When it comes to feeding one's fish there are a few considerations, IMO. But one couls say there are basically three categories one has to consider when choosing foods and feeding schedules.
The first, and most important consideration is the nutritional needs of the specific species being fed in a tank. Most fish will eat almost anything so if we feed an assortment of foods particularly good for different species, we cannot tell them they may not eat each others food as it doesn't work.
The next consideration is the food itself and what it contains. I learned always to read ingredient listings for any food I might buy before I do so.
The final consideration is cost and time. Not every fishkeeper can spend the same money to feed their fish. Most foods get less expensive the more of it one buys. But when one has a single 29 gal. tank, for example, it make no sense to buy food in 5 pound cans.
Over the years I have tried a variety of brands as well as a variety of fish species. But I also do a bit of breeding and usually that means diet becomes an essential factor in getting fish spawning and then in raising healthy offspring. Ingredients really matter here.
I have tried live, frozen, flakes, sinking wafers and sticks and even fresh veggies. What I feed today is quite different that what I fed a couple of decades ago. Here is what I know to be true:
1. The best foods are live or close to live. A fresh piece of zucchini is better for an ancistrus than any algae wafer. Live worms, daphnia, brine, BBS etc. are all best when live. But this may often not be a viable option for many. For me it is not due to time and space considerations.
2. If one cannot do live, then the next two best options are quality frozen and Repashy gel foods (IMO). I recently switched from using kensfish sinking sticks to Ebo-Aquaristik foods I had to import from Germany. I got both their insect and mussel Softgran in a smaller size; Shrimp pellets, Veggie sticks and Supersoft Artemia in the smallest of the 4 sizes offered. So far I am happy with it as a part of the diet I feed. If I have problems getting plecos spawning, my go to food is Repashy Spawn & Grow. I recently sold off most of my kensfish sticks as a result.
3. When it comes to flake ingredients really matter, There is a lot of lower quality food out there. I have to admit I am a bit lax here. I have used my own mix of kensfish flakes for years. Flake is not for bottom feeders in my tanks, but if it makes it to the bottom, they will eat it. I have tried some of the other brands mentioned and not really changed from kens for some reason. But the fish which eat that are also getting frozen as well. I buy foods in pounds several times a year and have two shelves in the freezer for them. But I have 20 tanks.
4. Most fish will benefit from a varied diet. If you have both fry and bigger fish in the same tank, it often helps to feed two sizes of foods- small for the fry and bigger for the rest. The reason is simple. Big fish can often eat small foods but small fish cannot eat things too big. The exception is bottom feeders and foods that get soft. Baby plecos can rasp off the same chunk of Repashy as their parents. Sinking pellets or sinking sticks/wafers should soften, so the same applies.
5. If one is so inclined, one can make their own fish foods. However, doing this means having a good grounding in the dietary needs of the fish and then which ingredients will supply them. At the same time one wants to avoid those things that might not be good for the fish especially in the name of speeding preparation or the lowering the cost of needed ingredients. Culturing foods gets one live, but you need to dedicate the time and space for this.
5. I have never understood when I hear or read that somebody's fish won't eat this or that food. My experience has been all fish are pigs and will try to eat anything they think might be food. The only time I have a fish that won't eat was because it was sick. Contrary to popular opinion, when I get new fish they get fed fairly soon after going into a tank. Most stores skimp on feeding to hold down costs as do importers and wholesalers. New fish always seem to arrive hungry. So I feed them.
6. Each keeper has to figure out what foods are the best ones to feed what they keep. But this will be mitigated by how many fish and tanks one has and what sort of budget they have. There are no truly universal foods as far as I can tell.
7. As a rule, the most popular commercial foods are not the best things to feed our fish. I prefer to get brands suggested by smaller vendors with better credentials than a brand name. As somebody who has had some success breeding plecos one of the most asked questions I get is, "What do you feed your fish?"
We all know we should keep our fish in proper conditions i.e. parameters and habitat. We all know water changes are a good thing since fish prefer this to poor quality water. But the one variable we really control and which matters a great deal is what we feed.
Diet matters.
Over the years one of my favorite fry foods were Cyclop-eeze. It was available frozen, freeze dried or flake. I used the frozen. But it was cultured in a single lake which crashed. And that was the end of Cyclop-eeze, but not cyclops entirely. My frozen mix today is:
Adults: Brine Shrimp, Brine shrimp gut loaded w/ spirulina, Blood Worms (mini- and regular), Mysis Shrimp, Daphnia.
Fry: cyclops, rotifers, dpahnia, BBS (this is too expensive so I keep just a few packs of the cubes on hand, but they are a minimal feed because of the cost). I tried hatching BBS for a while. Too much work and too messy for me and I gave it up. I also did live red wiggler worms, but again, I gave them up too. For veggie these days I use the Ebo and and what is left of both my kensfish veggie and spirulina sticks.
