When it comes to diet, fish are not much different than people in the sense that they also need a diverse diet in order to be vital and healthy and thus resist disease.

Today I am going to introduce you to some of the basics we use to make up a diverse diet.  And by no means is this the ONLY way, rather it is simply one way, one that has worked very well for us.  This diet is part of what helps us have very, very few fish losses.  In fact, I know we are far below the industry average, even for professional aquarium maintenance service companies.

So, I like to “chunk” things down into the big picture points first and then we can dive into the details.

Overall, there are four categories of foods we use. They are as follows:

1) flake

2) frozen

3) pellets

4) gels

 

FLAKES

Today, we’ll start with flake foods.  We like to use primarily two types of flakes for every saltwater aquarium.  They are spirulina flake food and nori (a.k.a. sea weed).

By far, the best food you can get into a fish is NORI. If you are familiar with sushi, this is the stuff they wrap the maki rolls in.  Some people also call it seaweed.  It is amazingly potent and nutritious.  If you can get a fish to eat one food, this is it (of course fish still need other foods too).  Just know that this stuff is amazing.  It has great healing characteristics, and fish that eat it have fantastically brilliant colors.  I can’t say enough good things about it.  There are many kinds out there, including different colors (green, brown, purple, red).  The brands we use are “Sea Veggies” by Two Little Fishies, and “Seaweed Selects”, by Ocean Nutrition.  Both are great.  If your budget is tight, you can also purchase it from your local health food store.  When feeding nori, we like to let it soak in aquairum water for 3-5 minutes to soften up and then we break it up into smaller bits as it is added to the aquarium.  Some people like to attach it to a “lettuce clip” and let the fish graze on it (this works too).  Notice that lettuce is not on our diet.  I don’t get why even public aquariums feed lettuce, which is a land-based food, to saltwater tropical fish when you can give them a far better choice at roughly the same cost.  I do not recommend lettuce.

As for the spirulina flake food, we like two brands, but I know that there are many others out there just as good, maybe even better.  We use Ocean Star International (OSI) brand spirulina flake.  It is nice a dark, thus well-concentrated, and has a high content of spirulina algae.  This seems to be a magic food for fish that will eat it (as is the nori – more on that in a moment).  Spirulina flake is great for tangs and angels especially, and any other fish that will eat it. It is particularly good with creating vibrant colors, a strong mucous layer, as well as giving the fish excellent healing ability for small wounds and abrasions (from aggression with other fish, etc.).

On our next post, we will cover frozen foods.  What foods are you feeding?  Do you have any favorites?  Post a reply and let us know.

 


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