What should we feed to Fishes?
Fish, like any other living thing, need a supply of calories to maintain their metabolism. Effectively providing your fish helps them to keep in good health and is helpful in keeping your fish in container. It is essential know the types of meals your fish need and how much meals they need, which differs from types to types.
In most situations, fish only need to be fed once a day, and you only need to Provide a little bit Fish Food. Most fish, like most cold blooded vertebrates, are primarily carnivorous, consuming mostly insects, insect larvae, worms, grubs, various shrimps and similar animals, and smaller fish, some even consuming small amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in the wild. However, almost all fish also graze on live plants, and there are very few that do not consume at least some algae. So, you can see that most fish are really omnivorous and need to get foods that contain both animal and vegetable matter to remain healthy. Like many children, a lot of fish would prefer to have a nice diet of rich meaty foods and push their vegetables under the table cloth, but this is not available in nature and should not be provided in the aquarium. Though there are fish that are more herbivorous or more carnivorous, there are few fish that are strictly herbivores or carnivores.
There are hundreds of food options for your pet fish, and a combination of foods from this selection is necessary to provide your fish with the nutrients they need. All of these foods fall into two broad categorizations of fish food: live and processed, which can be broken down further as described below.
Live Fish Food
Live food consists of plants, animals, and microorganisms. It is important to make sure that the live foods you provide for your fish provide all the nutrients that your fish need to remain healthy and to grow properly, and do not pose a risk to the fish. Many fish will graze a little on live plants and algae growing in your aquarium, but some herbivores will voraciously eat any live plants you put in the tank. Other fish will feed on microorganisms that are free-floating in your aquarium water or growing on the surface of plants and decorations. Still other fish will gladly eat worms, snails, and/or other invertebrates that are introduced to the aquarium. Many pet stores also provide a variety of insects and insect larvae that are of nutritional value to fish.
The most common live foods used in the aquarium hobby are live feeder fish.
Prepared Fish Food:
There are many categories of prepared meals, such as fresh, cool, freeze-dried, and prepared.
Fresh meals include meals and fresh vegetables with little managing. Many fish will go crazy for little (relatively) items of various meats, poultry, seafood, or game meals, but you don't want to prepare these meals in most cases. A lot of fish will also enjoy items of fresh vegetable matter, such as raw spud, grind, zucchini, pea, vegetable, apple (without the eliminate or seeds), and green green spinach. Again, as with remain meals, you need to make sure that the diet program strategy you have selected will meet the nutritional needs of your fish.
Frozen foods are available from most pet stores in a wide variety - from shrimp and squid to spirulina algae and vegetables to processed, vitamin enhanced staple diets to aquarium delicacies like sponges and insect larvae. The selection of frozen foods available can provide a varied and stable diet for most fish, and the processes that the foods go through when freezing greatly reduce the risk of disease transfer when compared to live foods or fresh seafood, wile maintaining a high nutritional value.
Many of the foods available as frozen foods also have a freeze-dried counterpart. These foods have all of the moisture extracted from them during processing so that they have a long shelf life and can be stored easily. Many worms, insect larvae, crustaceans, and meats are available in freeze dried forms. One disadvantage of freeze dried foods is that the freeze-drying process often strips vitamins from the food as well, so freeze dried foods are not likely to make a balanced and complete diet. Remember when feeding freeze-dried foods, that these foods can absorb a lot of water, and will fill up your fish a lot more than you would think when looking in the package.
We recommend that you moisten freeze-dried foods before feeding them to your fish to keep your fish from overeating and making themselves sick.
Canned foods are often the best for a fish's staple diet. The foods are engineered to provide a complete and balanced diet for your fish and are available in a variety of forms: floating pellets, sinking pellets, granules, tablets, and flakes.
Flakes are the most common type of processed foods, and are available in a very wide variety. Some flakes are engineered to provide the nutritional requirements of specific varieties or species of fish, and others are designed to counter nutritional imbalances, while still others are balanced to enhance color or growth or to encourage spawning.
Pellets are available in forms that are denser or lighter than water. This allows the fish to feed in a more natural way - if the right pellet is provided. Some fish prefer to feed off the bottom of the tank while others prefer to feed off the surface. Like flakes, pelleted foods are available in many varieties, each with a specific purpose.
Granules are like very small, hard flakes or tiny pellets. Currently only a limited variety of fish food granules are available, usually engineered for the general nutritional needs of small community fish.
Tablets are really just large flat pellets. Most tablets are of a sinking variety, but there are some that are engineered to adhere to the side of the aquarium so that you may observe your fish feeding. Most of the sinking tablets are engineered to provide for the nutritional needs of scavengers and bottom feeders.
Regardless of the kind of meals you decide to feed your fish, you should provide them with a comprehensive variety of meals. Variety in the diet program strategy reduces the chance of any health drawbacks Providing a comprehensive variety of meals will also reduce the chances that your fish reduce interest in the meals that they are provided and go on a "hunger strike."
