How long does fish food last?

[Fishmanic]

I prefer feeding frozen brine shrimp as a treat. It will stay fine in the freezer for months. I dissolve part of a cube in a small container of tank water and feed using a pipette.

 

[corylover5]

I prefer feeding frozen brine shrimp as a treat. It will stay fine in the freezer for months. I dissolve part of a cube in a small container of tank water and feed using a pipette.

Thanks! I have omega one freeze dried brine Shrimp cubes. My brother got them for me as a gift although I have never fed freeze dried foods before. How should I feed them those cubes?

 

[Fishmanic]

Just take cube and break it up into much smaller bits with your thumb and forefinger. Don't overfeed...just enough that they will eat within about a minute or so.

 

[corylover5]

Just take cube and break it up into much smaller bits with your thumb and forefinger. Don't overfeed...just enough that they will eat within about a minute or so.

Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

Thank you. All the foods I have currently have pretty good ingredients especially the omega one brand. I sometimes get them live foods. What is a good live food to get them? The stores by me sell live blackworms, live tubifex worms (I have never bought these), live brineshrimp, and some frozen bloodworms. Thanks again!

Do not use live Tubifex for any fish. They come from sewer outlets and are always contaminated by bacteria. It doesn't matter if the supplier says they are clean, avoid live Tubifex worms at all cost.

Live black worms are cleaner than Tubifex worms and as long as they are clean and dark, and there are no grey, light brown, or white clumps in there, and as long as the water is crystal clear and doesn't smell, they are ok for bottom dwelling fishes like catfish and loaches. However, if there are grey, white or light brown clumps, these are dead rotting worms and you should avoid them. If the water is milky cloudy or smells bad, avoid them.

Personally I won't use live Tubifex at all, and I won't use live Blackworms for fish unless I keep them in a clean container at home for a couple of weeks and change the water every day. Then they have to look and smell clean before I will offer them to fish.

You can grow Blackworms in an aquarium and once they have settled in, they are clean and safe to use for fish. Have an aquarium with an inch of gravel and an air operated sponge filter in the tank. Add some plants and let the tank cycle. When it has cycled, add some blackworms, do regular water changes, and feed them every few days on bottom feeding pellets. They don't need much and you should remove the uneaten food a few hours after feeding. After about 6 months the entire bottom of the tank should be full of worms and you can scoop them out and feed them to your fish.

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Live Brineshrimp is fine as long as they are alive and the water is clear and doesn't smell bad.

Frozen Brineshrimp, bloodworms (different to blackworms), daphnia, mysis shrimp and marine mix are all good to use. Feed bloodworms once or twice a week and use the other types of frozen food the rest of the time. Marine mix was a staple for my fish.

You can culture live Daphnia and Rotifers for fish, and hatch out Brineshrimp eggs and feed the newly hatched Brineshrimp (called nauplii) to most fish. My rainbowfish were about 4 inches long and would go nuts whenever I added baby Brineshrimp to the tank. So did every other fish for that matter.

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One other question, as a gift yesterday a friend get me a container of fluval bug bites goldfish formula. I don't keep goldfish (although I want to) and I can't find ingredients listed on the bottle. Would these still be ok to feed my fish?

Below are the ingredients in the Fluval bug bites for goldfish and tropical fish. They have a few things in them that fish can't digest but the first few ingredients are fish and insect larvae so that is good. If you got them as a present, use them but I wouldn't go out and buy them specifically.

Things like zinc oxide and manganous oxide (I assume its meant to be manganese oxide) can't be digested by anything. Zinc oxide is used as a sunscreen (pink zinc on your nose as a kid) and is regularly put into cheap vitamin supplements for people, but it's useless and doesn't get absorbed by the body. It has potatoe, wheat, calendula and rosemary extract that are terrestrial plants you don't normally give fish. They even have copper sulfate in so you don't want to use these in tanks that contain shrimp or crabs, and it might even kill snails if they eat it. (That part interests me coz I hate snails).

They add calcium and fish normally get their calcium from the water or from fish and shrimp they eat. And they add vitamin A, which is found in fish.

The food contains lots of things that aren't really needed but get added to make it look good.


Tropical Fish Ingredients:
Dried black soldier fly larvae, salmon, fish protein concentrate, green peas, potato, wheat, dicalcium phosphate, calcium carbonate, DL-methionine, lecithin, choline chloride, L-lysine, vitamin E supplement, biotin, niacin, calcium L-ascorbyl-2-monophoshate, calendula, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, d-calcium pantothenate, vitamin B12 supplement, beta-carotene, rosemary extract, riboflavin, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamine mononitrate, inositol, folic acid, vitamin A supplement, calcium iodate, sodium selenite, vitamin D3 supplement.


Goldfish Food Ingredients:
Dried black soldier fly larvae, corn, corn gluten meal, wheat, salmon, pea protein concentrate, calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, DL-methionine, lecithin, choline chloride, L-lysine, vitamin E supplement, biotin, niacin, calcium L-ascorbyl-2 monophosphate, calendula, zinc oxide, manganous oxide, , vitamin B12 supplement, beta-carotene (color), rosemary extract, riboflavin, copper sulfate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, thiamine mononitrate, inositol, folic acid, vitamin A supplement, calcium iodate, sodium selenite, vitamin D3 supplement.

 

[corylover5]

Things like zinc oxide and manganous oxide (I assume its meant to be manganese oxide) can't be digested by anything. Zinc oxide is used as a sunscreen (pink zinc on your nose as a kid) and is regularly put into cheap vitamin supplements for people, but it's useless and doesn't get absorbed by the body. It has potatoe, wheat, calendula and rosemary extract that are terrestrial plants you don't normally give fish. They even have copper sulfate in so you don't want to use these in tanks that contain shrimp or crabs, and it might even kill snails if they eat it. (That part interests me coz I hate snails).

Thanks! I have quite a few snails in the tank that I feed bug bites in. I have 4 mystery snails, 3 nerites, 1 giant tower cap snail, and some cute little pond snails. Do you think they will be ok with me feeding the bug bites? Typically the catfish eat the bug bites very quickly when they hit the bottom of my tank so I don't think it gives the snails much time to eat them at all.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Ah yes, good ole’ Omega One with their HUGE containers of food that look super small in the photo, lol.

The expiration date on that will most likely be in 2023.

I personally get the 0.42oz bottles of Omega One (OO) Tropical Flakes. I also have the 4.5oz OO Shrimp Pellets. As my second food, I have Fluval Bug Bites. My Betta especially likes these, along with OO Betta Buffet Pellets. I will use most of these before they expire, but I am going to put some of the Bug Bites in the freezer. (I accidentally bought 2 extra container of Bug Bites, but they were for a great price)

 

[Colin_T]

Thanks! I have quite a few snails in the tank that I feed bug bites in. I have 4 mystery snails, 3 nerites, 1 giant tower cap snail, and some cute little pond snails. Do you think they will be ok with me feeding the bug bites? Typically the catfish eat the bug bites very quickly when they hit the bottom of my tank so I don't think it gives the snails much time to eat them at all.

If all the food gets eaten by other fish then it should be fine, but if the snails get it, they might die due to the copper sulfate in the food.

If you have a few spare snails, you could put them in a bucket of tank water and offer them some of the food. See if they survive eating it. If they do, then your good to go. If they die then you only killed a couple of common snails and you shouldn't use that food in the snail tank.

 

[corylover5]

If all the food gets eaten by other fish then it should be fine, but if the snails get it, they might die due to the copper sulfate in the food.

If you have a few spare snails, you could put them in a bucket of tank water and offer them some of the food. See if they survive eating it. If they do, then your good to go. If they die then you only killed a couple of common snails and you shouldn't use that food in the snail tank.

I feel too bad using the mystery snails or nerites but would the food have the some effect on mystery snails as it would on pond snails? I could use pond snails to test the food.

 

[Colin_T]

If the copper is going to kill snails, it will affect pond snails just like mystery or nerites.