Fish Diet?

[Benauld]

Hi,

I was wondering how many people use flake food (or it's equivalent) as the staple of the diet for their fish?

Do I have to use flake food or would I be able to provide enough nutrition by using a mixture, to varying degrees, of Daphnia, Red & White Mosquito Larvae, Artemia [sp?], Bloodworm, Tubifex, chopped Earthworms, Brineshrimp, fresh Seaweed (as in Nori? - BTW does this ever find it's way into fresh water? ), fresh uncooked Prawn etc?

I was also wondering about ants? I have thousands of the little buggers in my back garden... and also fly maggots/pupae (as in the type used in fishing [No flaming please I don't fish, I'm just using it as an example!]?]

Any comments?

 

[three-fingers]

I feed flakes or pellets around once a week, and they get frozen food at least four times a week (bloodworm, brineshrimp, mysis, white mosquito larvae, daphnia and prawn).
My synodontis gets an algae wafer every couple of days, and sometimes catfish pellets.
They also get fish (frozen smelt/salmon/trout or whatevers available) about once a week and parboiled peas at least twice a week with the rest of their meal or on its own.

About once every two weeks I get them live brine shrimp as a treat, and around every month or so they get a load of live daphnia and cyclops when one of the various jars around my room gets overrun with the critters.

So I don't use one thing as a staple diet, and I feed other random things every now and then such as little bits of bread, small live crickets, mussel and the like.

You don't have to feed flake food if you give them variety.

My fish also nibble at the plants in my tank, and the springtails that live on top of the the filter are munched up by my hatchet fish.

 

[mommyof2bettas]

Other- all of those should be included.

 

[fishlette]

my guys get a huge variety. all my tanks get tropical flakes, veggie flakes, cichlid flakes/pellets (for the rams) sinking pellets, algae wafers etc on a daily basis to cater to the needs of everyone in the tank (i rotate flakes foods every day. they dont get all those flakes every day ). i also feed them frozen every day to get some food into the bumblebee gobies. frozen foods are bloodowrm, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp and community blocks. once a week they all get some cucumber or zucchini or a lettuce leaf to nibble on. IMO they need all these things.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Other= a mix of the above. The proportion between live foods and vegetable matter should depend on the species of fish, e.g. mollies are predominantly herbivorous, so feeding them bloodworm all the time is doing them no favours; but other fish need a much more protein-rich diet.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

other, mix of the above, depends on the tank as well, marines get pretty much all frozen, microrasboras mostly get micro pellets as pretty much everything else is too big for them to eat, oscar gets cichlid pellets and meaty treats, plec gets fresh veg and the odd algae wafer, catfish gets catfish pellets and fresh veg and meaty treats, community tank gets everything!