- I love me a good Twinkie.
You know, there's a lot of different fish foods
on the market.
And if you're a fish aren't super picky,
you know, you'll probably eat, eat a lot of them.
I mean, I can,
I can chow these down like you wouldn't believe.
Mm. Mm. I'm gonna wash that down. One sec.
But just because your fish will eat the food,
doesn't mean it's best for them.
(upbeat jazz music)
Merhaba, to all of my fellow and future hobbyists out there.
Matthew here,
your BRS beginner guru,
coming at you this week with episode 36,
in the beginner guide to how to wait. What is it?
Episode 36, in the beginner how to guide
for saltwater aquariums and reef tanks,
how to choose the right fish food.
You better prepare yourself for some serious fish factoids,
including words that I had to look up
how to pronounce such as spirulina and astaxanthin.
So it's actually a super complicated topic,
but we want to make it simple.
So you can look at the basic ingredients
and choose the right food for the right fish.
Just like I shouldn't pound back to Twinkies
every single morning.
There are probably foods we shouldn't feed your fish
because it's not good for them.
Let's start with looking at fish food
and understanding the ingredients.
And then at the end of the video,
we will give you our recommendations,
but also stay tuned for next episode 37
because we will give you all the tips and tricks
for how to best feed your fish.
I feel like I got Twinkie on my face.
Okay, I'm good.
Let's go.
The types of fish food.
I think I counted them up. There's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
Frozen food, flake food, pellet food,
live food, seaweed and freeze dried food.
Frozen food comes in all sorts of different packs
from blister packs with cubes to flat packs.
You can also get packs that come with whole products
like whole clams or whole muscles.
Flake food comes in different types.
The good thing about flake food is you can grind it up
into really small pieces,
and you can pick up flake food that's meant for carnivores,
herbivores or both.
Pellet food is made for carnivores and herbivores as well.
And you can get it as small as 75 micrometers.
I honestly have no idea how small a micrometer is,
but it's gotta be tiny,
all the way to well over two millimeters in diameter.
Then we're talking about live food,
and live food is anything that is alive
that is fed to predators out there.
We're talking about things on the small side,
like copepods, amphipods, and brine shrimp
to up to some small fish
that are meant for larger predators.
And then we have seaweed.
It usually comes in smaller strips or whole sheets.
And these are fantastic for your herbivores,
especially tangs.
And then you have freeze dried foods,
a whole bunch of different kinds out there.
These store for a very long time.
You can rehydrate them with water
or you can rehydrate them with fatty acids,
vitamins and minerals as well.
The types of fish you have in your aquarium
will determine the types of fish food you will need.
I need you to get rid of one thing from your mind right now.
There is no one fish food for all fish.
Every fish has different dietary needs.
So you're gonna have to buy the right fish food
for the right fish.
Let's just take my JBJ 45 gallon mixed reef tank
as an example.
Inside of here, I have clownfish,
chromis, a basslet, wrasse, and dartfish.
And while they all eat Mysis shrimp and pellet foods,
the chromis need way more food than the rest.
So I need to supplement a high fat food
that won't over pollute the tank
and feed more than twice a day just for them.
Then you have the whole issue of carnivores,
herbivores, and omnivores.
And while for example,
tangs will eat carnivorous food.
It's just not what their bodies are meant for.
So you can't just put in there whatever food
and say, "Hey, all my fish are eating it."
You need to choose the right kind of food for the fish.
The two most important fish food ingredients
you need to know about.
To simplify things as much as possible.
The fish need the protein for their growth
and metabolic functions and they need fat for energy.
So whatever fish food you are looking at,
consider these four things.
First up is nutrient content.
Remember that proteins build muscle and tissue
and fat provides energy.
In dry foods,
you want a benchmark level of somewhere around 50% protein
and somewhere in the low teens for fat content.
Frozen foods are way different since the majority water.
You want some protein content somewhere around 12%
and fat content around 2%.
The second thing to consider when purchasing fish food
is the similarity to the fish's natural diet.
Frozen food that closely matches a fish's original diet
is just gonna be more palatable to them.
So for example,
if a fish is used to eating Mysis shrimp,
and you feed a sort of pellet food
that has Mysis shrimp in it,
that's probably gonna work fine,
but it would be even more ideal to feed
actual pieces of Mysis shrimp
because the texture and the taste
will more similarly represent what they get
in their natural home.
The third consideration for fish food is coloration.
Green and red nutritive pigments really help provide
vivid coloration for your fish.
For example,
astaxanthin is really great for those red and orange colors
while spirulina is great to help produce those vibrant green
and blue colors.
And the fourth thing to consider when buying your fish food
is nutrient density.
For example,
pellet food is five to 10 times more dense by weight
than frozen food,
which means you have a 5 to 10 times greater chance
of overfeeding your fish.
Now, we move on to understanding ingredients.
We've already mentioned the importance of protein and fat
when considering fish food.
But what about all of those other ingredients
that you'll commonly find listed?
First up is ash.
And this is really just ground up shells, bones and scales.
It's really high in calcium and phosphorus,
but it also comes from other minerals as well.
It's good in small quantities
and any fish food that uses whole ingredients,
such as shrimp, clams,
or krill is gonna have some ash in it.
But too much ash can pollute the water.
Then you have various kinds of binders
like middling wheat flour or potato flour.
And you need these in order to hold the food together.
Then you want to look at the fiber content.
Usually you don't want any more than 4% fiber.
Fiber are those nondigestible carbohydrates
that aid in fish digestion.
Then you have your pigments, which we already mentioned.
Your astaxanthin and your spirulina.
Your astaxanthin is gonna help
bring out those reds and those oranges
while your spirulina is gonna help
bring out those greens and those blue colors in fish.
And finally you have various vitamins and minerals.
Just like with us human beings,
we like to add various vitamins and minerals
for different reasons.
A lot of manufacturers add those same vitamins and minerals
into fish food.
I wanna give you guys a quick baseline
as to the typical food makeup
for your three most common types of food.
That being your pellets, your flake and your frozen food.
First up your frozen food makeup.
It's usually 70 to 80% water.
A low-fat rate of around 1 to 2%,
with protein that ranges from 5 to 15%.
Moving on to pellet foods.
They usually contain a lot less water of around 10%.
Fat contents gonna be 8 to 12% fat.
And protein, 40 to 60%.
So way more nutrient dense than frozen foods.
And lastly, we have flake foods.
These usually contain around 6 to 10% water.
High protein levels of around 40 to 55%,
with an average somewhere around 50%.
And high fat ranges as well,
from 7 to 17%, with an average of around 12%.
Moving on to the pros and cons.
Let's start out with the pros of frozen food.
Those who feed frozen food are way less likely to overfeed
than those who feed pellet food.
Fish tend to like frozen food better.
Frozen food stays in suspension longer.
It doesn't float and go into the overflow as often.
And it's less nutrient dense,
which means you have less chance of overfeeding
and polluting your tank.
The cons of frozen food.
It's less nutrient dense.
It's more of a hassle to prepare.
And it will not absorb additives
such as Selcon, amino acids, and vitamins nearly as well
when compared to pellets and freeze dried options.
Moving on to pellet food,
let's start with the pros.
Pellet food is super easy to use.
It's incredibly nutrient dense,
especially high in protein and fat.
And it's good for auto feeders when you're on vacation.
The cons, well,
you're gonna be 5 to 10 times more likely to overfeed
and cause high nitrates and phosphates in your tank.
There will be more waste
and more will likely end up in your overflow.
And they often have more fillers,
which can lead to unwanted nutrient spikes.
And lastly,
the pros and cons of flake food.
The first pro is that it will reach shy fish easier.
It's nutrient dense,
and the smaller size is easier for some fish to eat.
The cons.
It is super nutrient dense as well.
Meaning extra phosphates and nitrates will likely be added
to your tank.
And it can easily end up in your overflow
and just cause more nutrient buildup.
Well, after an expansive scouring of the interweb
of watching tons of YouTube videos,
reading blogs, and reviews,
plus our own experience in this last stake in the hobby,
here are our recommendations for each type of food.
And our first recommendation
is the ever popular Hikari Mysis Shrimp.
Coming in with 10.5% protein and 1% fat.
My seahorses love it,
and I actually feed this to every single tank
about once a day.
Second up is Canadian Mysis shrimp.
You can buy this under the Hikari brand
or under the PE brand.
This is a fresh water Mysis shrimp from up in Canada.
It's more expensive, but you get more bang for the buck.
2.3% fat,
which is more than double what you get
with the Hikari Mysis Shrimp.
11.9% protein and 84% water.
These are slightly bigger in size.
So don't work as well for smaller fish.
And last up is Piscine Energetics Calanus,
which I don't actually have,
but I will show you this freeze dried option
from Bulk Reef Supply.
Great for fish that eat constantly and require small foods
like anthias, copperband butterfly fish, dragonets,
full accepted of course, and chromis.
It is zooplankton.
It is also good for other filter feeders and corals.
6% fat, 12% protein and 73% moisture.
But again, we're talking about the PE frozen calanus,
not this freeze dried option from Bulk Reef Supply.
All right, moving on to our favorite pellet foods.
And again,
I got three recommendations of foods
that I've used for a long time.
First of all,
I would go ahead and pick up this TDO Chroma Value Pack,
which comes in three different sizes.
So you get a lot of food from 580 micrometers
up to 1.7 millimeters.
It is great for most fish since you get these three sizes.
49% protein, 14% fat, plus astaxanthin
for red orange coloration,
meaning this is perfect for clownfish.
Pellet recommendation number two, PE Pellets.
These use the exact same Canadian Mysis shrimp
as in the frozen food.
And it comes in three different sizes.
1, 2, and 3 millimeters.
Go with the 1 and 2 millimeters for most fish.
42% protein, 8% fat,
plus several vitamins and fatty acids added.
My fish also loved this one.
And the third pellet recommendation.
Well, this one is for your herbivores.
We're talking about the Hikari Seaweed Extreme.
There's really nothing out there like this, 67% seaweed.
So perfect for your tangs.
If you need to feed them on the go,
and don't want to deal with nori.
Need I say more?
It's basically nori in a pellet form,
which is fantastic.
33% protein, 5% fat.
Any of your herbivores or omnivores will love it.
Before you rush out and buy your pellets though,
you should probably consider what size pellets
you should buy.
For most small to medium fish,
you definitely want to stay under two millimeters in size.
For really small fish,
you're looking one millimeter or under
because their mouths can be so small.
The problem with feeding larger pellets
is some of the smaller fish might be so hungry
that they're gonna go and try to digest those anyways.
And it's probably not best for their bodies.
That's why I really think one of your best options
is to go with this value pack
because you get three different sizes,
which means you'll pretty much be good to go.
So how about best flake food?
I gotta be honest with you.
I actually don't use flake food anymore,
so I can't give you a real time recommendation.
But in the past,
I have used Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef Flakes,
and my fish did love them.
And lastly,
how about our recommendations for nori?
Honestly, I don't think you can really go wrong with nori.
Just make sure you don't get any sort of nori
that is seasoned or has salt in it.
BRS makes their own strips.
I currently use the Sea Veggies from Julian Sprung,
and my fish love them.
I would just recommend buying different colors.
Play around with the green, the purple, and the red.
See which ones your fish like more
and which ones produce more vivid colors.
Now that you have all of your fish foods sorted out,
how do you feed your fish?
What fish tools are available
and what are some of the common mistakes beginners make
that you should avoid?
Well, of course,
you're gonna have to stick around for episode 37,
where we go into all those details.
We will place links to all of the fish food
recommendations below,
so you can pick up your starter pack
and as always everybody,
thank you for watching.
Happy reefing.
Be well.
We'll see you next time.
(upbeat jazz music)