what to feed my monsters

So I'm looking into differant floating big pellets for my midas/red devils and fh's as what I feed mucks up my tank a ton any suggestions ?

I feed my red devils meduim hikari what are you currently feeding?

Jumbo min. Although I have one of my fh on a good food for enhancing her blue but don't want to feed that to others as they have no blue to enhance lol may mess up my midas color lol idk

Try out Repashy Superfoods and NLS. Both have a very nice list of ingredients and protein/fiber/fat levels are all very good as well. The repashy is sinking and the NLS you can get in a floating pellet. You will spend a little more for the NLS, the repashy isn't bad for what you get and both are well worth the extra change.

I personally tend to steer clear of hikari, save for massivore and Carnivore pellets as they have an awful lot of land-based grain fillers (soybean, wheat, corn) for the top ingredients. I do use the massivore and carnivore pellets but they have a much better list of ingredients and better protein to fat ratios. Hope that helps!

NLS, Xtreme, Dianichi, Omega1, and I use this food a lot as part of my main staple. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

You also have to understand that just because your fish look big doesnt mean they should eat pellets larger than 3-4mm. If you feed to large of food, most of it get blown out through their gills. You want it small enough so that they swallow everything.

What size are your fish?

That makes since and there's a range from 4" to like 8" also have a red tail cat about a foot

Hey addicted you have a link or site I can check out

Jessielynn1024 wrote:That makes since and there's a range from 4" to like 8" also have a red tail cat about a foot

at that size, i would stick with 3-4 mm size.

I'd feed to the RTC small neighborhood children I agree with both madness and addicted on their recommendations for the red devils.


I have had luck getting good deals on fish food (NLS) off of amazon.com

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Thats for the repashy. Very reasonable pricing for what you get. I have started using the meat pie and community mixes with a teaspoon of their superpig, which is a powdered mix of almost every carotenoid (to enhance colors) available. Cool part with this food is that it can sit on the bottom for quite some time and not foul water.

Man I'm starting to sound like a salesman for this stuff, not cool! lol

So I'm havinh trouble finding fish food on repashy I'm seeing reptile stuff and the site u gave madness I'm seeing tilapia and catfish foods is that what you were talking about?

Also what's your thoughts on feeding dubia roaches

repashy, is good, but if you have large cichlids they will tear it up, and in my experience it seems like a lot of it gets wasted coming out of their gills. i would just go to Kens.com and buy some of Kens pellets our nls or omega1

Kens.com when I type it in brings up sattelite stuff lol is it [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] Or...

Awsome thanks so there's one on there kens premium super color pellet 3.0 mm you think that's a good one? I'd be feeding it to my flower horns red devils and red tail cat

I dont like the ingredients in that product. The second one is wheat flour and then some real yucky sounding stuff: blood meal, stabilized fish oil, poultry by-product meal, hydrolyzed feather meal

So which one u reccomend?

If cost of feeding is the main issue, I would look at breaking down the cost and comparing how much per ounce the food is. Kens will pretty much always win for cost but a lot of the foods ingredient do not impress me so I would not use it. The Xtreme 'Big Fella' is pretty good stuff and the cost is decent if you buy the 2.5lb tub.

I had always thought NLS was expensive until I starting buying it in larger 'bulk' sizes and I compared to some of the Hakari stuff I had been using, it was actually cheaper. Ken's is a good site to buy from but like I said the ingredient list is not impressive.

Cost isn't the issue the finding a good quality food that doesn't muck up my water is so what site and stuff you suggesting

Kens is a good site to order from. I feed a mix of pellets to my fish that includes NLS, Xtreme, Dainichi, Omega One. Here are some things that Ive observed:

NLS: Good color enhancement, not the fastest growth formula, not enough floating pellets in sizes I would like (3mm floating would be nice). It is slightly messy when fish grind this stuff up but NLS tells you that when they do this it means you should use a smaller pellet that they will just swallow without grinding. Reasonably priced if bought on-line and in larger sizes.

Xtreme: A good budget staple food. Not a floater or sinker really, I guess a slow sinking is the best description. Nothing fancy but I think a good overall product that does not seem to mess the water up. Many farms and breeders seem to use this.

Dainichi: I just started using this product and in many ways reminds me of NLS. This stuff is expensive and I dont know if I will continue it's use since NLS has so much to offer for a lot less money. I have not seen any vast color improvement since using and like NLS pellet size should be kept on the smaller side since it can be a hard pellet.

Omega One: A good overall pellet. It does not seem to make much of a mess, the color of the fish seems good and a good growth rate is achieved. One thing I notice is pellet swell. If a pellet is left in the water for a time it does swell up, this is something undesirable inside the fishes stomach but not overfeeding can make a big difference.

So looking at your original issue, of a floating pellet that makes little mess I would recommend the Omega One cichlid pellets which make very little mess and are available at both Petco and Petsmart so you can try it out before you invest in a large container on-line. NLS, while a good product does not make a good pellet in the size you need. You could try their 4.5mm floating but you fish may grind it up.

So those are a few of my observations on food Ive used.

madness wrote:repashy, is good, but if you have large cichlids they will tear it up, and in my experience it seems like a lot of it gets wasted coming out of their gills. i would just go to Kens.com and buy some of Kens pellets our nls or omega1

This is easy to combat. I simply add less water, making it stay together better when the large carnivores hit it.

Take a look at this site. I buy their food in bulk, and the ingredients are not bad, and my fish love it.

Because I have several fish, food gets expensive (just spent $350 on food alone last week) I use this as a main staple in my mix. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

In my mix of food, I have the above food, NLS, Omega1, Dianichi, Hikari Cichlid-gold, Xtreame, some Kens products (worm pellet, krill pellet, vegie pellet)and a fruits and vegetable based food by Microbe-lift. I also feed once or twice /week the freeze dried mysis shrimp or Krill superba from Kens. The fish like the roughage that it provides, plus the Krill really helps bring out the reds in the fish.

I find that the mix cause more of a feeding frenzy and the fish will just about eat anything. When I was using one brand I found the fish to be finicky when I would try something new on them. I know there are some die hard NLS users that say its all you need but for now I will continue to mix (until I run out of all the different brands) and then continue to do a mix based on the needs of many of my plant eating fish (silver dollars, Pearsei). That mix will include NLS but not be the only food I use.

I baught an omega one medium pellet from petsmart and i also feed live so we will see

Dubia roaches a good idea or no?

Jessielynn1024 wrote:I baught an omega one medium pellet from petsmart and i also feed live so we will see

I hope that this isnt live fish. That is the worst thing you can feed your fish. No nutritional value what so ever, and if you are buying the feeders, more than likely, full of parasites. Also, your fish get the taste of live fish, which will continue when you want them to co-exist with others. The fish will want live fish for food, and will seek it out.

Worms

Jessielynn1024 wrote:Dubia roaches a good idea or no?

Not sure why you would want to. Not sure that the nutritional value is any good, plus what do these things eat? Cause whatever they eat is what your fish will get. Not to mention they have got to be more expensive than pellet food.

My fish like them and its a switch up

NLS all day long... No questions asked. I tried the whole "mix it up" theme for the longest time, but since switching to NLS basically exclusively my fish have never been healthier and have never shown better colors. Not to mention that the ingredients are very high quality (whole antarctic krill meal, whole herring meal) and easily digestible with no added hormomes. Growth isnt going to be anything crazy, but if that's all your looking for then there is tons of high fat foods loaded with starches and fillers that will make fish grow like crazy. The issue with foods like that IMO is longevity of life and dying young from fatty liver deposits and other internal issues.

This is something I recommend everyone in the hobby read as its very well laid out and informative on NLS and why it is what it is. You never see anything close to this with any of the other major brands with this much information no matter if its meant as a promotion or not.

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For the size fish were talking about the 3mm large fish sinking pellet is a great pellet and the larger ones could probably take the 4.5mm jumbo fish formula floating pellets.

There's no need for using specific formulas for any certain kind of fish or mixing anything else into their diet as the formula throughout all the foods is basically the same and provides complete nutrition for all types of fish.I dont buy into the principle of "wont they get bored?" cause it really doesnt matter as we control their lives and providing the best food possible is the more important.

I like that link thanks so much.

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Long reading....

Interesting product, would like to give it a shot. Why haven't I ever seen this stuff in my LFS? The web site has many many different NLS products. Since some of you use this product what NLS product would you recommend for freshwater angelfish, apistos, dwarf pike? (color enhancing)

theChad wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Long reading....

Interesting product, would like to give it a shot. Why haven't I ever seen this stuff in my LFS? The web site has many many different NLS products. Since some of you use this product what NLS product would you recommend for freshwater angelfish, apistos, dwarf pike? (color enhancing)

Probably a .5mm small fish formula-1mm cichlid formula. Depends on the size of the fish really as far as what they can eat whole.

NLS products are all designed to enhance coloration, but I do notice a new NLS pellet specific to reds now available. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Thanks guys!!