Best fish food

[Nuno da Silva]

They require the addition of antioxidants so they won’t spontaneously combust if transported by sea. Though Europe no longer permits the use of the questionable antioxidant Ethoxyquin, which is still used over here, I’m not sure what is used in its place.

Potassium sorbate, I belive.

I feed my fish mainly ocean nutrition, formula one, marine pellets. The ingredients are always changing and I can find a few different versions online, but my flask has shrimp as n1 ingredient and fish fillets as n2. Wheat is third, but I guess it's the price to pay for convenience. But what I like is all the variety of ingredients, there's fish oils, fish eggs, algae (kelp), squid, spirulina and a myriad of amino acids and vitamins added.

I also feed brine shrimp plus from ocean nutrition and algae wafers from nt labs. I do not recommend NTLabs algae wafers, cereals are the n1 ingredient. My ottos eat them and they don't put on weight.

But the best food for my fish are the small cherry shrimps, no matter how many I introduce, the population never increases.

 

[Fishfur]

Potassium sorbate, I belive.

No, it wouldn’t be potassium sorbate, which certainly is a food preservative but would not prevent spontaneous combustion in fish meal when it is transported by sea.

There were a number of ships carrying fish meal that exploded before this unfortunate propensity fish meals have for setting themselves on fire was understood & ever since, all fish meals must be treated with an antioxidant that can prevent spontaneous combustion.

Prevention of microbial or fungal growth in stored meal is a separate issue & they may well use potassium sorbate for that purpose.

 

[Nuno da Silva]

Better still, would be the discussion about how long to feed from the same food container.

Proteins and vitamins start to oxidise as soon as you open the package (or before, if not properly packed) and will very quickly loose a great proportion of their nutritional value.

30 days after opening and about 50% of vitaminC is gone ( ocean nutrition facts).

So, more important than getting the best food, is to make sure it is consumed very quickly.

 

[DioramaDieHard]

I have found the Bug bites from KFS excellent because they crush up well, allowing everyone in the community to get a particle size they can eat from the same pellet. Additionally, live foods - particularly daphnia and brine shrimp - remain the best food you can feed your fish out there (given some variation). You might also want to consider some DIY supplement food in the form of raw shrimp blended. Its relatively inexpensive and all you have to do is add some raw shrimp(head and scales included) to a blender with some garlic (you can also add fish vitamins and additives like spirulina based on your fish species). The good thing with shrimp is it becomes a kind of gel, quite similar to Repashy gel if you have ever used that. Therefore, it doesn't cloudy the water like other DIY foods.

 

[Fishfur]

Better still, would be the discussion about how long to feed from the same food container.

Proteins and vitamins start to oxidise as soon as you open the package (or before, if not properly packed) and will very quickly loose a great proportion of their nutritional value.

30 days after opening and about 50% of vitaminC is gone ( ocean nutrition facts).

So, more important than getting the best food, is to make sure it is consumed very quickly.

Excellent point. If you buy packages of fish food that will last more than maybe a month, it’s a good idea to divide the contents into portions that will only last a short time & vacuum pack it yourself that way.

Freeze the packs that aren’t in use & only have one open at a time. Open packs should be able to be resealed & we really should not store them near the fish tanks though I suspect most of us probably do.

 

[90 yr Lady]

I feed my small school of 6 Rosy Tiger Barbs, 2 Albino Cories, 1 Emerald Cory plus 4 Golden Mystery Snails, abt 8 Nerites and 1 Rabbit snail : Base of TetraMin Plus with shrimp meal flakes, and added to that one different other food of : freeze dried cubes of Tubifex worms or freeze dried Mysis shrimp or freeze dried cubes of Blackworms with dried beef heart or freeze dried Bloodworms or Spirulina / Brine Shrimp cubes or dried Daphnia. Also, rinsed canned green beans split open with small beans inside removed, this is mainly for the snails, but the Tiger Barbs love them. I feed every day, occasionally are busy and forget a day or too. All are in a 20 gallon long well planted. The tank has been set up for 3 years. I don't know what you can purchase in the UK, I'm on the west coast of the US, I purchase all those foods from Amazon.