Fish food and feeding seem like pretty simple topics, but a lot of people still suffer with dirty aquariums and sick fish regularly where improper fish feeding or food has turned out to be the problem. A poor or inadequate diet can certainly make a fish sick and die a premature death. In this article, we will examine some of the main points to keep in mind when it comes to fish food and feeding.
Food Freshness and Expiration
First of all, just like people, fish may suffer poor health from being fed stale or expired food. After much testing, it has been discovered that most fish foods will become bad after it has been opened, not surprisingly. Tests have shown that once the seal has been broken on a new package of fish food, it starts to lose some of its vitamins and nutrition after only 2 months. After 6 months, the food will become tasteless and stale, lose a lot of its nutrition, and may even become toxic.
One of the ways of keeping your fish healthy is to keep your fish food fresh, and you can do this by only buying what you think your fish will need for just a few months, definitely no longer than 6 months. Your fish food can be refrigerated or even put in the freezer, and this may help some in keeping it fresh. If you currently have fish food that has been opened for a year or more, it is best to throw it out and not use it at all.
Overfeeding…Underfeeding…Presto!
Most people tend to overfeed as opposed to underfeed fish. In fact, overfeeding is easy to do while underfeeding is really hard to do because there are almost always enough “snacks” to eat in the tank in terms of plants and microorganisms. Lastly, most fish can survive with good health for about a week without any food. Thus, it is better to err on the side of underfeeding a bit than overfeeding.
Flake food is the most common fish food, so we will discuss the proper feeding process using it as a guideline. You can feed your fish 1 or 2 times per day, and give just two or three bite-size flakes per fish per feeding. Specifically, the fish should be fed only such an amount at a time so that everything will be consumed within about 5 to 10 minutes. If they eat it all quickly within about 5 minutes, then you can try giving each fish one more flake and this should satisfy any further hunger. If your fish do not eat all of the food in 10 minutes or at the end of the feeding session, it is best to get a net and scoop out the uneaten food, and you can feed less the next time.
There are many important reasons for feeding your fish sparingly. Overfeeding causes most fish sickness and death through two ways – the first being making the fish overweight and unhealthy, and that is true for any animal that is overfed. Secondly, overfeeding causes excess food to get sucked up into the filter and to settle all over the tank bottom. This then leads to water pollution, a dirty aquarium, and even further fish sickness due to the unhealthy conditions that are caused when uneaten food decays in the tank and filter. You can prevent all these problems by simply following the fish feeding techniques above and investing in a small net to scoop out uneaten food after feedings.
Of course, do not severely underfeed your fish either (such as less than once a day for an extended period of time). Fish that look thin or that have sunken stomachs or bodies are not healthy, and it could be due to underfeeding. When feeding the fish, you may want to keep a watchful eye to make sure they are all eating. Spread the food flakes across the surface of the water to help ensure that all the fish get some food.
Be suspicious if some or most of the fish are not eating or are eating rather sluggishly at the designated feeding times. This could be due to poor water conditions (pH or temperature too high or low, poor filtration), which will cause fish to lose their appetite. You can easily test the tank water with an appropriate pH gauge or thermometer, and also look to see how dirty or cloudy the water is. Adjust the pH or temperature accordingly if necessary, and change 1/3 of the water right away if the tank is dirty. This simply means removing about 1/3 of your aquarium water and replacing it with fresh water gradually.
Alternative Fish Foods
As said previously, flake food is the most common staple for a large number of tropical fish. Most flake foods are designed to contain enough important nutrients for your fish to stay healthy. However, having some variety with live or other special foods makes feeding more fun and makes your fish a lot happier.
You can substitute or supplement most tropical fish’s regular flake food diets with treats such as brine shrimp, various worms such as tubifex and blood worms (midge fly larvae), or small crustaceans such as Daphnia. If live food is not available, frozen and dry packages of most of these items are available from your local pet store or our online store and are acceptable substitutions for the live food. Floating food or pellet food that is specifically made for pond fish can also be found. These pellets come in different sizes and flavors.
Angelfish have one of the most varied diets possible. They can survive on flake food alone, but they will thrive, grow larger, and be much more apt to breed on a greatly varied diet. Live foods such as adult brine shrimp, black worms, mosquito larvae, finely chopped earthworms, and guppy fry, as well as trimmed and chopped raw beef heart, are accepted with enthusiasm and should be included regularly for the best quality angelfish. Bettas are mostly predators in the wild and they will also enjoy brine shrimp, brine shrimp eggs, crayfish eggs, tubifex worms, mosquitoes, mosquito larvae, Daphnia, bloodworms, and trimmed and chopped beef heart.
Some vegetarians such as the plecostomus catfish only eat plant material, and that is why they are used to clean algae from most people’s aquariums. Vegetarians can be pampered and pleased with frozen kelp, or bits of fresh lettuce and spinach. Koi will greatly enjoy helpings of lettuce, cooked rice, cooked oats, as well as dried or fresh shrimp.
Tags: Fish & Ponds
