Feeding and Diet

The fish can't feed themselves, and it up to you to give them a balanced diet for each one of them. You will probably want to have several species at once, so it's important to give them the right food. Give them too much, they don't eat all the food and the tank becomes unhealthy. Give them too little and the fish can obviously die.

A freshwater, tropical fishes diet can include: aquatics worms, crustaceans and insect larvae, to green plant matter, algae and small fishes. So to give your fish a healthy life, try to include the proper food. I use several flake product, dried worms and brime shrimps to give them a bit of variety and extra nurishment. I also include granules for my mid-water fish, and some algae wafers and peices of cucumber for the catfish. The major foods are:

Type	How to feed them	Value	Useful comments
Manufactured foods (pellets, flakes, tablets)	Ready-to-serve	Made to provide a balance diet	Easy to use
Red Meat	Thin slice of raw meat	High in protein	Amounts should be small
White Meat	Should be cooked	High in protein	Amounts should be small
Live Fish	Small live fishes can be fed	High in protein	Some fishes are cannibals
Worms	Buy live or freeze-dried, can breed them	High in protein	Can carry diseases
Green Food	Chop up large peices finely	Provides vitamins	Some fishes are vegetarian
Starchy Foods(Potato, cereal)	Chop up large peices finely	Provides carbohydrate	Useful for vegetarians
Brine Shrimp	Can buy small tubs, can breed them	High in protein	Amounts should be small, don't feed after sell by date.

Feeding level: Depending on the size and the shape of the mouth, fish will feed on three levels: On the surface of the water; mid-water, where they wait for smaller morsel to drop down; and bottom feeding fish, where the fish digs around. Try to provide with the appropriate food with the respected levels.

Helpful hint: Don't overfeed your fish, they often can't ignore a free meal, its in their genes. So watch out, if a fish is constantly overfed it can lead to digestive problems. If your fish are looking like a small footballs, its OK to not feed them for a day every 2 weeks. Here, they can flush out their stomachs, ready for the next days munching. Do not do that with fry, as they need nourishment daily.