Food For Marine Fish

[CezzaXV]

Hi everyone.

I'm in the process of converting my tropical tank to marine. It's been a long, difficult journey, but I'm getting my live rock on Tuesday and it's all very exciting!

I'm now thinking ahead to getting my fish, and more specifically what I'm going to feed them. I'm planning on starting off with a pair of ocellaris clownfish. Some weeks later I'll be adding a firefish. I've got space for a few more fish after that and am considering a royal gramma, though I know I'll have to add that one last due to territory issues. What else other than that, I don't yet know. Obviously there's also the CUC.

At the moment, I have a bunch of frozen food left over from my tropical tank (bloodworm, brine shrimp, daphnia and a few others), plus some tropical flake food and sinking pellets. I've also got some samples of Hikari Seaweed Extreme pellets. I've found some very general advice on what food to get, but nothing more specific i.e. what do I need to buy?

That was a long way of me asking what marine food do I need to buy (if any), and can I use up my tropical flakes and pellets on my marine fish?

Thanks all!

 

[Chad]

I feed my fish mostly Formula II flakes from Ocean Nutrition. It's a very balanced food with low phosphate/ash content. It has algae and fishmeal/seafood meal and I've found it brings out the color and health in my fish. All of my fish eat it with the exception of the scooter blenny who doesn't care for such things. I have three fire fish and they all eat the smaller pieces. Once a week, or so I feed meaty foods like baby brine, brine, Mysis, daphnia, or reef caviar. Though marine fish will eat blood worms it's not a regular marine food. It's too high in lipids and over time if fed regularly has been shown to cause liver disorders in marine fish. The occasion treat of blood worms is just fine however. The other food I mention above can be fed daily or twice daily.
 
I despise pellets. They end up just being food for the hermits and I've found my marine fish pick at them but don't really seem to eat them. The clowns and shrimp goby are the only exceptions but even they don't seem overly fond of them. Certainly not enough to justify my buying pellets.
 
In terms of frozen and freeze dried foods my experience has been that there is no better brand than Hikari. I'm a huge fan. The Hikari krill, for example, when compared to the San Francisco Bay Bran krill smell fresh and feel softer and just better all around.
 
I also recommend as a general practice turning off all pumps at feeding time. This allows the food to remain suspended in the water longer. This is important since you don't put the flake on the surface. Most marine fish don't care to eat off the surface of the water but rather from the water column. I will take a pinch of food in my hand, place it in the water, and disperse it with a flick of my fingers. I try to get it to each end of the tank to reduce completion and give the slower fish (like the firefish) a chance to get their food. If you have the pumps on it makes it more difficult to feed in this way. If you feed on the surface much goes to waste and some fish won't go up there to get it and if you have overflows the food is gone into your sump.
 
My advice is to go for the Formula II and get a pack of frozen Mysis to start with. If the firefish eat the Formula II flake then they will be doing well and the Mysis/brine can be a treat to balance.

 

[techen]

I use this stuff and my LFS recommended it.
 
All my fish eat this stuff.
 

 
 
I am however going to go pick up some flake food too.

 

[CezzaXV]

Can I ask how often you guys feed your fish and how often most people do it?

I used to feed my freshwater fish once a day but I wanna make sure I'm feeding my marine fish right. I know with freshwater fish it's recommended to feed fo frozen food as a treat rather than a major part of their diet. Is that not so much the case with marines?

 

[techen]

I'd like to think marines should be fed more frozen foods than flake foods but people prefer flakes? I have no idea what the feeding ratio is for marine fish. I only feed my fish once a day with 1/4 th of the frozen cube so not to overfeed them.

 

[Chad]

It very much depends on the fish. Many fish, especially marine planktonivore require feeding more than once a day. It also depends on the tank. In a larger, mature tank the fish will be able to feed themselves by grazing. I feed once a day now for my current fish and tank because I know they can get a meal through out the day to tide them over.
 
If you have a quality food then they will also eat less of it. Frozen foods are useful but not always what they are cracked up to be. Flake can be packed full of nutrients of various kinds because it's made from ground up lots of things.

 

[techen]

Is why am going to get New Era marine flakes next week and give it a go

 

[Donya]

I've also found the instant ocean flakes to be good. I discovered them by accident as a free packet in a salt bucket and I figured why not, but it was actually the first thing that my fish were willing to eat that wasn't frozen. I haven't tried the ocean nutrition but may try some of it at some point; sounds similar.
 

I despise pellets. They end up just being food for the hermits and I've found my marine fish pick at them but don't really seem to eat them. The clowns and shrimp goby are the only exceptions but even they don't seem overly fond of them. Certainly not enough to justify my buying pellets.

 
Pellets are specifically what I go for when I want to feed something OTHER than fish LOL. Great for feeding bottom dwellers, sand-sifters, and LPS/anemones, but not free-swimming critters. Another issue I have with pellets is that they are not the safest of foods if they're the wrong size relative to the fish. My cardinals are particularly bad for zooming out trying to eat things as big as their heads when I least expect it. 

 

[CezzaXV]

I can definitely see the appeal of flakes, as they're cheaper and you don't have to go to the freezer every time you need to feed your fish.

I'm ordering a return pump tomorrow and the same website sells the Ocean Nutrition Formula 2 stuff, so I'll add it to my order and see how it goes. I'll use up what frozen food I have left, but when that runs out I'll look into ordering something along the lines of what Techen showed. I think my local MA sells that.

Does anyone know if I were to defrost a cube, how long (if at all) it would be okay to store any leftovers in a sealed tub? I find the cubes have always been too big for what I need. With my freshwater tank I was always a little careless with overfeeding, but in a marine tank nitrates and phosphates are a much bigger deal.

 

[techen]

As I said, I cut the cubes up with a knfie, Put the rest back into the little slot in the package and then use up the 1/4th cube I removed.
 
I need to get some hermit crabs at somepoint so they can eat up the left overs anyway, There seems to be a lack of them at the moment. Not really fond of paying £10 postage for some too.

 

[Chad]

I use the frozen that comes in the blister packets. Each blister is one serving and it pops right out with a push of the finger.

 

[CezzaXV]

I use the frozen that comes in the blister packets. Each blister is one serving and it pops right out with a push of the finger.

What brand do you use? I've only ever seen it in big cubes which are always too big for me.

 

[Chad]

Hikari has small cubes which are half sized. I get blood worms and baby brine in that size for my small FW tank. For the big tank a normal sized cube is fine.