Advice on foods for community tank?

[gatorboi]

Hello! I'm planning a 40 gal freshwater tank (and my first real tank) and would like some advice on fish food. I'd like to both limit the number of foods I need to buy and make sure all my potential fish & co have their needs well met. The tank will be very heavily planted, so any recommendations for foods I can grow myself are very well appreciated (I hear good things about dried duckweed?)
Potential tank-mates: (I will likely end up removing a couple species from this list, in the process of researching compatibility and conflicting needs)

• Betta Splendens
• Bronze/Panda Cory
• Neon Tetra
• Kuhli Loaches
• Otocinclus
• Chili Rasbora
• Various inverts (shrimp, snails, isopods)

Potential Foods:

• Fluval Bug Bites
• Bloodworms
• Daphnia
• Hikari Sinking Wafers, Micro Pellets, Algae Wafers
• Assorted Veggies

 

[GaryE]

I respect the fact you're planning ahead. That's rare in the hobby.

• Betta Splendens
• Bronze/Panda Cory
• Neon Tetra
• Kuhli Loaches
• Otocinclus
• Chili Rasbora
• Various inverts (shrimp, snails, isopods)

You will see some temperature compatability issues as you research more. Foodwise, you have insect eaters, detritus eaters, fish that feast on small worms and invertebrates and algae eaters. You'll need to feed small quantities of various foods.
When I was a kid starting out in the hobby, I was told to buy three foods and rotate them. It was good advice. I used a staple, a green food and either a higher protein or colour food. Choices were more limited in the 1960s.
I now use a mix of live foods (a lot of work) and processed foods (bug bites, insect pellets from a Polish company, algae wafers, colour and staple flakes (both rarely). I have multiple tanks so I use different foods depending on the needs of the species in them.
Potential Foods:

• Fluval Bug Bites
• Bloodworms
• Daphnia
• Hikari Sinking Wafers, Micro Pellets, Algae Wafers
• Assorted Veggies

Bug bites can be a good staple, but in flakes for the fish you have in mind. They're tiny and most pellets aren't. Bloodworms would be good for the Betta, and the others would eat them as they sink. If you can get live daphnia, they're great, but freeze dried, they're little more than roughage. The Hikari sinking foods are good quality.

A lot of Otocinclus starve in tanks, and I wouldn't add them to any set up that's less than a year running. They need algae and biofilm, and that isn't present enough in new tanks. It takes time to properly develop.

 

[AJ356]

For dried foods you can't go wrong with the bug bites range and JBL. I am not a fan of Hikari using generic fish meal as their number one ingredient in, from what I can see, all their fish foods

 

[Naughts]

IIRC the bug bites flakes ingredients are inferior to the granules. As Gary said above, your fish are small so the micro granules are a good shout. When you get the tank established and oto and shrimp the algae wafers will be good, although oto can be hard to feed prepared foods.
Betta are gluttons for blood worms but they're not very nutritional so they should be only for treats. Even then, the larger worms can cause blockages as they're heads are hard and not digestible.
Daphnia are good, I use brineshrimp too.