Alternative Fish Food for your Aquarium

Monotony makes life mundane. When you perform the same activities every day, you get bored. Likewise, eating the same food every day also brings the same effects. Do you wonder why you always keep on searching new food items either in the restaurants or your kitchen and try different cuisines? It is because we all want something out of regular so that it keeps liveliness in our otherwise ordinary life.

We, being a human being can try many things to overcome the humdrumness of life. But what about our cute little swirling creates in the tank? Have you ever thought about alternating their food once in a while? Well, if not, then this is the right time to ponder upon some of the best variations on the food items of the fish.

Fish stores generally consist of fish flakes as the most common food item. However, there are many other products as well that you may try and bring more health, nutrition as well as taste to your fish’s platter. Moreover, these food products are superior in quality to the fish flakes you usually get at the fish stores.

So let us find out some of the most relishing fish food products that your swirling pet would love to munch.

Gel Food

If we talk about the best alternative for the fish pallets, gel food comes to rescue. The most interesting fact about it is homemade, and even you may try out in the kitchen. It is made utilizing agar-agar or gelatin along with any palatable ingredient for the fish. You may experiment while making the gel food and endow enough variations for the fish.

Some of the common protein-based food items that you may add in agar-agar or gelatin include:

• You may add mixed vegetables and proteins for goldfish or other varieties of fish that are totally vegetarian like plecos or shrimps.
• For increasing the colors and making the food brighter, you may try including red bell peppers.
• Spirulina is good to add to improve the overall health and well-being of the fish.
• Garlic is also one great option if you want to alter the taste and bring some herbal wellness for the fish. It also helps to fight against the internal parasites and contribute to fish’s health.

Likewise, you may experiment with different products to bring variation son your fish food. The best thing about gel food is they are easy to prepare and much easier to digest. You may find a number of recipes along with essential tips and instructions.

Frozen Food

Another great option after gel foods is frozen food which indeed is loved by fish a lot. The most alluring fact with frozen foods is they are protein-based and highly nutritious for your creates in the aquarium. Some of the examples of protein-based frozen food are those made up of blood worms, mosquito larvae, cockle meat, fish eggs/meat and much more. Apart from this, vegetable-based frozen foods are also readily available that utilizes spinach, seaweed, and other nutritious vegetables. Therefore there is a frozen food for both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian fish, and it gives them enough variations to the outcome the repetitiveness.

Another advantage of feeding frozen food is it gets prepared to munch by fish in just one simple step. All that you need is to take the food out from your freezer, thaw the required amount in a cup of water and serve. No wonder your fish would love to eat them and have a great time. But remember not to replace the frozen food with the main course food for them. It can be used only to bring some variation.

Now let us take a sneak peek into some of the significant benefits of frozen foods.

• Unlike the live foods, the chances of parasite completely seize in the frozen one.
• There is no need to add preservative in frozen foods to maintain their shelf-life.
• There is no need of adding unnecessary fillers like flour, cornmeal, oatmeal in the frozen food as they alone taste really good.
• They are easy to feed.
• You may find many variants in frozen food.
• Fish love to splurge on fish food.
• They have a long shelf life and can be kept frozen for long.

Fresh Vegetables

The next wonderful variant in the fish food is fresh vegetables. Fish which are usually herbivorous or omnivorous in nature can be fed with fresh vegetables. They not only make a great alternate fish food but also readily available and highly nutritious. You can try as many vegetables for your fish as you can and understand their likeliness.

Some of the vegetables which are accepted by fish include peas, spinach, and zucchini. You may feed the leaves of spinach to the fish as it is and may blanch peas and zucchini before feeding. Blanching beforehand makes the vegetable soft and easy to munch.

Some of the aquarium creatures that would love the concept of fresh vegetables include shrimp, goldfish, plecos, otocinclus and much more.  The facts working on favor of fresh vegetables are:

• Can be given to many fish
• Easily available in the market
• Many vegetables can be tried
• Healthy option

Make sure to remove the uneaten vegetables from the aquarium at least after 12 hours. It will maintain the cleanliness of your tank.

Live Food

Live foods are another great alternative to fish flakes. They are also readily available in the fish store. Some aquarists even learn to prepare live culture on their own as well. There are immense benefits of live food and almost all types of fish like it.

Some of the easy to culture live fish food include infusoria, daphnia, dwarf shrimp, grindal worms, brine shrimp and much more. The only drawback of getting live foods from the store is the risk of transferring parasites to the fish.

So, as you can see that there is an availability of different alternative fish food one may try. Although fish flakes or pellets always make a great option to ponder, these variants are also good to go. They will not only break the monotony of same feeds for fish but also reduce your expenses on the fish food.

Try them out and treat your fish!