# Other Aquarium Forums > Fish Care, Nutrition and Water Management >  What brand of fish food do you feed your small fishes?

## vipered

Hi guys, just curious what brand of fish food you guys use?
Eg. For barbs, tetra, livebearers etc.
Sry I do not know how to create a poll for this.

Also, I have read fish flakes do go stale and loses their nutritional value over time, and mine started to form clumps and lose its crispyness. Do you think I should throw it away? It has been over a year since I bought it. The brand is TetraProColour.

Anyway I would love to know what brand and why you guys chose it.  :Smile:

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## qool

ADA gold so far the best I have used can keep for long and when in water not messy but not all fish like it. Sera o-nips is the other one I am using so far no fish I have can resist the taste, cory hastasus go crazy over it.

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## Urban Aquaria

I use Hikari micro pellets to feed my small fishes... the pellets are small enough that the fishes can just consume them whole, less chance of the food breaking up into smaller uneaten bits and scattering around the tank causing additional pollution.  :Smile:

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## sammajor

Currently trying out dr bassler bio fish food.(regular and forte)

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## bennyc

Pounded Hikari Tropical MICRO WAFERS. My fishes like it.

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## erwinx

I'm using Hikari Micro Pellets at the moment. 

if you pound Hikara Micro Wafer, is it the same as their Micro Pellets or is there something different about the wafers?

I transfer about 1-2 weeks worth of food to a separate container for daily feeding and store the rest in the refrigerator with double ziploc bags over the bottle to prevent any fish food smell from affecting the fridge...

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## bennyc

By the way, they have a website so you can check it out. Have not try micro pellets, so i cannot do the smell test. From the packaging, the two looks different and seems to be made of slighty different formula too.

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## bennyc

Erwinx bro, i do not think there is a need to put inside the fridge considering the fish food is dry. If there is a need to keep the freshness, the lfs that has not keep it in a fridge has already lose the freshness for you. The change in temperature from the fridge to room temperature will introduce moisture and spoil the food faster. If the fridge is a must, you can try keeping the food in the fridge and taking only what is need for the day only. 
I think a cool dry place is the standard.

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## Urban Aquaria

Yeah, i have a collection of almost all of the different Hikari packs available from LFS (that's what happens when one "happens" to like popping by LFS and itchy fingers looking for stuff to buy). I just keep them all in a Lock N' Lock tupperware box, its hermetically sealed so no smell escapes when its closed... but when i do open it the combined odor of a dozen different feed packs come out and even people just standing at the doorway can smell it.  :Grin: 

Btw, the Hikari micro wafers and micro pellets formula is abit different (micro wafers pack all the nutrients in one wafer, while micro pellets separate different nutrients into different colored pellets), the main difference feeding-wise is the micro wafer sinks slowly, so its good for mid and bottom level feeders, while the micro pellets stay afloat much longer, so more suitable for top feeders (also good if you want to avoid food dropping into dense carpet plant growth and disappearing in there).

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## erwinx

http://www.azoo-aqua.com/product-list.asp?pd_type=336

I started off with a bottle of Azoo Micro Floating Pellet and my tetras and guppies really like it. However, the Azoo pellets are a little bit too large for Endler's guppies which is why I bought the Hikari (But for neon tetras its fine). Azoo is also a little bit cheaper than Hikari.


Just wondering, does anyone use Ocean Free (aka Qian Hu) fish food? They make so many types that hopefully some of them are good.... (I had a bad experience with one that seemed to rapidly distintegrate in the water and make a mess).

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## bennyc

In my experience, the slow sinking effect of wafer is not very long. About 1-2 sec. Pounding to small bits will lose the effect.

Most of the small tropical fishes are not able to eat the wafer (not as advertise on the packaging), big neon tetra are able to "chew" a bit to break it to smaller bits. Therefore, I have to pound it since my tank com is CPD, cardinal, neon tetra.

When I got my clown killies, I have tried several dry food. They only have interest in hikari micro wafers. But under my sadistic care, they can take anything now. Haha

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## freyster

i am feeding my guppies using hikari flakes...

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## stormhawk

If the flakes have clumped together and give off a funky smell please throw it away. Once opened, a container of flakes will last as long as it remains moisture-free, which means it needs a desiccant pack in it to absorb moisture or else fungus and mold will take over and the whole batch is wasted. In our tropical climate, most dry food remains fresh for a month or two in an air-tight container or ziploc bag. 1 year ago is just too long to keep your flakes, especially since you've opened it before.  :Knockout: 

Also, please take note that screw cap lids are not exactly air-tight. Either get a Tupperware or some air-tight plastic tub to hold all your dry food with a pack of desiccant gel or they will spoil in just a week or two. I had a container of Tetra Tabimin (now called TetraMin) spoil on me in just 2 weeks, even though I screwed the lid on tight.

Dry food for small fish depends on the fish species in question. Most barbs, livebearers and such will take bites out of bigger pellets like Carnivore Pellets etc. Smaller fish like Boraras may take Hikari Micro Wafers, but this depends on the fish. Some will never get used to any type of dry food and will only consume frozen or live food.

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## vipered

Thanks stormhawk for answering my question and those who replied. 

Yeah i did throw it away few days after the post was made. I didn't paid attention regarding the air-tight container thing, thanks for pointing out and sharing such useful information. I believe it will be helpful to anyone who is reading this thread.

I have recently bought a small pack of Hikari Micro pellets to try, it is indeed impressive as reviews stated. Slow-sinking and my fish just love it.

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## stormhawk

If you want another suggestion, try the S size dry food from BorneoWild. I forgot the name of food in question however, but it's in granulate form. I purchased one some time ago and tried it, even my killifish took it without much coaxing.

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## Shi Xuan

Hikari first bite works fine for fishes with tiny mouths.

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## mukyo

how much you guys give actually?
let say you have 20 neon tetra in 2ft tank.
half of 2.5ml spoon (those for kids medicine.)


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## Urban Aquaria

For me, i feed just enough pellets for the majority of fishes to eat and not end up with noticeably bloated stomachs... once i spot any fishes with bloated tummies, that means i'm overfeeding and have to cut down the feed portion. Also if i notice that various algae are starting to appear faster than usual, i will also cut down further on feed portions too, it means too much waste being produced.

After lots of trial and error, it has actually come to a stage that in my tanks with Boraras Brigittae, i only feed them on average around 1 micro pellet per fish and only every alternate day. Over time i've noticed that that is actually more than enough for them, all grow healthily with nice color, and they can be seen actively hunting alternative sources of natural live food in the tank (ie. detritus worms, copepods... the occasionally unlucky shrimplet etc), so they earn their keep as part of the tank maintenance crew too.  :Grin: 

I guess for neon tetras they will probably need to consume more, depending on their size, maybe 2-3 micro pellets each as they have much thicker body mass hence higher bioload (compared to boraras brigittae which have much slimmer profiles).

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## stormhawk

With small fish, feed sparingly and often. They eat little, poo little, but due to their high metabolism, they will be constantly hungry except at night. Every 3 hours if you can, with a small amount of appropriate size sinking granules or pellets, they will eat it quick. If you don't want them to overfeed, then once or twice a day is fine. Rest of the time they will be hunting, like what Urban says.

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## mukyo

wow micro pelet is like sand right. that is really small amount lol. 
no wonder all black algae grow like mad in my tank. really overfed, although i dont notice any bloating

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## Urban Aquaria

Abit larger than sand... more like 1mm sized granules.  :Smile:

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## stormhawk

Micro Pellet is like coarse sand, with a larger grit size. Think of it as fine breadcrumbs. If you have algae issues you need to look at other factors and not just at the fish food. I used to have BBA in my older setup, but that was because I had inadequate water circulation and I was getting lazy on regular maintenance.

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