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Pellets versus Frozen


Derek

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I was wondering what everyone's thoughts are regarding pellets. I fees my fish a combination of pellets, frozen mysid, and nori. I am considering stopping the mysid and just dropping in a piece of krill for my marine beta a few times a week.

Would this be a good plan? See my About Me page for a list of my critters.

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I feed my fish pellets over 90% of the time. Occassional Nori. Cyano disappeared months ago and fish are doing fine.

My Sgt Major (over 2 yrs) is now about 4-5 inches long. I'm getting ready to call Guinness to see what the record is.

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I like the new life spectrum pellets..they are part of my rotation. I know they have vitamins in them, but I still like feeding mysis as I can soak them in garlic/selcon and then feed them.

I have to say tho that the ease of feeding pellets is nice. Just drop some in and away you go.

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I'm glad there is a general positive feeling towards pellets here :) In all my years working in a store, one of the things people are most hardheadedly against for some reason, is pellets. All your fish can be trained to eat pellets pretty easily, with time, and my fishes staple is currently NLS. I wouldn't keep them on NLS alone, personally, and I definitely prefer to mix in Dainichi (REALLY REALLY good food, and almost the exact price per oz as NLS, if not a hair less) or the occasional Reef Nutrition variety of pellets in from time to time. You can purchase a small container of two types of pellets, mix them together in a container, and store the remainder as back stock in your freezer as long as they're air tight.

I run the Rena brand auto feeder on mine, and have it drop a relatively small volume of pellets anywhere from 3-5x a day, and I simply offer one feeding of frozen every evening. Even my shyest fish will come out and snag the pellets, including very reclusive Basslets.

On the note of being cleaner & not promoting algae in the tank: please be sure to rinse your food, or strain all the defrost water, before feeding to the aquarium. This will keep all the water weight / skimmate bait from ever entering the tank. I defrost my food, rinse it thoroughly, saturate with a few different soaks for a while, and then do a light re-rinse. I typically make enough for 3-4 days of feeding, and just keep it sealed in my freezer, and it makes a world of difference in cleanliness.

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I've got Marine Bettas in two of my tanks that have been getting New Life Spectrum 1mm pellets for years. When I switched the first one over I was worried but it took to them without much hesitation. When I first started salt water maintenance I was leery of flake and pellets since at that time the main ingredient was wheat. That's changed now.

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I've got Marine Bettas in two of my tanks that have been getting New Life Spectrum 1mm pellets for years. When I switched the first one over I was worried but it took to them without much hesitation. When I first started salt water maintenance I was leery of flake and pellets since at that time the main ingredient was wheat. That's changed now.

Sweet. I'll have to try to get him to take pellets.

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Don,

I can't get my Bangi to eat anything other than Mysis and brine. I mix LFS and Ocean nutrition flakes in and they always take them in their mouth and then spit them out. Perhaps if they were the only thing I fed the tank for a while, they would take to it.

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Perhaps if they were the only thing I fed the tank for a while, they would take to it.

That is indeed the trick. If you feed a mixed batch, they can pick and choose what to eat, and they can be picky eaters. A fish should be offered whatever it willingly eats for acclimation and the initial weeks of introduction (or quarantine). After that, you should be able to crack down and more or less feed it what YOU want it to eat.

Luckily, 90% of my fish have willingly accepted pellet food during even their quarantine period. I also feed all of my frozen food mixed together, rather than Mysis one day, and Brine the next. Having all the food incorporated to every meal will aide in your fish warming up to frozen foods they didn't readily otherwise accept.

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  • 1 month later...

I don't think there's anything wrong with pellets, but I do think a rotation or at least a bunch of types of food is better. I've used 1-1.5mm hikari pellets, nori, hikari mysis, P.E. mysis, rotifers, freeze dried phyto, and bluezoo mix. Currently P.E. mysis, bluezoo mix, and the phyto.

I think for my tank/corals, the P.E. mysis are too big, so when I run out I'm going back to hikari or another brand with smaller shrimps. The bluezoo mix seems to be good and has a wide variety in pellet sizes included, but I don't think anything in my tanks can really take advantage of the large pellets (6mm+) in the mix. I like having an option of food that sinks for spot feeding and to change up the diet some. Different critters get first dibs depending on what food it is - just because of location really, so I think it's good that the primarily water-column swimming fish don't get the first choice every time.

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I feed new life 90% as well. my clowns dont mind and even the lawnmower blenny likes them. i do feed some frozen that i made after a fishing trip last sep. had left over squid and shrimp tossed some tiger shark and a mantis that i snagged and umm some piggy purch and black drum and oh ling in it with some garlic soak and a couple cubes of formula one frozen and dried nori. rite into the food processor and pureed it all, the fish and crabs go super crazy when i toss some of that in the tank.

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I feed new life 90% as well. my clowns dont mind and even the lawnmower blenny likes them. i do feed some frozen that i made after a fishing trip last sep. had left over squid and shrimp tossed some tiger shark and a mantis that i snagged and umm some piggy purch and black drum and oh ling in it with some garlic soak and a couple cubes of formula one frozen and dried nori. rite into the food processor and pureed it all, the fish and crabs go super crazy when i toss some of that in the tank.

Tiger shark?! Dang man, that's top notch for your fish!

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Who carries the New Life Spectrum pellets in town

River City Aquatics, Austin AquaDome, and AquaTek.

RCA has two sizes/flavors of NLS available in bulk - which is nice if you'd just like to try a couple ounces, rather than simply buying a small/medium jar of it.

As I recall, AquaDome has definitely got the most expansive selection of both flavors and pellet size in stock.

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