So the list of foods I've tried:
Pretty much all of the fresh water tetra flakes etc.
Formula 1 & 2 flake
Homemade algae flake
Algae wafers/discs
Sinking algae pellets
Nori
Freeze dried bloodworms
Baby brine shrimp
Frozen mysis
Dead copepod "sludge" (Dr. Gs or something)
Recently i have been raising my brine shrimp to adulthood in a ten gallon. I'm waiting on mature adults before harvesting. I have also started phyto and have roti cysts in my fridge. I bought a Christmas present for myself! It's vinegar and micro worm cultures. Still waiting for delivery.
I can update on those when i do feed them if you're interested.
Of all of these here are my thoughts:
Freeze dried blood worms are garbage and nothing eats them (if you have cubes you can stick them to the glass and fish are sort of interested in it. Plus, its fun.)
I have yet to come across "bad" flake food. Even tetra flake was perfectly fine for my clowns. Formula 2 is THE absolute favorite!!!! (Fresh and marine)
Don't waste money on any algae products. Buy nori. I have not found an algae based fish food (if you don't count formula 2) that is anywhere near as happily accepted. A far better option is to make flake food out of tank harvested algae (which works great!). [Also i have seen people just freeze algae]
Baby brine have received the most enthusiastic feeding of all! I am excited to see how the larger brine are accepted.
Frozen mysis was the first food i fed my tank. I find it to be an adequate food but in my experience a very mediocre choice. It messes with my tank params. Its hard to feed the right amount (in my experience an adult occ. Clown eats 1 maybe 2 full mysis in a single feeding) and it is annoying to store if you use less than a full cube (and goes bad quickly). Fish dont love it either. Honestly my clowns very obviously prefer flake to frozen mysis (and i have no complaints $$$ wise [emoji23])
Ok and my biggest waste of money (because i didnt pay for the bloodworms) was the copepod sludge. I wasnt aware how very drastic the difference is between dead and live copepods is. Occasionally i shake my ATS off in the dt. My fish love snagging the copes and amphis that jump off. They do not touch dr. G's. I occasionally use it as a paly coral food but it isnt great for that either (i would much rather opt for coral frenzy or a dedicated coral food next time)
Finally the thought has crossed my mind often that i should try to create a frozen cube blend of these foods. While the idea seems nice, i wonder how it ends up working out... i tend to spot feed particular foods to particular things and it just seems like a recipe for overfeeding... but no experience there... i will definitely try it when i get around to it.
Well thats my fish food eval lol. Just my experiences and interpretation of results. Sorry for typing so much X)
TLDR; LIVE FOODS, NORI AND FORMULA 2 FLAKE [emoji7]
