Feeding Fish Fresh Food

[AshleyGracie]

I wanted to start feeding my fish fresh food, but don't really know how to start. I read peas and zucchini are good, but how do I get them to sink? And do I have to cut them real small or will they take bites? And what are some other foods I could try? Is frozen shrimp ok?

 

[kcartwright856]

It depends on the fish and the food.

Stuff like zucchini and cucumber gets a quick blanch, which is a dip into boiling water and then a plunge into ice water. You can loop a plant weight into the slice to sink it if it doesn't want to on its own. Most fish will graze on the slice as-is with no other preparations needed.

Peas usually get boiled and then gently squeezed to remove the shell and smash the shape a bit so that it's easier to eat. These should sink on their own when boiled.

Frozen shrimp from the store is just fine. Make sure that it's uncooked and unseasoned. Puffer keepers shop at the seafood counter a lot and generally feed the entire shrimp as the puffers have sharp beaks to rip into the meat. With smaller fish, you probably want to cut the shrimp up into more edible pieces.

See if any fish/pet stores around carry live blackworms. These are excellent to feed and easily keep for over a month when fresh and handled properly.

 

[kcartwright856]

And, of course, don't forget the freezer at the LFS! You'll find all sorts of goodies in there like bloodworms, brine shrimp, and more.

My fish never get dry foods.

 

[TrainRek77]

I feed quite a bit of frozen food. I haven't tried much else. At first my fish didn't really seem to recognize it as food. After a few feedings they started to eat it. Although, learning the correct portions for my fish was more difficult than with dry foods.

 

[OldMan47]

The problem with anything but real live food is that it simply does not move like real food. Real live things like artemia or similar foods move about and present a target for a fish to attack and eat. Flake, frozen and freeze dried foods all simply sit there without moving. Since they do not move, they do not invoke the natural hunting instincts of your fish. No matter how complete the nutrition may be, the first challenge is to get the fish to eat them. That is often the problem area, not the nutrient value of dry foods. Many dry foods are what may be called ideal in nutrient value but unless we can get our fish to eat them the benefit will be lost.

 

[kcartwright856]

Absolutely true, though it depends on the fish!

Scavengers, herbivores, and most omnivores will have no problems with this.

Carnivores benefit largely from live foods and can be tough to train on to frozen foods. Some folks see frozen foods as more convenient than live for their carnivores, but nothing beats just plopping a pinch of blackworms into a worm cone!

 

[kcartwright856]

Also, gel foods have come a long way. Gone are the days of blending up a soup with poorly-digestible gelatin!

I personally feed Repashy. Excellent, highly-digestible gel that can be presented in a variety of ways.

Between live, frozen, and gel, my fish have never touched a flake or pellet in my care, and they are perfectly fine with that!

 

[Gilli]

A word of warning with feeding shrimp if you have a community tank. As all the fish love it they are greedy and will try and eat it even if the piece is too big for them. When I was feeding my rams a greedy dannio snatched a larger piece and got it stuck in his mouth. I left him for half an hour hoping he would dislodge it and in the end had to net him and remove it with tweezers! From then on I shredded the shrimp as fine as I could and made sure I cut it into minute pieces.