Posted by Sarah on July 18, 2008
Figure 8 Puffer - 8-ball
We try to feed our fish a variety of foods, and after winning a ton of different kinds of fish foods at the Aquarium Show we’ve got more fish food than we’ll ever need.
I try not to feed the bettas freeze dried foods, and if I feed them to the other fish I try to soak them in water first so that they won’t swell after the fish eat them.
We feed flakes, shrimp pellets, algae tablets, floating pellets, sinking pellets, and of course fry food.
We also feed 8-ball, our figure 8 puffer snails and krill, and we feed the fry baby brine shrimp – we always have extra of that, so we feed it to all of the fish.
The harlequin rasboras really love it, and it’s fun to see them chasing after it, and turning a very intense red.
What do you feed your fish?
What do they seem to enjoy eating the most?
Posted by Sarah on April 11, 2008
After Jeff posted a recipe for a homemade fish food on the Northern Lights Aquatics Fish Forums, one of the members asked him to do his research before he posted recipes because spinach was bad for fish.
Since I’ve been browsing fish forums I’ve heard that spinach was bad for fish several times, but I’ve never seen any studies saying why spinach was bad for fish.
I’ve only seen people saying don’t use spinach because someone else told me it was bad for fish, but I never really looked into whethre or not spinach was bad for fish until I read that post on our forum.
I looked and looked online, and in scientific journals, and I couldn’t find any concrete proof that said that spinach was bad for fish, or that it wasn’t bad.
While I was looking I did find out that Ocean Nutrition uses Spinach in several of it’s frozen food formulas.
We currently feed our marine fish Ocean Nutrition Formula One and Formula Two Flake and Pellet foods, and although they don’t have spinach in them, they were highly recommended when I was researching the best type of food to feed our marine fish.
I knew that they wouldn’t be so highly recommended if the company intentionally put items that were bad for fish in the fish food, so I decided to email Ocean Nutrition, and see what they knew about spinach being good or bad for fish food.
I was fortunate enough to get a response from Scot Kohler, Vice President of Sales, North America for Ocean Nutrition, who was unable to find any reference that spinach was bad, except for the fact that the oxalic acid in the spinach might bind with the calcium.
He also noted that many authorities within the fish keeping hobby, and many public aquariums feed their fish spinach.
Although I won’t be feeding my fish spinach any time soon because I don’t make my own fish food, and because Jeff doesn’t like spinach, so we don’t buy it, I would feel comfortable feeding spinach to my fish, and feeding fish foods that contain spinach to my fish.
As with anything that I put into the tank if I noticed that the fish were acting wierd after I fed them spinach I would stop feeding them spinach.
Scott was nice enough to allow me to quote him on the forums, and you can read his reply to me at Ocean Nutrition’s Response to spinach being bad for fish.
Do you feed your fish spinach?
Do you make your own fish food? If so I’d love to have the recipe!
Who knows, I might even try it.
