Frozen Food All The Time?

[xamy_valox]

Hi there,
i currently feed my fish every other day. Today I bought some packs of frozen food, one daphnia, one bloodworm and one baby brine shrimp. I've never fed them brine shrimp before, so decided to try them on it tonight and they have gone wild for it!!

Anyway, at the moment I kinda leave the frozen foods as a twice a week thing, and then use flake (and algae wafers for the cory's) for the other feeds. Can I however feed them frozen stuff more often? I'm sure I read somewhere that it should be used as more of a 'treat' which would explain why they go so crazy over it, but I just love the way they gobble it all up, where as flake they have a few nips and get kinda bored with.

How often do you guys feed frozen or live food such as the ones mentioned?
Thanks xx

 

[barb218]

I've not had a tank for long but i got some advice the other day about frozen food and i think you should keep feeding them it only twice a week still. I'm not sure about this but maybe just one day a week if your feeding them every other day.

 

[smokeyjo]

Yeah I'd personally only do it twice a week as a treat I feed mine frozen bloodworm and they love it but they would probally get bored of it after a while like the flakes

 

[magpie]

Can I ask why to limit the frozen? Is it because flakes are more balanced? Seems that in my logical, uneducated mind that the "real" stuff would have more nutrients and be better for them as long as you switch it up...?

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Algae wafers are not a good staple for corys. They are omnivores, so mix in a sinking pellet for them as well. I feed mine shrimp pellets.

 

[three-fingers]

Flake and pellet foods contain all the vitamins and minerals that fish need while generally frozen food wont unless you are soaking them in vitamins first (you can buy this for fish). Frozen foods are just more readily consumed and a lot of fish respond different to them, different food is different stimulus so can fish to display a greater range of natural behaviours.

You could really just feed them mainly frozen food all the time, and give them a little bit of flake/pellet for vitamins too. Tbh I think algae wafers are fine for corys as long as they are eating them, they contain basically the same vitamins and will have lots of fish/crustacean/mollusc meal anyway if you look at the ingredients.

 

[magpie]

Thanks for the info. So I have a package of a mix of frozen cubes - there's brine shrimp with spirulina, bloodworms, and two mix-type pellets, one is this:
http/www.sfbb.com/Freshwater-Frenzy%E2%84%A2_20.php
And one is this:
http/www.sfbb.com/Emerald-Entree%E2%84%A2_21.php

So these have some vitamins and things like greens, spirulina, etc. Are these any better? I'm just curious as this all interests me. I of course have flakes and will also have shrimp pellets and live food, and plan on just doing a variety in general, but really want to know what the info is out there nowadays. Thanks!

 

[three-fingers]

Basically, when a fish eats a bug in the wild, its eating a 100% fresh meal with algae in it's gut contents too, so even insectivorous fish get loads of algae with all the right vitamins and minerals that they need to live. Due to the massive diversity of invertebrate, plant and algae species in most fishes environment, they will be getting a very varied diet of different algaes, bugs and bits of plants.

Frozen food has lost some of it's vitamin content each time it has been defrosted, even slightly when en route to the LFS, or in your car on the way back. Also they often have empty gut contents, due to the time and stress in being collected and frozen. On top of these factors, no LFS can offer as diverse a diet in frozen food as a fish would get in the wild, usually restricted to bloodworm, daphnia etc.

Flake foods generally just have assorted fish, mollusc, crustacean and algae meal along with added vitamins and minerals - so each flake has loads of species in and extra stabilised vitamins to account for the gut contents.

Those frozen foods just have a bit of plant material and some added vitamin C, so a little better but not hugely. If you want to really increase the nutritional value of frozen foods you could soak it in vitamins after defrosting .

 

[AbbeysDad]

In the wild, fish would get all sorts of diverse live and plant foods. Smaller fish, Insects, worms, crustaceans, plants and algae's. Many prepared foods typically contain fish meal, flour and various other ingredients. A very few use fresh fish instead of meals allowing less or no binder/fillers like flour. In addition to the main ingredients, prepared foods also contain vitamins, minerals and such.
UNLESS you present a wide variety of frozen foods, you will not be feeding as balanced a diet as would be the case with the prepared foods.
In a nutshell, as other members have said, reserve the frozen foods as treats and feed a high quality prepared flake or pellet food. Note: Be sure to check the ingredients on prepared foods as not all fish food is created equally.

 

[Tizer]

my big tank gets 5 cubes of bloodworm every other day, i might swap it out for brine shrimp on occasion, the other days they get pellets and wafers and novo tabs. Although that said, i use novo tabs at 10pm every night when lights go out as my clown loaches like to come out then and feed. As long as you mix up the diet, all is good.

 

[jimmy_veal]

I feed my fish bloodworms every other day, but quite interesting you mention they may get bored of them, as my loaches used to rush up to the top and grab them but they dont seem bothered any more, still eating the sinking pellets though!
Any ideas of how to stop the flakes being sucked into the top of my Juwel internal filter - sometimes the whole cube of bloodworms gets caught in the vents and it seems the cube has gone to waste before the fish get a chance to eat them.

 

[Tizer]

turn it off for 5 mins?

 

[jimmy_veal]

Didn't think of that, i'll try it later on and see.

Cheers!

 

[moochy13]

those novo tabs are absolutely mega. i recently got some after asking for some sinking meaty pellet/disc things. my fish love them, stick them to the side of the tank and mu rusty plec will put his whole mouth over it, very odd to see.

 

[xamy_valox]

Yeah I also have catfish pellets for the cory's and obviously they eat any flake that sinks to the bottom.
I guess I'll just stay as I am an mix it up a bit, bloodworm one day, brine shrimp the next, flake and pellets another!
Although at the moment i feel like giving up as I've had another fish die on me =[ one of my GBR's has died. I think the other one has bullied it to death.

Yeah I also have catfish pellets for the cory's and obviously they eat any flake that sinks to the bottom.
I guess I'll just stay as I am an mix it up a bit, bloodworm one day, brine shrimp the next, flake and pellets another!
Although at the moment i feel like giving up as I've had another fish die on me =[ one of my GBR's has died. I think the other one has bullied it to death.