Is live food the best food?

ca1ore

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Me personally I think it's good to do every now and then because they get things forme the live food that they don't get from frozen or dry food

Such as (not trolling you, am genuinely curious)? Obviously the live food is moving, but it's not clear to me that there's any nutritional advantage - there may even be detriment because many of the frozen foods are gut loaded before being flash frozen.
 

Reef Nutrition

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Regarding phytoplankton, it doesn't need to be alive to be nutritious and effective. We have a long history of providing non-viable (dead) algae concentrates to hobbyists and aquaculture operations that work with NPS corals, bivalves, zooplankton and many more. Corals and filter-feeding invertebrates aren't that picky.

Live algae as a means of removing nitrate and phosphate, effectively, is debatable. There are a few proponents of this, and I'm not discounting them; however, the biological aspect of every system is different so finding a one-size-fits all dose may be hard to achieve.

@Redneck19261 If you want to discuss this in more depth, feel free to message me.

Best,
Chad
 
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Redneck19261

Redneck19261

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Regarding phytoplankton, it doesn't need to be alive to be nutritious and effective. We have a long history of providing non-viable (dead) algae concentrates to hobbyists and aquaculture operations that work with NPS corals, bivalves, zooplankton and many more. Corals and filter-feeding invertebrates aren't that picky.

Live algae as a means of removing nitrate and phosphate, effectively, is debatable. There are a few proponents of this, and I'm not discounting them; however, the biological aspect of every system is different so finding a one-size-fits all dose may be hard to achieve.

@Redneck19261 If you want to discuss this in more depth, feel free to message me.

Best,
Chad
I was gonna message you but can't figure out how lol
 

ca1ore

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Live foods have a gut that already comes "gut Loaded" with all the good gut load that they got from the sea.

If you’re catching your own yes; if you’re buying commercially .... maybe not.
 

Paul B

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If you’re catching your own yes; if you’re buying commercially .... maybe not.

I raise worms every day and they get fed some full fatted yogurt, nutritional yeast and cat food.
Sometimes the larger ones "Meow" :rolleyes:
 

Nobbygas

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I recently bought a baby Brine Shrimp breeding system from JBL. You hatch the baby Brine Shrimp in 24hrs, and feed the tank. The baby Shrimp still have their egg sacs which they use for food for the first three days of their life, so this also gets eaten by the fish. Each harvest is really cheap and it is very very easy to do this. Live food just has to be better for the fish than any flake or frozen.
I use the baby Brine Shrimp as a supplement to the daily frozen food.
 

SDK

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I recently bought a baby Brine Shrimp breeding system from JBL. You hatch the baby Brine Shrimp in 24hrs, and feed the tank. The baby Shrimp still have their egg sacs which they use for food for the first three days of their life, so this also gets eaten by the fish. Each harvest is really cheap and it is very very easy to do this. Live food just has to be better for the fish than any flake or frozen.
I use the baby Brine Shrimp as a supplement to the daily frozen food.

That's a nice looking all in one set that I have not seen before. I have a cone hatchery from Jehmco that I use for the occasional BBS treat. It was a workhorse when I was breeding....

I've been meaning to pick one of these up as well after seeing someone here recommend it...


I think I might be inclined to use this more often. It's less hassle than my cone hatchery and seems good for smaller scale batches.
 

ReefBeta

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I actually think pellets/flake food is the most nutritional type of food, especially the top ones like TDO, Hikari, Spectrum, Formula 1/2, etc. It's also super easy to soak them with supplements. The problem is not all fish easy them. That's where live food comes in. It's best to get fish to eat. But variation is probably more important than any specific food, so I feed both dry and frozen, and some live when I have time for the work.

The first live food in my list is newly hatched baby brine shrimp. It's probably the most nutritional live feed when their yolk sac is not consumed yet (in first 24h). It's also accepted by bigger fish like wrassss, tangs and triggers.

Grindal worm is the next one. But I haven't get the chance to try them yet.

Copepods are not as useful as general feed IMO because it's not very practical to produce it in enough volume. They are highly nutritional per weight, but if what you can offer is neglectable in weight, it doesn't matter what percentage nutrition it has.
 

stanleo

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What size tank and what type of fish are you feeding?

Blackworms are cheap and easy to keep in the fridge if you have a local LFS that stocks them.

Whiteworms or Grindal Worms are both dirt cheap to culture and really good for the fish. I think everyone should have one or the other going at a minimum. Grindals are great for small fish and nano tanks. Anything larger I would culture whiteworms.

Fresh clams are another good option that is cheap and available to everyone. Feed a couple fresh and freeze the rest. PaulB has an active thread on that.

Whatever you do, just mix things up. Feeding a mix of dry, fresh/live and frozen foods will cover all the nutritional bases
I stopped feeding live blackworms when they gave my freshwater fish a parasite in the eyes. I could never get rid of it.

The only live food that is in my tank are the various pods and other things growing in my fuge.
 

SDK

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I stopped feeding live blackworms when they gave my freshwater fish a parasite in the eyes. I could never get rid of it.

The only live food that is in my tank are the various pods and other things growing in my fuge.

I'm interested to know why you attribute this to the backworms...

I've been using them since the 1980's. I have never had nor heard of such a thing.

I do remember reports of issues with tubifex worms back in the day....
 

stanleo

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I'm interested to know why you attribute this to the backworms...

I've been using them since the 1980's. I have never had nor heard of such a thing.

I do remember reports of issues with tubifex worms back in the day....
I never had the issue before I fed a batch of black worms from the LFS here in North Carolina. I fed them all the time from the place in Ohio and never had an issue. I found a few articles saying that black worms can carry a parasite that will infect a fish's eye making it look cloudy. I just won't risk it again. This was years ago so I would have to really hunt down the articles.
 

ca1ore

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Live food just has to be better for the fish than any flake or frozen.
I use the baby Brine Shrimp as a supplement to the daily frozen food.

Why does it 'have' to be better? I used to supplement frozen/pellets with brine naupli …. then I stopped because it was just too much trouble. Guess what, no difference. Naupli are awesome for mandarins, pipefishes and other small mouthed fish but not nearly enough for larger, more active ones.
 

DSC reef

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Why does it 'have' to be better? I used to supplement frozen/pellets with brine naupli …. then I stopped because it was just too much trouble. Guess what, no difference. Naupli are awesome for mandarins, pipefishes and other small mouthed fish but not nearly enough for larger, more active ones.
What's your argument to prove it's not better, besides the extra work factor? You don't see a difference in your fish so feed flake or pellets as a staple. I noticed my fish were much more active to eat live, frozen and refrigerated versus pellets or flake.
 

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What's your argument to prove it's not better, besides the extra work factor? You don't see a difference in your fish so feed flake or pellets as a staple. I noticed my fish were much more active to eat live, frozen and refrigerated versus pellets or flake.

I'm interested to know why you attribute this to the backworms...

I've been using them since the 1980's. I have never had nor heard of such a thing.

I do remember reports of issues with tubifex worms back in the day....

Well live foods are ... live. That includes all kinds of bad things like diseases and parasites that have possibility to live there. That is a big reason why use regular use of feeder fish is not a good idea. I guess there are ways to safe guard it. Like you can, and should, quarantine feeder fish if you have to use them for picky eater. Not sure how to do for worms though. Frozen and dry food are a lot safer in that perspective.
 

sde1500

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What's your argument to prove it's not better, besides the extra work factor? You don't see a difference in your fish so feed flake or pellets as a staple. I noticed my fish were much more active to eat live, frozen and refrigerated versus pellets or flake.
Not sure the proper counter to someone questioning a relatively unfounded claim is to require them to back up their doubt first. Anecdotal observations aside.
 

DSC reef

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Not sure the proper counter to someone questioning a relatively unfounded claim is to require them to back up their doubt first. Anecdotal observations aside.
For conversations sake? Just curious as to why some don't think live or fresh is better other than the work factor. My question wasn't meant to be aggressive, just curious.
 

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Well live foods are ... live. That includes all kinds of bad things like diseases and parasites that have possibility to live there. That is a big reason why use regular use of feeder fish is not a good idea. I guess there are ways to safe guard it. Like you can, and should, quarantine feeder fish if you have to use them for picky eater. Not sure how to do for worms though. Frozen and dry food are a lot safer in that perspective.
This is why I asked the question, thanks for a detailed response. I was always concerned with any possible parasites live food might bring in.
 

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