School me about food please

[DarrenCar]

I am about two weeks away from getting some fish and my next learning process is food. I believe I would like to feed frozen food instead of flakes or pellets. Is there an all around balanced food I can feed the different varieties of fish or will I be needing to have several different types of food available? I’ve read the LRS frozen is top notch and have seen the name Rods mention as well. What about the stuff Petco sells, I believe it’s San Francisco Bay??

 

[Peach02]

I am about two weeks away from getting some fish and my next learning process is food. I believe I would like to feed frozen food instead of flakes or pellets. Is there an all around balanced food I can feed the different varieties of fish or will I be needing to have several different types of food available? I’ve read the LRS frozen is top notch and have seen the name Rods mention as well. What about the stuff Petco sells, I believe it’s San Francisco Bay??

personally I don't know about the higher end foods like frenzy etc however my understanding when picking a food is a 3 step process.
1. will my fish eat it
2. is it good for them nutrition wise, is it better than what I have now?
3. can I afford it sustainably

most fish take mysis well but some fish such as copper band butterfly fish and mandarin fish are difficult to convert them to this and a more specific food is required, generally live copepods or frozen copepods work for mandarin fish, unsure on the butterflyfish

 

[Nicholas Scelzi]

Depends of the type and variety of fish you plan on keeping. There are plenty of great food brands out there. One thing I do when I purchase a new fish is I’ll actually ask the LFS or online dealer to let me know exactly what brand / type of food they are feeding so that I can buy that food at first to make the adjustment / transition as smooth as possible.

 

[DarrenCar]

Clownfish, cardinals, a gramma and a Blenheim or two is all I’m feeding. No fancy mandarin or butterfly’s. I’m hoping there was a blended food that covers a wide range of fish so I only would need to purchase one item.

 

[Jekyl]

I only feed frozen and use Rods brand. Fish and coral love it

 

[Coralreefer1]

Look at Emerald Entree and Marine Cuisine by San Francisco Bay. These offer a wide selection of food stuff that herbivores, omnivores and carnivores alike can enjoy complete with added vitamins.

 

[Nicholas Scelzi]

I use San Franciso Bay Brand as well, and New Spectrum pellets. I recommend just going on the San Francisco Bay Brand site and reading through their different "products" (aka foods) to see which food would best fit your needs of being a wide variety food

 

[McFly]

LRS makes a nano blend with smaller chunks which is pretty good. I feed a mix of frozen, flake, pellet and dried nori. I tried frozen only and the fish lost a little color, I feel feeding pellets/flake a few times a week helps 'bulk' fish up. Rods is great but the chunks can be big for small mouth fish, same with LRS. I'm feeding Hikari cubes right now (Brine, Mysis, Squid, Plankton, Krill 1x day) as my LFS was out of LRS and I wanted to switch it up from Rods. Variety is key and feed enough to keep your nitrates around 5-10ppm.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I also use hikari, right now i use coral gumbo, baby brine, cyclopods, and rotifers. I also have krill i add weekly as a treat. And twice a week live brine fed with spurillina.

 

[sfin52]

I make my own. I used the others and no complains. Rods was really messy and I wasn't able yo get my hands on LRS as they dont ship and the lfs that sell it are an hour away. I just think fresh is better and its cheaper.

 

[Jon Fishman]

I only feed frozen and use Rods brand. Fish and coral love it

I got this Rod's stuff for the first time after hearing so much fuss about it...... my fish go nuts for it..... corals actively begin to feed etc.... I'm really terrible at target feeding though, because I'm lazy.

 

[Jet915]

I make my own. I used the others and no complains. Rods was really messy and I wasn't able yo get my hands on LRS as they dont ship and the lfs that sell it are an hour away. I just think fresh is better and its cheaper.

I do this as well, its cheaper but you have to have access to a good seafood market.

 

[Jekyl]

Right now I'm feeding rods fish only and phyto daily. Also have 2 different frozen rods fish eggs I add every other day or so in small amounts. This i will target feed a combo of all products to my corals. Trying to stay away from any man made products if possible. Corals seems to love it. I'll drop a few drops of phyto 10 minutes before feeding to get them all opened up.

 

[w2inc]

Auto feeder, pellets or flake pellet combo depending on what my feeder handles best. Frozen as a treat. Normally mysis or some random coral food. I keep Mandarines, Cardinals, Pipe fish, and all kinds of "will only eat special food" fish. I feed special foods on occasion with new fish but eventually they get caught up in the feeding frenzy and take whatever is offered.

I had been using anything in front of me that had 40% protein for a couple years but decided that I wanted more control over my system and went with Reed Mariculture foods since they cater to fish farms and have been around a long time. My second and basically equal choice is Brine shrimp direct out of Logan Utah. Both companies have live people that answer the phone or emails and will steer you right. They both make foods at sizes or combinations that are appropriate to both fish and corals.

Side note: Brine shrimp are incredibly high in Copper to the point that I see daily feedings for 3 weeks at a time (with feeding fry) show up on my ICP tests. The nutrition level on brine is really low unless you have freshly hatched or fortified animals. Brine shrimp direct has several staple foods with no brine shrimp. Both companies offer foods with astaxanthin which makes your animals show pinks and reds very well and is good for all nutritionally.

Baby brine is a fine fry food, or 2 day and older fortified with Selco. Other than that I would recommend reading nutritional labels on packages before using it. There are times brine shrimp are needed but I generally avoid it, if you decide to feed it, San Fransisco bay (not the company) brine is lower in protein than that of Great salt lake. The company San Fransisco Bay Brine makes some quality foods and I would not steer you away from them.

Take away advice after a lot of time; Things will go wrong in your system. You will look for every possible variable to remedy the issue. Remove as many variables as possible right up front. Pick a food and commit unless you have a really good reason to change. That way if your system is struggling and you are troubleshooting, you dont have to look to bad food input.

Good luck! Thanks for Posting!