What do you feed your fish?

[xxkenny90xx]

Lately I've heard some negative things about the foods I feed my fish and would like to hear what your routine is and what you all think of mine. As far as fish and inverts I have a large blue tang, large yellow tang, small starry blenny, false perc clown, bicolor dwarf angel, aphasia eating filefish, coral banded shrimp, huge rbta, huge brown brittle star, 28 Hermits, and 150ish snails. My feeding routine is day 1- formula 2 flakes in the morning, frozen mysis or brine shrimp cube in the evening. Day 2- flakes morning, seaweed in the evening. Back to day one. Also I feed my rbta a silverside twice a week. No spot feeding for the brittle. What do you think? I do occasionally add some zoe to the shrimp cube. I have been considering making my own food, price, difficulty, and nutrition being my main concerns.

 

[IPisces]

there is a good article here on fish feeding and nutrition http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f15/feeding-marine-fish-fish-nutrition-rev-1-a-27014/

what I feed my fish, I have numerouse tangs, 8 total i believe, 6 clowns, 5 wrasses, damsels, chromis, gobies, firerfish, butterfly fish, coral beauty angelfish, marine beta, madarin goby, and an eel. I also have 7 bubble tip anemone's.

I make my own food.
I feed daily a mixture of the following chopped up in pieces.
store bought raw shrimp
store bought raw scallops
mysis shrimp
frozen formula 1
frozen formula 2

I soak this all in a vitamin suppliment. (vita chem or zoe or selcon)
I also soak in a garlic additive. (garlic extreme or garlic guard)

I also feed a full sheet, 8"x8" sheet of seaweed

If you dont want to make your own food, Rods food I hear is good and for the tang, a piece of seaweed daily.
and soak the foods in vitamins and garlic. It will help supplement what they dont get from the food.

pellets and flakes will foul your water and do not contain enough nutrients IMO. pellets are dry and swell up when they get wet. they get eaten before they swell up and so they swell up in the fish's belly, which cause digestive issues.

Any way, read the link and take from the other responses you get and make your own determination as to what is best for your fish.

Oh and my eel gets a large silverside when ever he wants it.
and the anemones get what ever they catch when I feed the fish.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Wow what a great article. IPisces I can't say enough about how much help you and mfinn and other rf members have been for me lately. I've had my fowlr tank for a couple years but have just recently converted to a reef and have been re doing my system in an attempt to have everything set up the "right way". Thanks for the help, it sounds like your fish are eating better than I am. Do you just blend it all together and freeze it? I'd like to put a similar meal together

 

[IPisces]

LOL...I've said it before. They do eat better than I do!

 

[Rea17]

My guys also probably eat better than I do... I made a huge batch of my own blend, with great results!

Ingredients:
-PE mysis
-Hikari mysis
-Hikari Plankton
-(Diced) Krill
-(Diced) Scallop
-(Diced) Clam
-(Diced) Squid
-Cyclopeeze
-TLF Sea Veggie Flakes (nori pre-cut into small squares, because I'm lazy )

Frozen ingredients were thawed, rinsed, and drained thoroughly; then frozen in Zoe and Selcon. I had several packs of Rogger's Reef Food left over that I also thawed and mixed in. I should add that I portioned everything out by freezing in standard ice cube trays, then transferring to freezer ziplocs for long term storage. My fish go through a cube per day.







On top of that, I feed 3-4 sheets of seaweed (8x8) per day, and sometimes I'll supplement with different sized NLS pellets. I have some small fish that really benefit from the .5mm pellet food, like anthias. My Quoyi parrot really loves 1.5mm or larger. Like previously stated, don't overfeed with flake or pellet because it's very hard on the water.

My fish include many tangs, angels, wrasses, anthias, chromis, parrotfish, foxface, and clowns.

 

[IPisces]

Mmmmm that looks.....:yuk: LOL.

I dont include clams in mine becuase I keep clams and dont want my fish getting a taste for them. although my trigger would probably like it if I did. He is not in the same tank with the clams.

 

[Rea17]

Mmmmm that looks.....:yuk: LOL.

LOL, right? The fish love it though.

 

[IPisces]

I feed cyclopeese every once in a while.
Other things that are good to add to your foods, particularly if you have small fish and corals, is the cyclopeeze, oyster eggs although not in heavy quantities. you want to use this sparingly as it can foul your water quickly.

 

[Rea17]

I intended to add Nutramar Ova to my mix as well - but the source of my ingredients was out of stock when I went to place my order Maybe next time!

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Rea17 that looks delicious, I was thinking I'd go to the Asian supermarket but where do you get your ingredients?

 

[Rea17]

Well, the majority of my ingredients were packaged as fish food from Drs. Foster and Smith online, and I ordered bulk quantities. The scallops and clams were grocery store products.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Okay guys I'm finally ready to make my own fish food, would it be okay if I thaw out some frozen brine and mysis shrimp, soak it with my other ingredients in zoe, selcon, and garlic guard, then refreeze it? Or would that spoil the shrimp? Also do you chop up or blend your recipe? Thanks

 

[mrlang1981]

Whoa what a blend!