What makes a good fish food

This is just my oppinion gathered from years and years of feeding fish,watching their growth rates and cleaning filters....

The red and green pond pellets sold in clear bags are rubish... slow growth,low vitamin and not nearly enough nutrition for your fish....yes,its cheap,but cheap is as cheap gets - we call it popcorn in the koi trade....Fish seem to LOVE it cos they guzzle it down like popcorn - doesnt fill them with goodness,so they eat it like crazy....

If you got big fish and cant afford to feed them a premium quality food - consider a local brand of koi food - AquaNutro - quality ingredients and I've used it for years with good growth,minimal waste....

My trick is that I smell any new food I feed my fish.... Have a sniff at some premium grade food,then go smell some of thse popcorn pellets...you'll see what i mean...

just to add to what the prof said - Variety in diet is so important... I feed my own fish so many other supplemental foods that you dont get to buy in an LFS... Shelled peas,blanched baby marrow/cucumber/green beans,earthworms,bits of cooked potato and those baby shrimps you get for like R30/kilo in the frozen food section... try different "human" foods on your fish - you will be surprised to see what they like...

Would you be sattisfied with eating the same food day in and day out? Even if its steak?

 

Thanks for the reply.

I think on my budget I can get a good food.

What I am trying to establish is the differences and how it affects the fish. Is there really a differece even though the protein etc... content maybe the same in 2 or 3 different foods.

With the regards to the smell on fish food. its interesting to note that in trying to get my aro to eat something different I bought Aquaplus koi pellets as 1 of the things to try. He would normally eat the Aquaplus cichlid pellets on its own however the moment I mixed it with the koi pellets he didnt want to eat any of them! Could be in the smell\taste of the food. Something he senses that we dont see just at a glance...

 

The baby shrimp you talking about is in the supermarket type? Just defrost and feed?

 

The diferance in a good and not so good food oftewn comes in with hte Quality of the fish meal content(This makes up the bulk of the protein content of a pellet) - good foods use quality white fish meal.....not so good foods use whatever they can get....

As for getting Arries to change from an particular food to a next...remeber that a fish will never starve itself to death - change to a new food by introducing it with its current food,thereby " fooling" the fish into trying something new...Stick to this regime and slowly add more new food vs. old food to the mix.... try some of the AquaNutro(go for the Hi-protein pellet) on your Arrie... Got lotsa good stuff in (like Rooibos for extra antioxidants) and at round R100 for 2kg is not that expensive... remember that Arries are predators,so require a higher protein content in their diets - not giving them this and lack of vitamins will lead to stunted growth,curved gill plates and ultimately an early death....

 

Yup - those little pink cocktail shrimps - great source of protein and keratin - improves fish colour trmendously - when I still showed my koi on national shows - they would form a important part in "finnishing" off my fish in preperation for the show - brings out red's immensely...

 

@azurekoi thanks for the chat bro! much appreciated!

 

lol - pleasure mate - always glad to help...Hope i did...