Reef Discussion

[Wrangy]

Tip of the day! Feed as much variety to your fish as possible!
Over the last few month's I've trialled feeding singular foods to see what could be achieved or missed by this and what foods are better or worse. I tired this with ELOS pellets, NLS pellets and NLS flake, then after getting basically shitty results from singular feeding I've returned back to my regular mix of foods and oh my god are the differences absolutely amazing!
Literally within 3 days of going back to the regular mix of foods, the colours on my fish were starting to burst and really look good again! Now having been back on it a few weeks everyone is looking absolutely stunning again! Including my bellus who has quite the metabolism on her. Colours are bright, colour changes and lines are much sharper and everyone seems much happier and more lively!

I know it may seem like a common sense sort of thing to do with fish but it's something that I've wanted to test out to see what the actual results are, nothing else in the tank has changed during this period.

My current feeding regime includes NLS colour enhancing pellets and flake, ELOS pellets and frozen mysis and garlic and spirulina enriched artemia. I feed the dry foods 2-6 times a day depending on when I'm home and frozen is fed every 2-3 days too. I have seen any change in algae or anything like that, just happier fish!
Just my little insight and thoughts for the day

 

[RobbieMVFC]

wow . I only feed once a day twice on weekends.
As for mixing food, I have always done it .The way I see it is I wouldn't like a bowl of Veggies every day nor would I like a hamburger everyday.
If you mix it up your fish should get all the vitamins they need with a little burger and chips on the side...lol

 

[Ziggy]

Interesting that you tried that experiment, good idea.

I notice lots of people feed pellets as well as frozen, veggies etc. I cannot get my lot to eat pellets at all so I gave up. Instead they get a massive variety of frozen foods plus sea veggies. They get fresh prawn sometimes too but mainly frozen marine mix, lobster eggs, fish eggs, mysis, shell fish, artermia with and without spirulina and various shell fish meat.

I'm beginning to worry in case my fish are suffering by not having pellets? They are all growing, healthy, colourful and seem happy so I doubt it but would welcome your thoughts.

 

[Andrew B]

yay at least i am doing something correctly

 

[Lesley]

I have always fed a mix of food. I think of myself eating the same stuff every day , not only would that be soooooo boring but probably not good for you either. I also feed multiple times a day. Glad you tested the theory & I now know it's a good thing to do. Thank you !

 

[Wrangy]

wow . I only feed once a day twice on weekends.
As for mixing food, I have always done it .The way I see it is I wouldn't like a bowl of Veggies every day nor would I like a hamburger everyday.
If you mix it up your fish should get all the vitamins they need with a little burger and chips on the side...lol

It's usually 3 or 4 times a day in small amounts that the fish can consume quickly :)
I definitely agree though, certain foods will lack different proteins, vitamins or various other macro-nutrients and so feeding the broad spectrum ensures that you'll be able to hopefully hit everything!

Interesting that you tried that experiment, good idea.

I notice lots of people feed pellets as well as frozen, veggies etc. I cannot get my lot to eat pellets at all so I gave up. Instead they get a massive variety of frozen foods plus sea veggies. They get fresh prawn sometimes too but mainly frozen marine mix, lobster eggs, fish eggs, mysis, shell fish, artermia with and without spirulina and various shell fish meat.

I'm beginning to worry in case my fish are suffering by not having pellets? They are all growing, healthy, colourful and seem happy so I doubt it but would welcome your thoughts.

I like to experiment and tinker a little bit lol

Frozen and fresh is definitely one of the very best options out there but a lot of us can't afford such large nutrient inputs a lot of the time. One day I'll be making my own decent feed mix of everything to see how that goes, dry, fresh, frozen and otherwise to see how the fish react to that :)

They aren't necessarily suffering from it of they're colourful and happy but I think there is still a bit to gain from feeding prepared foods as they have higher contents of certain things. From now on when you feed frozen, mix a small pinch of pellet or flake in with it so that it is hidden among the frozen stuff and once you see them picking and eating the dry food, slowly back off the amount of frozen till you're simply on pellets or flake :)

yay at least i am doing something correctly

haha I'm sure you're doing more than one thing right :P

I have always fed a mix of food. I think of myself eating the same stuff every day , not only would that be soooooo boring but probably not good for you either. I also feed multiple times a day. Glad you tested the theory & I now know it's a good thing to do. Thank you !

I couldn't agree more and who doesn't like spoiling their fish, I know I'm terribly guilty of it :rolleyes you should see how fat my little wrasse is :p greedy little bastard!
I thought it was a worthy, even if obvious, theory worth testing :)