Variety is the spice of life: Do you always feed your fish and coral the same thing?

[Peace River]

Variety is the spice of life: Do you always feed your fish and coral the same thing?

Think about your favorite meal. Now think about eating your favorite meal every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for a month or longer. It may not have the same impact and may no longer be the meal that you are looking forward to. Additionally, that meal may not be supplying all the health benefits that a varied diet may provide. It is easy to get into the habit of feeding the same type of food to our reef tank, but this approach may not be the best option for our reef inhabitants. Do you always feed your fish and corals the same thing? Tell us about your experience and practices for the food you put into your aquarium. Also, feel free to share any feeding tips with the community!

Photo by @Peace River


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[Waters]

Yes, same stuff but it is mixed with a couple of different things daily to make sure they get a balanced diet. Fish don't eat for pleasure like we do...they eat to survive so I don't think they care too much about variety .

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

We make our own, use a large variety of different sea foods, so the fish are always getting something different. Plus pods and Phyto

 

[JoJosReef]

I give them a decent variety of pellets, liquid food, occasional press-on-shots and hatched baby brine shrimp. Sometimes I switch up the mix of Reef Nutrition liquid foods.

 

[shwareefer]

I was normally just alternating frozen mysis and flake food but then I found an old unopened bar of cyclop-eeze in the freezer so that's in the mix now too. Fish go bananas for that stuff, wish it was still available.

 

[Steve2020]

I make my own fish/coral food. I guess you can say that my fish and corals get a variety every feeding. Also feed Nori and Live Phyto daily.

 

[shakacuz]

i made my own fish food!
squid
shrimp
clam
oyster
scallop
nori
red algae (two little fishes)
brine shrimp eggs
broccoli
vitachem
selcon
reef moonshiner vitamin-x
tdo pellets

and some left over lrs nano reef frenzy

i feed a small cube a day

 

[nursingcoral]

My fish's diet is boring, but seems to suffice. Flake foods all the time, but they seem to do well on that diet. My corals are primarily surviving via zooxanthellae. I currently don't have any "primarily carnivore" fish.

 

[Pamperedfish]

I only use food that came out of the water.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

A nice variety of various frozen foods.

 

[14 foot reef]

This post is perfect timing I always feed Reef Keepers LifeLine, PE Mysys and Dr. Bassleers Pellet foods on Apex auto feeder.
Yesterday I went to the LFS ( Always buy my food from my LFS ) to restock my PE Mysis huge flat pack. (40 oz ) I believe.
Before Covid it was $35.00 per jumbo flat pack, it was $91.00 yesterday !!!!! I am never paying $91.00 for 40oz of fish food again, I'm going back to making my own food. That price is just not even comprehendible. Sorry LFS, I know its not your fault, but I am done with that avenue of food source for my fish. I can make 10 times that amount of a better more diverse for $91.00.

 

[AustinBabler]

TDO Chroma Boost pellets 2x a day for the fish. The Micro Lord corals get LPS coral grow pellets once a week. Fish get an added frozen brine/mysis treat a 3x times a week ( my YWMG needs that because he’s pretty big on stranger danger). All the zoa’s, favia, and micro lords get reef roids with a drop of brightwell coral amino once a week. Been thinking about getting some oyster feast to add to the mix.

 

[Timfish]

I have fish decades old and some outliving thier wild siblings with NLS pellets, why would I change?

 

[CRABDADDY]

I feed TDO, ROE, and my own frozen food which mostly consists of salmon, mysis, and some other random seafood. And nori for the herbivores, of course.

I switch up which ones I feed somewhat randomly.

I was thinking recently about varying up what types of macro algae that I'm feeding to the tangs. Does anyone feed their tangs anything other than nori?

 

[Nemo&Friends]

I feed a ,variety of food from Hikari and LFS, and occasionnaly flakes.
I also vary the food for my herbivore, alternating between nori from the asian store with green, purple and red algae from Julian Spring. Now as I grow macro algae in another tank I give them some fresh macro every other week when I trim it.

 

[dadnjesse]

This post is perfect timing I always feed Reef Keepers LifeLine, PE Mysys and Dr. Bassleers Pellet foods on Apex auto feeder.
Yesterday I went to the LFS ( Always buy my food from my LFS ) to restock my PE Mysis huge flat pack. (40 oz ) I believe.
Before Covid it was $35.00 per jumbo flat pack, it was $91.00 yesterday !!!!! I am never paying $91.00 for 40oz of fish food again, I'm going back to making my own food. That price is just not even comprehendible. Sorry LFS, I know its not your fault, but I am done with that avenue of food source for my fish. I can make 10 times that amount of a better more diverse for $91.00.

It seams every thing is more expensive. I get it for $63.99 here.

Frozen PE Mysis Shrimp 40 oz. Flat Pack SD-5 824002 824123000408

Pets Warehouse Since 1974 A trusted online pet supply store Frozen PE Mysis Shrimp 40 oz. Flat Pack SD-5 824002

www.petswarehouse.com

 

[14 foot reef]

It seams every thing is more expensive. I get it for $63.99 here.

Frozen PE Mysis Shrimp 40 oz. Flat Pack SD-5 824002 824123000408

Pets Warehouse Since 1974 A trusted online pet supply store Frozen PE Mysis Shrimp 40 oz. Flat Pack SD-5 824002

www.petswarehouse.com

Thanks for the link. but shipping is $30.00

 

[Labridaedicted]

So, I don't often switch things up, but I do feed 7+ different kinds of food throughout the day. Beta Brine 3x, mysis feast x 3, R.O.E. x 3, Arctipods x 3, selcon soaked PE Mysis x 1 big feeding, Nori x 1, Plank feeder (reef jerkey) x8, live rotifers x 1, live phyto x 1.

Some days I also do some Rods Food or angel food. Gonna get back into processing my own frozen again, as well. Variety and frequent feedings are good for the nutrition of the fishes.

 

[Jedi1199]

So I feed a variety of foods, but I mix them into batches for a week or so.. So they get the same food every day, but its a wide mix of different foods.

For the reef tank, the mix is:
Reef multi-pack
Brine shrimp
Mysis
Seaweed delight
Emerald
Squid
Rotifers
Cyclops
Marine Cuisine
Coral cuisine
Mussel
Reef Plankton
Plankton


The FOWLR tank gets 6 or 7 cubes per day...
Brine
Mysis
Mussel
Squid
Emerald
Seaweed
Marine Cuisine

 

[design.maddie]

Other

I rarely change foods. Sole reason is that food is sold in such large quantiles that a small tank will cause the food to go stale before I ever run out. I have staples, and also mixed varieties that I feed or can offer. Frozen Enriched Brine Shrimp being the base of everything. I picked up something new a month ago and have fallen in love with it. The fish go craycray over this stuff. I have never had them eat out of my hand. With this stuff they were eating out of my hand within days.