Which Are The Best Fish Foods?

Hi,

The staple food I've been using for my x-ray tetras and pygmy cories is AquaCare Tropical Flakes. The tetras seem keen on Hikari micro pellets too, possibly because they're reddish and easily seen on the water surface; Hikari micro wafers look very like these pellets rather than wafers, and are an alternative to the micro pellets, eaten and enjoyed mainly by the tetras.

More recently, I've bought Hikari tropical mini algae wafers (very popular among the cories), and Tetra FreshDelica daphnia as a treat (popular with both the tetras and cories). I also bought some New Life Spectrum small fish formula as I thought that the cories weren't getting a chance to try the micro pellets or micro wafers due to the tetras getting in first, and/or that these foods were too big for their tiny mouths, but the tetras seem to get there first with this small fish formula - hopefully this will change with the helpful suggestions you and others have given for a more equitable distribution of food in the tank.

This may sound like a large variety of food - a bit too much online shopping one day - but I'm not overfeeding them.

I'm using a variety of stuff:

Fish Science mini algae wafers
Hikari micro pellets
New Era Tropical Flake
Cheap 'Poundshop' flake
and a selection of foods from a 'tester' pack bought from cheap-fish-food.co.uk

I use one of those little pill crusher do-dahs to crunch up the little pellets, the Hikari stuff doesn't need this though. Some micro pellets (supposedly 'floaters') that I got on ebay really need crunching up for little mouths.

Everybody seems to like the New Era flakes. I tend to break them up in to tiny bits in a little plastic cup thingy, dip it in the tank, swish it around and then empty it in.

My basic food is "Wilko Fishy Feast Tropical Flakes" from any Wilkinson store, 100 grams for £3. I've always used it and the fish seem to enjoy it and thrive, so why pay far more for an expensive branded food?

I also bulk buy from EBay, freeze dried food (tubifex, brine shrimp, bloodworm),algae wafers, mini granules and sinking pellets. All of these are a fraction of the cost of what I would pay locally and together provide a good variety for the different fish, supplemented by occasional live or frozen food.