Feeding Freshwater Fish

Aquarium fishes will eat all types of foods, the only conditions are that the fish actually enjoys the food and that the pieces are small enough to be eaten. As with all animals, fish need to receive nutrients and vitamins essential for healthy growth.

Fish also need to have a varied diet in order not to become bored with the same old foods and to avoid becoming addicted to one food, which is undesirable. It is important to offer foods of appropriate size. It is no good feeding tiny flakes of food to a great big fish, just as feeding large lumps of food to a tiny fish is useless.

Generally you should feed your fish two or three times a day with very small helpings - unless they are large carnivores, in which case they will need special requirements and these are dealt with individually later onion the hook. If you are feeding flake food, then give them only a very

small pinch and check that this is all eaten within three to five minutes .Healthy fish are hungry fish. If your fish are always at the surface looking for food, or if they rush to the surface when you approach the tank, then that is a good sign. If you are giving your fish the messier foods, such as blended meats or raw fish, then this should all he consumed within a minute or it will pollute the tank. A quite common practice is to 'fast' the fish for one day a week. This ensures a better appetite and the fish will not be harmed; in their natural state they can go weeks without food.

Flakes and Pellets

Flake foods are a convenient way of feeding aquarium fishes. There are flakes of different colors that contain various ingredients such as fish,roe, wheat, meat, vegetables, trace elements and vitamins. Feed only as mall amount to your fish at any one time. Flake foods are fine for fish up to 4-5in(10-13cm) in length, but you will need something else to supplement them when they grow larger. Pellets have roughly the same ingredients as flake foods but are more substantial. They are available in various sizes and shapes, whether floating or sinking; some promote, others promote growth.

Live foods

There are many live foods available and your dealer should stock at least one or two that you will find suitable. Among these are water fleas(Daphnia), small crustaceans that should he available all year round.You can also buy brine shrimps (Anemia salina)- small shrimps that live naturally in saline lakes; simply rinse these and feed them to your fishes.

Live Foods for Free

There are plenty of free live foods in the garden.Your fish will eat virtually anything that moves,provided it is of a suitable size. Woodlice are taken greedily by large fish and there can be no better food for tropical fish than garden earthworms.

Aquarium dealer swill supply, water fleas(Daphnia) and bloodworms(Chirognomy - pink water)in plastic bags. Strain the water through a piece of muslin or cloth before feeding them to your fish.The bags should last about week in a cool place. River shrimps and friendships also supplied in this way.

Homemade General Purpose Diet

Blend the following ingredients together to form a balanced diet that you can feed three times a day, everyday if you wish. You can vary the ingredients slightly to suit your fishes' taste.

Chop the ox heart and the fish into small chunks and carefully blend to puree in a liquidizer or blender. Now comes the messy bit! Scrape the outer skins off the peas and beans and add the insides to the ox heart and fish mixture. Add the spinach and flake and mix all the ingredients together Gina bowl. Spoon the mixture into small plastic bags and roll each bag out until it is about 3mm(an eighth of an inch)thick. Place the bags in the freezer overnight. Next day, all the bags will have frozen and will be ready for use .Simply snap off a small piece of the frozen slab and drop it into the aquarium where you normally feed the fish. The food will quickly thaw out in the warm water of the tank,although many fish will try, and may succeed, to eat it frozen. Aquarium fish usually love this type of food.

You can raise brine shrimps yourself from eggs, either in a purpose-designed 'hatchery' or simply by placing some of the eggs in a warm,aerated saline solution for a day or two and then harvesting the tiny shrimps as they hatch out. Also look out for river shrimps; these are too big for small fish, but large carnivorous fish relish them. Aquarium fish also enjoy bloodworms - red aquatic larvae from river mud. These are excellent for bringing fish into breeding condition

Freeze-Dried and Frozen Foods

Freeze-dried versions of the above live foods make safe and nutritious supplements to flake foods. Other freeze-dried foods include Mystics, Pacific shrimp, Tubbier worms, krill and plankton. These foods are also available in frozen form. Store these foods in the freezer and thaw out as much as you need each day.

Meaty Foods

Beef heart is good for carnivorous fish. To prepare this, trim off the fat,blend the meat to a puree and then freeze it in thin slabs that you can easily break up into pieces as you need them. You can also do this with chicken, turkey, fish or any other non-fatty meats.

Vegetable Foods

Many fish enjoy some vegetable matter in their diet, including blanched lettuce, garden peas with the skins popped off, and even baked beans.here is no harm in trying various vegetables - but he sure to remove them from the tank swiftly if the fish ignore them.

This is a representative selection of processed and frozen foods prepared for aquarium fish. They carefree of disease-causing organisms or parasites and are supplied inconvenient packs of various sizes boras flat frozen sheets to be broken up.

Tubbier are tiny worms that thrive in polluted streams and rivers. Do not feed them to your fish even if you clean the worms a thousand times over, because they are full of disease-causing bacteria. If you would like to feed Tubbier to your fish, buy the freeze-dried or frozen forms, which are totally safe.