Addition of live foods to your fish’s diet can provide variety, promote foraging behavior, and meet specialized dietary requirements that cannot be fulfilled through dry and frozen food alone.
Flake food is generally suitable for most fish species, though some require more varied diets. You can find wingless fruit fly colonies in reptile sections of pet stores which would make an excellent food source for plecostomus or algae eaters like plecostomus.
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Brine Shrimp
Brine shrimp (Artemia salina) are one of the main live food staples used in tropical fish farming and retail stores to give newly hatched fry a strong energy boost when starting life in an aquarium. Their adaptability to temperature fluctuations and salinity changes make them suitable for both marine and freshwater tanks.
Fish toys not only stimulate their natural feeding instincts, but can be more nutritionally complete than dry or frozen foods. You can even use them to train finicky fishes to eat certain types of foods!
Brine shrimp can easily be raised at home by placing eggs in a saltwater tank with an open lid that allows air and water to pass freely. Once their young have emerged, these brine shrimp nauplii can be fed to baby tropical fish (fry) as food or even fed directly to adult fish as roughage.
Daphnia
Daphnia, commonly referred to as water fleas, are an easy and nutritious live food source for fish. Not carrying tubifex’s disease burden, they offer excellent protein, vitamin and mineral resources.
Fish can be cultured in a small tank using yeast culture and some high-fat, protein-rich green algae like Spirulina to increase immune system functioning in their fish.
Daphnia are filter feeders that can ingest their own body weight in as little as one or two days. Packed full of proteins, vitamins, and minerals they are an invaluable addition to aquarium fish tanks and may help enhance coloration by brightening up aquarium waters.
B and C vitamins, essential for tissue growth and appetite stimulation. Fish also offer micronutrients like calcium, magnesium and phosphorous as well as carbohydrates (sugars and starches) and fats. Their color reflects what they consume daily!
Frozen Foods
Frozen foods can be an excellent way to provide your fish with additional nutrition and encourage them to try new types of food they might otherwise shy away from consuming live. Betta fish and pufferfish, for instance, will enjoy eating bloodworms which are the larvae of midge flies which naturally have bright red coloring due to the hemoglobin content within their hemoglobin sacs; they’re safe since they lack bacteria or parasites that could otherwise pose risks.
Hikari Bio-Pure Rotifers provide an outstanding choice of fish food supplements for freshwater or marine aquarium fish, packed with vital fatty acids, proteins, lipids and microalgae for increased nutrient density and water clarity. Many enthusiasts swear by these tasty freeze-dried alternatives to live food that provide essential fatty acids, proteins and lipids as well as microalgae for increased water clarity. It’s one of the highest rated choices among many hobbyists as it is an enjoyable and reliable alternative to flake and pellet foods found elsewhere on the market.
Mealworms
Yes, fish can consume mealworms which are the larval stage of the mealworm beetle (a large, black and unsightly insect). Mealworms are easy to cultivate and extremely nutritious; they contain high concentrations of proteins and fats as well as high amounts of dietary fiber, linoleic acid, iron zinc copper magnesium phosphorus potassium vitamins A B D D as well as other vital elements. When dried properly they can last months even years!
Many tropical fish such as cichlids, loaches and goldfish enjoy eating mealworms; however they should only be offered as supplementary food due to possible pathogens they contain and their fat-rich structure that makes digesting difficult for some species. If you want to add mealworms to your aquarium try feeding them to herbivorous species like cories, platies, tetras and danios as they will gladly accept them! Alternatively frozen foods are another viable solution when live food is unavailable, too expensive or too troublesome to raise.
