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Pellet Food of Choice

Started by Guest_dsaavedra_* , Sep 24 2009 06:36 PM

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14 replies to this topic

#1 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 24 September 2009 - 06:36 PM

for those of you that have your sunfish on a pellet diet, what is your pellet brand of choice?

see, when i first got my aquarium, i bought 2 bags of large Hikari Cichlid Staple, thinking i'd get a little bass that would be able to eat them.

well i quickly ditched the bass idea and stupid ole me opened one of the bags for the heck of it. i returned the other bag, but i was left with a bag of large pellets.

i have since crushed them up so they're about 1/4 the size, and have somehow got all my sunfish eating this stuff.

they eat it right up! :laugh:

i was so happy to have them on a steady diet of pellets. before pellets i was only feeding them the odd insect i found and frozen mealworms (got expensive quick)

so anyway, when this bag of crushed pellets runs out, i'm going to buy some more (in the mini size) but was just wondering which types of pellets you guys like.

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#2 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 24 September 2009 - 07:22 PM

Hikari Cichlid Staple? The stuff in the green bags? Huh, my green sunfish HATED that stuff... what'd you have to do to get your guys to eat it?

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#3 Guest_Kanus_*

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Posted 24 September 2009 - 08:12 PM

I practically have a full service pet store fish department under my tank, but I have definitely narrowed down my pellet choices. I've tried a good portion of what there is out there to feed fish. I have to say that I personally feed my fish Hikari sinking carnivore, marine-a, and marine-s formulas. I have been a believer in Hikari after buying a pack of Hikari frozen bloodworms instead of the usual SF Bay Brand I had been buying. By the time I had used the one pack of frozen bloodworms, my fish were greedy for the food and visibly more brightly colored.

I also feed Ocean Nutrition pellets and flakes. Their food is LOADED with all different protein/fatty acid sources. If you buy a can, you will know as soon as you pop the lid that it is some rich food, as it will fill the room with aroma. I have fed both my fresh and saltwater fish Formula Two (more vegetable content) and Formula One pellets and flakes, and I will say that everyone loves it. My rainbow darters even love the formula one pellets.

I have heard a lot of good things about HBH Soft and Moist with Krill. I intend on giving that a try next time I need to buy food. Hopefully someone will share their experience with it.

Oh, and has anyone tried Ken's Fish food? That looks like quality stuff too.

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#4 Guest_Uland_*

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Posted 24 September 2009 - 09:09 PM

As far as pellets I use Hikari cichlid gold exclusively. I'm not going to tell you I think it's the best but I know that I've had quite few sunfish spawn successfully with this as their staple.

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#5 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 24 September 2009 - 11:10 PM

I've never tried the Gold version, what have you gotten to spawn on it? Also, my fish loved those bloodworms Hikari sells, they and my now eaten fatheads would just gorge on those. Any tips for converting a yellow perch, a bluegill, a green sunfish, a pumpkinseed, and a SMB to eating pellets?

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#6 Guest_Dustin_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 06:08 AM

For pelleted food, I use New Life SPectrum and have for years. Everybody likes it. I have even had darters and pygmy sunfish take the smallest size.

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#7 Guest_dafrimpster_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 08:25 AM

I have been using Ken's fish food for quite a while. I will never go back to pet store food. www.kensfish.com
It is cheaper than pet store food and I tihnk the quality is better. I have no solid evidence to back that other than my own experiences.

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#8 Guest_gzeiger_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 09:03 AM

I've been happy with the New Spectrum and Aqueon products, but after seeing this thread Ken's ingredient lists and nutrition analyses do seem to be the best in the business, and it's hard to beat those prices. There are a lot of choices to wade through on his site, and you have to buy enough to justify shipping, but I think I'm going to go make an order.

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#9 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 10:34 AM

Hikari Cichlid Staple? The stuff in the green bags? Huh, my green sunfish HATED that stuff... what'd you have to do to get your guys to eat it?

yeah its the stuff in the green bags.

well over the summer i had been using flukers "can o' bluebird worms" as a staple (i found them for $1 a can at petco on clearance and bought 6 cans). when these ran out i went to the store to try and find them and i couldn't. all i could find were zoo-med (i think this was the brand) mealworms for reptiles at 5 bucks a can. this was far too expensive.

so i just started feeding my fish the odd insect i'd find around the house and yard. so they weren't eating much.

then one day i just crushed up these pellets and put them in and my bluegill ate a few. then next day it ate some more and then my pumpkinseeds started to catch on.

after a few days my bluegill and 2 pumpkinseeds were entirely customed to eating these pellets. this made it a breeze to get my redbreast trained on pellets, as it was very small when i got it, i hadn't spoiled it with live food, and it had the other fish as an example.

i think i may try hikari cichlid gold pellets when my cichlid staple pelets run out.

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#10 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 01:23 PM

So, all I have to do is kind of starve them a little? Before, my green sunfish would just nibble on them and spit them out and grab them again, almost like some kind of cruel joke aimed at me :fishy:

. Ungrateful fish :evil:

! Oh, and I have to recommend the ZooMed Red Shrimp, they kind of look like krill and your fish will love them just as much, I think it is like $4.50 for a jar of them and I still am using the one I bought in late June.

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#11 Guest_schambers_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 01:59 PM

I feed HBH Soft & Moist Krill, New Spectrum, and various Hikari foods. The Hikari algae wafers are a big favorite among all my madtoms. I keep a few small sunfish, and they like the HBH and New Spectrum.

It always helps get fish trained to eat pellets if there is another fish in the tank that already eats them. Competition can be a good thing! It can take a while for them to get used to the taste, so don't give up if they spit it out the first time they try a food.

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#12 Guest_gerald_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 02:08 PM

For fish that wont eat dry pellets at first, you can soak them in thawed brineshrimp or similar seafood juice until soft. Once they eat it softened, you can reduce the soaking until they eat it dry. Ive trained Enneacanthus and Umbra onto small dry pellets this way. (Occasionally works on darters, but more often I need to continue soaking theirs). Atison BettaPro is another good very small pellet.

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#13 Guest_dsaavedra_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 05:25 PM

So, all I have to do is kind of starve them a little? Before, my green sunfish would just nibble on them and spit them out and grab them again, almost like some kind of cruel joke aimed at me . Ungrateful fish ! Oh, and I have to recommend the ZooMed Red Shrimp, they kind of look like krill and your fish will love them just as much, I think it is like $4.50 for a jar of them and I still am using the one I bought in late June.

yeah as bad as it sounds thats pretty much what it took... :-?

my fish would take them and spit them out a lot before one day they decided to actually eat them.

and yeah i've tried flukers river shrimp, which i'm guessing are the same thing as zoomed red shrimp. my blacknose dace loved them. at the time i had a can of these, my sunfish were far to small to eat them, so i mainly fed them to my blacknose dace and crayfish. they really smelled bad!!!

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#14 Guest_catfish_hunter_*

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Posted 25 September 2009 - 08:01 PM

yeah as bad as it sounds thats pretty much what it took...

my fish would take them and spit them out a lot before one day they decided to actually eat them.

and yeah i've tried flukers river shrimp, which i'm guessing are the same thing as zoomed red shrimp. my blacknose dace loved them. at the time i had a can of these, my sunfish were far to small to eat them, so i mainly fed them to my blacknose dace and crayfish. they really smelled bad!!!

Oh my God, yes, they reek like a dumpster full of shelled clams and seagull guano, but fish love 'em! When I opened my current can, my nasal nerves nearly burned out. :mrgreen:

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#15 Guest_fishintheboro_*

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Posted 28 September 2009 - 12:02 PM

I have a northern longear, three western dollars, and a bantam. They all love Hikari Sinking Carnivore pellets. I also feed them Ocean Nutrition Formula One marine pellets (although they won't touch Ocean Nutrition's new cichlid pellets), Omega One Shrimp pellets, and New Life Spectrum Large Fish formula. If I had to pick only one, it would be the Hikari, hands down.

Edited by fishintheboro, 28 September 2009 - 12:03 PM.