Artificial food review

Though my fishes main food is bloodworms and freshwater frenzy, i have tried a variety of artificial foods with varrying success.

FLAKES: Among the flake brands I tried are tetracolor, tetramin, and Bettamin. Flakes are the least effective food supply I tried. In my 3 gallon i had a darter nibble on them but i stopped giving them to darters as they didn't eat many and struggle to reach the top toi feed. In my 55 gallon tank only my guppies eat flakes wih any enthusiasm. Sunfish and shiners pick atr a few as they sink but never with enthusiasm. Native fish have a preference of small betta flakes to large flakes, but would much rasther prefer no flakes at all. I have more or less given up on flakes.

GRANULES: I tried a couple brands of granules and they deserve individual reviews.

- Vipagran Baby: I got these iny granules when my guppies had babies hoping to feed them. Instead I found them to be the ultimaste native fish food. Sunfish, shiners, and even darters snaqck on them. This is one of the few arificial foods darters enjoy and one of the few fish are enthusiastic about.

- Tetracolor granules: Generally speaking sunfish will pick at these when they fall and shiners will pick at them off the bottom, but nbo fish is enthusiastic about them and often they get spit outmore than they are eaten.

DRIED FOOD:

- Tetra Baby Shrimp (sun dried grammarus): Longnose dace love these and will suck them off the surface with a satisflying splashing sound. Other shiners and sunfish will pick at them as they sink but without the longnoses enthusiasm.

- Wardley Fish Treats- Krill: The first thing you noptice about this food is the odor. Opening a jar of it will instantly stink up your room. And fish like this odor. However fish have trouble eating krill, it's large and quite tough, even breaking it up in your hands before feeding causes trouble. sunfish and shiners like it, they just have major trouble eating it.

Edited by FirstChAoS, 22 July 2009 - 02:08 AM.

If you want some high quality flake food try www.kensfish.com
They have multiple varieties and it is cheaper than the "popular" brands

If you haven't tried culturing live foods you should give it a try. I culture scuds, white worms, grindal worms and earthworms. Your fish will love you for it.

I've never had any species of shiner that didn't eat flakes. Darters are another story, fresh meat is always the best but they'll eat freeze-dried bloodworms too. Sunfish can learn, but you have to negotiate with them sometimes; I'm lucky to have a working worm pile in my yard.

My shiners and 2 Long-eared Sunfish absolutely pound flakes. The first few fish ever in the tank took about a week or so to really go nuts for the flakes. Now with a larger school getting whipped into a frenzy new additions only take a day or so to convert to flakes. All fish seem to dislike the red flakes though.

My darters will occationally take a flake, which they usually swallow, but they never really go after the flakes.

I recently bought sinking shrimp pellets which my larger darters (Logperch and Varigates) love, in fact once I started feeding the pellets, my Logperch has become very robust, instead of slightly skinny.

My sunfish will eat flake, but they definitely prefer pellets over flake. And, of course, live and frozen over that. Hikari's cichlid gold pellets and their crab pellet are the biggest hit. My darters will pick at sinking pellets if they see the catfish eating them, but mostly only eat live or frozen.

My shiners practically inhale flakes, or any other food for that matter. If it will fit in their mouth, they'll eat it--including entire shrimp pellets meant for the corys, oi. My sailfin mollies and flagfish love flakes and sinking pellets too. My darters occasionally take a mouthful, but the vast majority of the time they only eat frozen blooworms.