Fish food questions??

[Barry Tetra]

Hello, this is a questions
1. Can low quality fish food cause bad health issue, can they make them die???
2. Can changing the food cause stress? for example changing food to discus which is a very picky eater.
3. Which brand is the best in your opinions?

 

[FishFinatic77]

I am in no way a food expert, but I can try to answer your questions as best I can.
1. Low quality fish food is definitely bad for your fish. They usually contain different starches and biproducts that no fish would eat in the wild. I would go with something that maybe costs a little more, but has good ingredients.
2. I have not found that changing food caused stress. Of course, if the fish do not like the food you give the, and then don't eat, that is a different story. But as long as they like it and eat it, I don't think they would be stressed. I cannot, however, tell you how discus would react as I have never kept them. Someone else will have to help you with that.
3. For brands, I use Hikari and Bug Bites, as well as Omega One. I have heard good things about New Life Spectrum and Repashy as well.
Hope this helps!

 

[Byron]

FishFanatic has checked all boxes. Omega One and New Life Spectrum are higher quality, and there are some others I am not familiar with so I won't name them in case I mislead. The Fluval Bug Bites are an incredibly good food for just about all fish; even substrate fish like cories really go for these when they sink to the substrate.

Aside from the afore-mentioned prepared (dried) foods, some frozen foods are good if for nothing else than variety as they are the closest to live foods. Frozen daphnia is excellent, and frozen brine shrimp. Frozen bloodworms but only once a week.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I can give a big thumbs up for the Omega One tropical flakes. I have seen more activity in my neon tetras as well as less waste. The flakes are also very well priced IMO.

 

[Colin_T]

All fish get a bit stressed when you change food or add new foods. Some fish will eat anything but fish that are only fed the same food every day, will be upset when you vary their diet. To prevent this, you need to feed 3 or 4 different types of food each week. Variety is the spice of life and that applies to fish food, bird food, people food.

Old food can go stale or mouldy and make fish sick.

Look at the fish food ingredients and try to avoid foods that contain grains like wheat or soy. Fish can't digest grains.

 

[Barry Tetra]

Thank you all for answering my post
I use Tetra Discus Bits which my discus really love them and now they dont eat anything except that, Tetra stuff are expensive in Thailand, 100 g discus bits is 10$ really expensive imo

Another brand that I buy is Hikari goldfish food

Also whats make low quality food low quality and does that means "cheap"="low quality"?

 

[Lajos_Detari]

If I am not wrong, the two top brands are:
1)Northfin
2)New Life Spectrum

They are quality food because they use the whole fish instead of the leftover fish parts. You can search the internets for the details explanations.
I remember I saw a website giving Northfin - 6 stars and New Life Spectrum - 5 stars but I am not sure how accurate it is.

Discus are very picky eaters.
To introduce new food, as what Colin suggested, you have to give a few types of food at the same time.
Probably you can introduce 1-2 new types of food in each feeding plus the current food that you have been feeding them for a long time.
The fish will get the hungriest in the morning. So, the best time to introduce new food is in the morning.

Also, take note that Discus prefer soft food and they don't like food that are slightly hard. So, you have to choose very carefully.
I think Hikari brand (Discus Bio Gold) seems ok for Discus.

I am also using New Life Spectrum Growth Formula for my Discus.
I think this food is quite soft as some of my very picky Discus will still eat them.
This is specially for young Discus as it has at least 50% of protein. It also has high fats. Protein and fats are important for young fish.
Any Discus that is below 7 months old is considered young. (based on Andrew Soh's book)
If you really want a very balance diets, you can refer to Andrew Soh's book on Discus.
He used to be a breeder for Discus. He did a lot of research on how to have fastest growth for Discus.
I see whether I can find some notes for you.
Some New Life Spectrum food may not be suitable for Discus as it tend to be harder.
I used another type of New Life Spectrum food in the past but my Discus don't really eat them.

Our range of premium fish food | New Life Spectrum Premium Fish Food for Colour and Vitality

nlspectrum.co.uk

I am also using Tropical D50 Discus Granules but some Discus find the food a little bit hard. You have to wait for the food to soften after a while before the Discus can eat them. This brand also have more than 50% protein.
But this brand seems to be slow in sinking and it will enhance red colour and not suitable for blue colour Discus.

Tropical Discus Gran D-50 Plus

www.aquaristikshop.com

I am also using Dr Bassleer Regular L Size. It also have high protein (more than 50%).

Bassleer Biofish Food | Regular

www.bassleer.com

Recently, I bought a small bottle of Tetra Discus Crisps. It is a floating type but some of my Discus will eat from the top.
It seems that they were trained from young to eat from the top. Probably that is how the breeder fed them.
My Discus seem to like this food.

Recently, I found another German brand - Discusfood Day by Day Granulates. It seems to have very high protein (57%).

Granulates for Discus Fish – Discusfood

www.discusfood.com

But I am not sure about the ingredients.

 

[Essjay]

I have discovered Northfin foods. These too contain 'good' ingredients. At one time they catered mainly for large fish but they have extended their range in recent months.

 

[AbbeysDad]

Low quality fish foods may use a low quality fish meal, and lots of grain/grain starch as binder/filler. Low quality fish meal is less nutritious and fish can't utilize grain/grain starch so it passes through as excess WASTE. However, not all fish meal is the same. Low quality fish meal is the result of processing waste (e.g cannery) which is heads, skin/scales, and bones - ground up, loaded with preservatives, dried, packaged, and sits in a warehouse for who knows how long until it's ordered from a fish food manufacturer.
BUT higher quality fish foods may be made from fish meal (or digest) made from whole fish. Certainly not table quality, but at least the whole fish and not the remains from a factory floor!
Now Omega One uses 'fresh' fish, but you'll notice on the label it reads salmon as the first ingredient, but not whole salmon. So it's likely the heads, skin/scales, and bones after fillets are extracted. Still, because of the proteins, fresh fish will require less grain/grain starch as binder than what is required for fish meal products.
So Omega One and Almost Natural uses fresh (or frozen) fish. (for Almost Natural, Ed uses table quality whole fish he buys locally on sale!)

The following brands use fish meal from whole fish:
New Life Spectrum
Tetramin
Ocean Nutrition
Cobalt
(There may also be others)

Footnote: I did extensive research on commercial fish foods for an article published in the Central New York Aquarium Society Reflector, May/June 2019.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

I personally like Omega One food. My fish like it and I notice less waste.

@Barry Tetra, I used to use Tetra brand tropical flakes, but I was noticing more waste and they didn't eat as much as they used to. I asked around TFF and I was introduced to Omega One tropical flakes.