nutritionally poor and should not be used as anything more
than a periodic treat for your fish.
Algae
and other green foods
Herbivorous fish readily accept Sushi Nori, a Japanese seaweed-based food
widely sold in Asian grocery stores. It can be broken up to feed small fish or
attached to submersible “lettuce clips” to allow larger fish to nibble at their
leisure. Vegetables can also be used. Iceberg lettuce and cucumber are readily
accepted, but their nutritional value is very low; much better options include
blanched curly lettuce, zucchini and tinned peas. Grazing fish like plecos
enjoy sliced carrots and sweet potato.
Wood is an important
food item for some fish. Plecos generally seem to need some wood in their diet
as a source of dietary fiber, but those in the genus Panaque actually
digest wood and will not do well if maintained without access to it.
Fish feed in a variety
of different ways, so how you feed your fish will depend upon what species are
being maintained.
Community Fish
Small community fish like tetrasand livebearers should be fed once or twice per day, and
need only as much food per meal as the fish can consume within a minute or so.
There should never be any leftover food. Use floating fish food for
surface-feeding fish and sinking fish food for species that stay close to the
aquarium’s substrate.
When feeding your fish,
inspect your livestock. Start by counting the fish to make sure they are all
present. Check the fish for signs of damage or disease. Often the first sign of
problems with fish health or aquarium water quality is odd behavior,
particularly at feeding time. So, if one or more of your fish isn’t interested
in its food, investigate further.
Properly fed aquarium
fish should have gently rounded abdomens. Overfed fish have a bloated look and
will often be lethargic. Chronically underfed fish will look emaciated, in many
cases with a distinctively concave ventral profile.
Reef Aquariums
Saltwater fish can be divided into
four basic sorts, as far as feeding goes: bold feeders, plankton-eaters,
herbivorous grazers and micropredators. Bold feeders are those saltwater
fish such as damselfish that greedily swim into the open at feeding time.
Feeding these fish one or two modest meals per day works well.
Plankton feeders can be
trickier to feed, the key thing being that they need multiple small meals per
day to do well.Anthias are
the classic example of plankton-feeding fish, and because they need several
meals per day, they easily starve in captivity.
Herbivorous grazers are
often bold feeders, as well, but in addition to flake or frozen food, they also
need green foods. Surgeonfish and saltwater angelfish are classic
herbivores. They need constant access to live algae or some suitable substitute,
such as nori.
Micropredators are
things like seahorses and Mandarinfish that consume small animals of various
types. In mature, very large aquariums, they may be able to find sufficient
numbers of copepods and other small crustaceans to do well, but relying on this
has lead to the demise of countless fish. Instead, the aquarist will need to
provide live or frozen alternatives at least once per day. Because of their
particular needs and often rather slow feeding habits, micropredators should
not be mixed with community species.
While
some invertebrates will find their own food in reef aquariums, algae-eating snails for
example, others need the aquarist to supply food.
Nocturnal
Fish
Feeding
nocturnal fish can be difficult because the aquarist cannot always tell if one
particular fish is eating the food put out for it. This is especially the case
with nocturnal predators like spiny eels and mormyrids. When maintaining these
slow-feeding species, do not mix them with anything that might eat their food,
such as catfish or loaches. Feed nocturnal predators around five times per
week.
Large
Predatory Fish
Most fish are predators, of course, but large predators fall into their own
category for several reasons. First, they do not need to eat every single day.
Indeed, really big predators, such as large catfish and piranhas, may only need
to be fed a couple of times per week.
Second, these fish have
a tendency to gorge themselves in the wild, eating one big prey item and then
not eating anything else for several days afterward. It is debatable whether
this is a sensible approach in the aquarium because the resulting spike in
ammonia after a massive meal can cause major problems, in terms of water
quality. Some predators are also prone to regurgitating undigested food if
they’ve consumed too much, making things even worse. The safest approach is to
offer small meals several times a week, perhaps even every day. As ever, the
goal is to maintain a gently rounded rather than swollen abdomen.
Finally,
there’s some anecdotal evidence that the use of live rather than dead prey
makes predatory fish more aggressive. As discussed last time, feeder fish should be
avoided.
Herbivorous
Fish
Herbivores do best when given constant access to suitable green foods. Because
plant material is low in protein, it has little impact on water quality.
Juvenile
Fish
Without
exception, juvenile fish (fish under three months of age) do best when given
several small meals throughout the day. In the case of very young fish (under 1
month of age), as many as six meals per day is recommended. Some of those meals
can be algae that you have thoughtfully allowed to grow in the aquarium.
Feeding Fish During Vacations
For
periods of up to seven days, you can easily leave a mature aquarium unfed. For
longer periods, you have several options. Big fish, particularly predators, can
easily go two weeks or more without food if they are healthy. Herbivores
like goldfish can be given a bunch of cheap aquarium plants,
such as pondweed, and left to their own devices. Community aquariums can
usually be catered for using automated feeders. Reducing the rations is a good
idea, of course, because you won’t be around to remove waste or perform water
changes.
Asking friends to feed
your fish isn’t recommended. If you must do this, divide the food into portions
before you go, and hide the rest. Leave only enough for one meal every three to
four days.
Source: http://www.fishchannel.com/
