Best fish food for reef aquarium

[jiminy_crime]

Does anyone have an opinion about what is the best fish food for a reef aquarium? The reason I ask is I have been feeding frozen Misys soaked in garlic extreme. And am wondering how the frozen food is impacting my phosphates in my tank? Just trying to see what other options are out there that I should consider.

[GimpyFin]

There are a lot of good foods out there. Reef Nutrition makes some good refrigerated foods for just about anything in your tank (Like bottled Mysis, ROE, and Oyster feast.) One thing that can help with a lot of frozen foods is rinsing before adding it to the tank.

[MondoBongo]

i would ditch the garlic. it's not helping anything, and may even be destructive to fish health if fed long term.

my preference is for variety. i use a couple different types of frozen food, which i wash well in RODI before feeding including: PE Myses, Hikari Myses, PE Calanus, and Rod's eggs.

in addition to that, i also feed one type of SeaChem flake food, and two different kinds of pellets.

i also treat a few times a month with live food. usually live white worms, black worms, or freshly hatched baby brine shrimp. in the case of the white worms, any food i give them is saturated with selcon.

oh, and nori every other day for my grazers.

i'm a big believer that feeding a variety will give you the best results. think about how unhealthy you would be if you only ate hamburgers for every meal. of course you gotta have hamburgers, but you need some other stuff in there too. :)

[Reef Frog]

Agree that variety is the best policy. Different foods have different quantities & qualities of nutrients and by feeding a wide range you can cover all your bases. Personally I use only frozen, refrigerated fresh and sometimes live food.

All foods are going to have some organic phosphates in some form. It's not worth worrying which ones have a slightly higher level. It's more important not to over feed, make sure all food is eaten and not left to rot and make sure phosphate export methods are adequate.

[jbm421]

i would ditch the garlic. it's not helping anything, and may even be destructive to fish health if fed long term.

my preference is for variety. i use a couple different types of frozen food, which i wash well in RODI before feeding including: PE Myses, Hikari Myses, PE Calanus, and Rod's eggs.

in addition to that, i also feed one type of SeaChem flake food, and two different kinds of pellets.

i also treat a few times a month with live food. usually live white worms, black worms, or freshly hatched baby brine shrimp. in the case of the white worms, any food i give them is saturated with selcon.

oh, and nori every other day for my grazers.

i'm a big believer that feeding a variety will give you the best results. think about how unhealthy you would be if you only ate hamburgers for every meal. of course you gotta have hamburgers, but you need some other stuff in there too. :)

I don't know I'm pretty healthy and I eat hamburgers three times a week lol

[CStrickland]

I feed a mix of homemade chum, live worms, clams that I shuck freeze and shave into the tank, and some random flakes and pellets. Plus nori sheets are available for grazers.

I agree that tweaking foods to manage phos is a war of attrition.

[FirstContact]

+1 on variety. I feed NLS pellets, TLF seaweed, and New Era Marine grazer. I have a freezer full of other choices ranging from mysis to cylopeeze. Always rinse my mysis in RO water before feeding.

[undbulsu]

A trick for rinsing frozen food. I purchased an Artemia hatching sieve (the little square one) from Brine Shrimp direct. Found a small bowl in which the sieve fits. Just dip some water out the tank, put frozen food in sieve and then into bowl. Defrosts quickly and rinses at the same time. It even works for smaller foods like cyclops.

[gallegos]

4 times a week I use nls and the rest of the week I feed a mixture of mysis, brine shrimp, Reef frenzy, Reef roids and polyp booster.