Tips on Fish Food - Live food

The feeding of whole, natural foods is of great benefit to fish and they are, after all, what fish thrive on in the wild. Given the chance, fish will not just consume but gorge on these foods until their bellies look as if they are going to burst. Fish fed on a variety of frozen, live and dry foods will undoubtedly grow at a better rate and show better coloration and condition. Today we will discuss about live food, we will leave the other kind of food to other articles in future.

Live foods
Live foods can be caught from natural bodies of water such as ponds but are more commonly purchased in small portions from aquatic retailers. The sealed bags in which they are contained will cause the foods to perish if they are not used up quickly, so find out when the delivery arrives at the shop each week and plan to buy it on that day.

There are three differents kinds of live food available for aquarium fish:

1) Bloodworm, or red mosquito larvae, found in cold freshwater - most suitable for freshwater fish.
2) Daphnia, found in cold freshwater - most suitable for freshwater fish.
3) Brine shimp, found in warm, salt water - most suitable for freshwater and marine fish.
4) Mosquito larvae, found almost anyway - suitable for freshwater fish.

Benefits of live food
Live food is of benefit to all types of fish as they are complete foods and are presented in bitesized potions for small to medium species. Some difficult species of fish will eat nothing else , making live food invaluable for those that are new to captivity. Live foods also make great conditioning foods, and an increase in feeding them may encourage spawning.

Fish as food
The practice of using live fish as food for other fish is unnecessary in captivity and should be avoided. Even the most difficult species can eventually be persuaded to take dead foods(frozen fish) with little perseverance on the part of the aquarist.


Related articles
Fish food - Frozen and Freeze dried
Cultivating Mosquito larvae
Fish food - Dry food


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