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First bites baby fish food


Amazon.com : Hikari Tropical First Bites Fish Food, 0.35 oz (10g) : Pet Supplies

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Size: 0.35 Ounce (Pack of 1)

Color: Black

Brand Hikari
Flavor Fish
Age Range Description Baby
Target Species Fish
Item Form Dry

Easy to use

4. 8 4.8

Freshness

4.6 4.6

Ingredient quality

4.6 4.6

Flavor

4.4 4.4

See all reviews

First Bites® - Hikari Sales USA

Rich In Highly Nutritious, Freshly Harvested Ingredients

  • Unique low-heat production process prevents dissipation of necessary vitamins, nutrients and amino-acids
  • Expect rapid growth free of dietary deformites or deficiencies
  • Helps fry develop superior disease resistance
  • Great for livebearers and egglayers

Semi-Floating Food

  • Promotes proper feeding habits
  • Reduces chances of over-feeding
  • Reduces waste and saves money

For optimum results, feed daily as many times as possible, the amount your fish will completely consume within about a minute. Care should be taken to avoid over-feeding. Up to 10 feedings per day may be necessary depending on number of fry and activity level. For mid-water and bottom feeders allow Hikari First Bites® to soak in a cup of aquarium water before feeding. This will cause the food to sink more rapidly allowing these fry better access.

Livebearers (ovoviviparous) can consume Hikari First Bites® right after birth. Start feeding Hikari First Bites® right before the yolk sack is fully consumed. Excess food can cause water quality problems which may result in heightened stress or serious illness. Feeding less food to be sure none is left after the feeding period is preferred to allowing uneaten food to settle to the bottom of your aquarium.

For additional feeding suggestions for your fry once they surpass Hikari First Bites®, ask your aquatic retailer about other specialized diets from Hikari® for all types of freshwater, marine, and pond pets too, from the leader in nutrition for aquatic pets!

Because We Care: Use before the best before date guarantees the contents meet our rigid quality standards. After opening, please keep the container out of direct sunlight, high heat or humidity as this can cause the contents to degrade rapidly.

Fish meal, wheat flour, krill meal, soybean meal, brewers dried yeast, spirulina, dried seaweed meal, rice bran, astaxanthin, garlic, DL-methionine, choline chloride, vitamin E supplement, L-ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (stabilized vitamin C), inositol, d-calcium pantothenate, riboflavin, vitamin A supplement, thiamine mononitrate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, niacin, folic acid, vitamin D3 supplement, biotin, vitamin B12 supplement, P-aminobenzoic acid, silicon dioxide, monosodium phosphate, disodium phosphate, salt, ferrous sulfate, magnesium sulfate, zinc sulfate, manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, calcium iodate.* 03-49M * Because of our commitment to providing the highest quality nutrition available, some differences in ingredients may occur due to regular formula updates.

Crude Protein Crude Fat Crude Fiber Moisture Ash
min. 48.0% min. 3.0% max. 2.0% max. 10.0% max. 18.0%
Phosphorus Vitamin A Vitamin D3 Vitamin E Ascorbic Acid
min. 1.3% min. 10,000 IU/kg min. 1,500 IU/kg min. 330 IU/kg min. 220 mg/kg

Packaging & Pellet Size(s)

Sinking Granule

0. 35 oz (10g) - #20095

Top 9 Live Foods for Aquarium Fish

In order to grow healthy and beautiful fish in an aquarium, it is necessary to properly feed them and maintain the aquarium in proper condition. Fish by nature prefer a variety of live food to hunt for. Do not deprive aquarium fish of this opportunity.

What kind of food is this?

Live food for aquarium fish is food created by nature itself without human intervention. It can be various worms, larvae and so on. Food is really alive, which is still moving, as well as dried or frozen. The advantages of this food are as follows:

  • The natural hunting instinct is maintained in the fish.
  • Live food nutritious and attractive to fish.
  • Fry and some predatory fish may only eat live food. They distinguish only moving objects as edible.
  • Live food is believed to help fish produce healthy offspring.
  • Also, live food, when properly used, pollutes water less than dry food.

Disadvantages of this food: infection and poisoning with toxins is possible.

What happens?

Motyl

This is one of the most common live food for aquarium fish. Bloodworms are mosquito larvae . The larvae are bright red and small, from 5 to 20 mm. A large bloodworm is a lake one, and a smaller one is a river one. Both subspecies live in silt and feed on dead organic matter. The protein content in the bloodworm is about 60%.

Help! There is an opinion that it is on bloodworms that aquarium fish grow and develop faster.

The minus of a bloodworm may be infestation with parasites, staleness. To choose a bloodworm, you need to pay attention to its mobility. Live larvae curl into rings when touched. The color speaks of freshness. All you need is a bright red bloodworm. Lighter colored food may be immature and will die quickly. Dark cherry bloodworm is quite old, fish can get poisoned by it. After buying at a pet store or bird market, bloodworms need to be prepared. Fresh bloodworm is washed and aged at home for three days. Store in the refrigerator in a damp cloth and rinse twice a day in cold water. Feed should be as follows: give a small portion of bloodworms to the aquarium (you can give both fresh and frozen ones) and make sure that dead larvae do not get into the fish and that bloodworms do not burrow into the ground. There, the fish will not be able to get it and the bloodworm simply dies and can cause poisoning and water pollution.

Can I feed earthworms?

This food is no worse than most others, so you can feed the fish with earthworms without any problems. Suitable for medium and large fish (cichlids, goldfish). It is difficult to find a worm in a store, usually it is dug out of the ground or bred at home on a substrate. Pluses of an earthworm: availability, nutritional value. Cons: not suitable for small fish, with long-term feeding only with earthworms, obesity and infertility can occur.

Wait until the intestines of the worms are completely empty before feeding. To do this, hold the worms on a damp, clean cloth for 2-3 days. It is better to feed small but whole worms.

Coretra

This is a transparent mosquito larva (real or blood-sucking mosquitoes). It is more difficult to meet on sale than bloodworms. More often they sell frozen individuals. You can catch a coretra with a net in the nearest fresh water. Absolutely safe, as it is a predator and lives in the upper layers of water . Does not tolerate infections and toxins. Coretra can be fed to fish that feed in the upper layer of water. Since coretra contains few nutrients (40% protein), it is not suitable as the only feed. She is fed only in addition to the main diet. Live coretra can eat some fry in the aquarium. Frozen coretra is pre-thawed, drained of excess water and gradually fed.

Enchitreus

These are small white worms about 2 centimeters long. Worms are bred at home. They live in the earth. Before feeding the fish, you need to separate the worms from the soil. There are many ways to do this, such as heating the ground from below and then the enchitreuses will crawl out to the surface and gather into balls that are easy to take.

Once on the bottom of the aquarium, the worms burrow into the ground, so you need to drop the food gradually.

Pros:

  • easy and free to breed at home,
  • in winter they can serve as the only living food,
  • nutritious,
  • are not infected with diseases.

Minuses:

  • when feeding only with enchitreus, reproduction and growth may stop in fish,
  • is recommended to be added to the diet and other feeds.

Drosophila flies

These are very small fruit flies up to 1.5 mm long. Their larvae up to 3 mm long are also suitable for fish food. They can feed fry and adult fish. Flies are easy to grow at home. Specially prepared flies can be given by introducing pure water containing the fly. Pros:

  • You can breed at home all year round.
  • A valuable source of protein.

Cons:

  • must be immobilized before feeding,
  • breeding requires a temperature of at least 21 degrees,
  • flies may die.

Nematodes

They are small spindle-shaped white worms (1-2 mm). Worms move and wriggle. Suitable for feeding fry, but not for all types of fish. Nematodes contain 10% protein and about 20% fat. Nematodes are easy to breed at home. They are given to the fish in small portions, as the nematodes sink to the bottom and die in a day. Be sure to alternate nematodes with another type of food. Pluses:

  • Can be bred at home.
  • Nutritious and fatty in composition.

Cons:

  • Not all fish eat them.
  • Nematodes die in a day in the aquarium.

Artemy

Artemia salina is a small crustacean that is found in salt water bodies of water. Today it has an industrial value - it is bred and grown as food for fish. You can catch Artemia eggs yourself, and later grow nauplii (larvae), which you can feed young fish and adults.

The larvae of this crustacean are used to feed aquarium fish fry. The size of the larvae is only 0.5 mm. Pet stores sell cysts of these crustaceans and Artemia eggs without capsules. They are suitable for feeding fry of spawning fish.

Large fry of viviparous fish and large fish that spawn can be fed from birth on brine shrimp eggs or larvae. Cysts are allowed to feed only outside the capsules. They are safe. Before feeding, they are poured with water for 20 minutes, washed. Thus, the risk of infection becomes minimal. Pros:

  • excellent nutritional characteristics,
  • eggs can be stored for a long time,
  • quickly and guaranteed to grow and multiply.

Cons:

  • needs knowledge and some experience for home breeding,
  • possible poisoning by products of cyst decay,
  • live Artemia larvae can attack fry.
  • Cysts fall to the bottom and after death will pollute the reservoir.

Infusoria shoes

Infusoria-shoe belongs to the type of ciliates. This is a single-celled organism, the simplest. Their size is up to 0.3 mm. Ciliates are quite mobile. When feeding the fish, this should be paid attention to, as small, inactive fish may not keep up with them and remain hungry. Ciliates are bred at home.

Feeding of most fish larvae with ciliates is usually carried out only during the first two or three days with the gradual addition (on the second day) of larger food organisms.

  • Pros : suitable for larvae, can be bred at home.
  • Disadvantages: is not suitable as a main permanent food.

Pipemaker

This is a type of live food. It looks like small red thread-like worms. The length of these low-bristle worms is up to 40 mm. They can be caught in nature. Rotting organic matter forms the basis of this worm's diet. Tubifex lives in the silt of reservoirs. Tubifex is sold in pet stores. Before being sold, the worms undergo a mandatory quarantine (up to 8 days), during which their intestines are freed from the contents.

  • Pros : Nutritious food. Can be stored in the refrigerator for several weeks.
  • Cons: May cause obesity. If the contents remain in the intestines, then the fish can be poisoned by them.

Which one is better?

Indeed, variety remains the best food for fish. Such a diet has a positive effect on the beauty and health of the inhabitants of the aquarium. But if you choose among live food, then you should pay attention to the bloodworm, tubifex and coretra. These feeds are common and easy to obtain. The nutritional value of tubifex and bloodworm is very high, so it is important not to overfeed the fish. Bloodworms and tubifex are eaten by all types of fish, this food is universal. Koretra is more dietary and it can perfectly dilute the diet.

Important! Koretra stays alive in the aquarium for a very long time and attracts fish.

How to grow at home?

Bloodworm

  1. Prepare a bucket, barrel or aquarium of about 20 liters.
  2. Fill the container with clean water without chlorine.
  3. Algae, moss should be added to the container. The moth will feed on them.
  4. The vessel is located on the street, mosquitoes will lay their larvae in it (this is the bloodworm).
  5. Avoid direct sunlight and place the container under a tree or in the shade in the garden.
  6. When mosquitoes lay brown eggs in the water, time will pass and bloodworm larvae will hatch.
  7. It is necessary to wait until the bloodworm has antennae. Then the food is ready.

Surplus larvae should be collected in a jar and put in the refrigerator so that mosquitoes do not grow. The larvae are collected every other day with a net.

Enchitreus breeding

  1. Prepare a wooden box, soil, plywood.
  2. For a 100-150 liter aquarium you need a box 800 cm 2 .
  3. A worm and food for the worm (boiled potatoes without peel plus black bread in equal proportions, filled with milk or yogurt) are introduced into a box with moistened soil. The consistency of the nutrient mass resembles sour cream.
  4. Once a week, 1–2 cups of feed are placed in a 25x25 cm box in 2–3 parallel grooves 3–5 cm deep and covered with earth on top. Adding too much food leads to rotting. If the earth in the box is too rich in humus, then sand should be added to it.
  5. To separate the worm from the substrate for feeding the fish, it is necessary to pour earth with worms into a container such as a tin can and put the can on the battery. The worms will crawl to the surface and gather into balls.

Drosophila

  1. It is ideal to get a group of individuals from the laboratory. Such flies do not have wings and they will not bother in the apartment.
  2. Fly with wings can be collected on rotten fruit in the summer at home.
  3. If there is a population of flies, they must be placed in a three-liter jar with gauze instead of a lid.
  4. Place spoiled fruits or sweet porridge boiled in water in a jar.
  5. Flies will multiply quickly in this jar.

How to store?

Live food should be stored cold in water. Rinse live food periodically. These recommendations apply to worms, larvae. Flies are stored directly at the breeding site. If an earthworm is bred, then it is stored where it is bred.

Disinfection

Disinfection is mainly necessary for worms. You need to wait until the intestines are freed from digested food. This is otherwise known as "quarantine".

Can I freeze?

Live food can be frozen. It keeps up to 6 months. For the first time, manufacturers in America began to freeze food. You can buy frozen food in blocks at the pet store or freeze fresh food yourself. Thanks to freezing, the food can be preserved longer, and it is also guaranteed that the food will be free of parasites and infections. Frozen brine shrimp, coretra, cyclops and bloodworms are popular.

Purchase

Live food for fish is sold in pet stores. You do not need to buy a lot, as he quickly dies. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the worms or larvae move. The quality of a live bloodworm, coretra or tubifex is determined by the number of dead worms or larvae . If, when examining live food, there are such, and in large quantities, then refuse to buy such food.

Who needs it?

  • catfish
  • characins
  • red-bellied piranhas
  • barbs
  • cichlids

Related videos

Another option for growing live food (devils) for an aquarium can be seen in the video:

Conclusion

Depending on the experience of the aquarist, the availability of free time and funds, you can always choose the right type of live food for fish. You can breed it at home on your own or purchase it in specialized stores. Aquarium fish must be fed live food if you want to maintain their health, beauty and ability to reproduce.

Food for aquarium fish: types, reviews, the best choice!

Prodac 9 fish food0003

The diet of aquarium fish should be balanced and varied. This postulate was repeatedly heard by Fanfishka on the pages of the site. This dogma is well understood by experienced aquarium hobbyists, since the health of pets and the condition of the aquarium as a whole directly depend on this.

Improper feeding can cause fish diseases - internal bacterial infections that are very difficult to cure.

The modern market for aquarium products is replete with a wide range of all kinds of fish food. Fortunately, the days when a domestic aquarist fed fish exclusively with dry daphnia and gammarus, caught in an artisanal way, have passed. However, a wide variety of foods often confuse beginners. And it entails the wrong choice, unnecessary expenses and unreasonable claims against manufacturers.

We have repeatedly encountered a situation where a user on the forum complained about food for catfish: “I bought expensive food, but my catfish don’t eat it?!” Further in the conversation, it turns out that the aquarist contains armored catfish ( corridors ), and bought food for loricaria ( ancistrus and other L catfish ). Both of them are commonly called catfish, but their diet is radically different! Loricaria fish are phytophages (herbivores), which is due to the structure of their digestive tract, the shape and location of the mouth, and the natural habitat. Their menu should consist mainly of plant foods, while the food is scraped off by the fish with the help of a sucker mouth. Corridors have completely different gastronomic preferences. The structure of the mouth and esophagus are strikingly different from ancistrus. That is why they do not eat vegetable pills for lorics, which, in addition, still need to be scraped with their mouths.

In order to avoid such mistakes, let's talk in this article about the types of aquarium fish food, which one is better to choose and buy.

Take, for example, the line of food from the Italian company PRODAC . The subject of the conversation was not chosen by chance. Firstly, unlike many other manufacturers, Prodak does not hide the composition of their feeds, and this gives us food for discussion. Secondly, having excellent quality, PRODAC feed is an order of magnitude cheaper than similar products. And, thirdly, I just want to consider a line of feeds that have not yet won the status of a mass market in Russia.

Fish food species

So, to begin with, let's define terms and concepts. We think it will be important for newbies.

"FLAKES" - translated from English. shavings, flakes. If you see this inscription on a jar of food, then this type of food is in the form of thin flakes. Which float on the surface of the water and get wet, slowly sink into the water column.

"STICKS" - translated from English. sticks. The food is made in the form of small sticks, as a rule they float on the surface of the water, but some can sink.

"GRAN/GRANULES" - granules. Food in the form of flaky granules, varying in their buoyancy properties.

"TABLET" is a sinking tablet food for fish that feed exclusively from the bottom of the aquarium.

"WAFERS" - translated from English. cake, plate. A thinner tableted and sinking form of food.

" BABY / MINI / MICRO " - Fine or dusty food intended for feeding fish juveniles or small fish.

Before choosing a food, it is very important to analyze its organoleptic features: shape, properties and composition. The above characteristics give us an immediate understanding of the main properties of the feed. Why is it important!? There are bottom fish that take food only from the bottom, there are top swimmers, there are fish that take food in the water column or in all layers. For example, goldfish bottom and fast sinking foods are strictly prohibited. Gathering food from the bottom with their large mouth, goldenrods can swallow a small fraction of the soil, which, at best, will cause digestive problems, and at worst, a complete blockage of the esophagus and death of the pet.

Next, let's take a closer look at the feed.

Overview of PRODAC fish food

TROPICAL FISH FLAKES0003

PRODAC TROPICAL FISH FLAKES is a complete flake food for all types of tropical fish. The food is prepared from high quality mixtures that provide healthy nutrition for fish.

Ingredients: cereals, fish and fish by-products, soy, yeast, shellfish, algae, aloe vera 0.05%.

Nutritional information: crude protein 44.90%, crude fat 4.47%, crude ash 4.35%, crude fiber 2.14%, moisture 7.73%.

So what do we see? Flake food with both vegetable and protein ingredients. Due to its properties, the food floats on the surface of the water and slowly sinks to the bottom. Thus, this food can be recommended as the main food for all types of fish. Note that such feed is the most popular and popular. This is due to the fact that many aquarists keep mixed types of aquariums, it is very rare to find a species aquarium - with one family of fish. In this connection, objectively we need food that would swim, and sink, and sink to the bottom. Contains everything: both fat and fiber. That is, such food that all the inhabitants of the aquarium world could enjoy!

PRODAC TROPICAL FISH FLAKES - meets all these requirements and can be safely recommended for both livebearers and cichlids, both for cinnamon and loriks, as well as for goldenworts. #FoodForAll

PRODAC COLOR

Fish food PRODAC COLOR

Complete food in the form of flakes for all types of tropical fish, enhancing their natural color, as it is enriched with pigments such as canthaxanthin

.

Ingredients: cereals, fish and fish by-products, soy, yeast, shellfish, algae, aloe vera 0.05%.

Nutrition information: crude protein 46.90%, crude fat 3.33%, crude ash 4.35%, crude fiber 1.69%, moisture 8.58%.

In the Prodak line, there is also food DISCUS QUALITY , which contains astaxanthin . What are these terrible words - astaxanthin, canthaxanthin? .. only a consonant name comes to mind - Konstantin.

In fact, carotenoids are natural "coloring" substances. It is astaxanthin that gives plants their red-orange color, carrots are a prime example of this. Or, for example, have you wondered why flamingos are pink? Yes, yes, that's why. .. eating plant and animal foods rich in carotenoids, the plumage of flamingos, which initially has a white color, gradually turns pink. The more birds get this substance with food, the more saturated and redder the plumage becomes. If you look even deeper, flamingos eat the well-known brine shrimp - pink, saltwater crustaceans - and also turn pink =)

Pink brine shrimp

Pink brine shrimp pool

Actually the same thing happens to fish if carotenoids are included in the feed. We also note that astaxanthin has other useful properties - it is also an antioxidant. In general, we can say that carotenoids are useful not only for fish, but also for all hydrobionts, even aquarium plants. The only thing is that everything should be in moderation and balanced. It must be understood that the color of the fish also depends on the state of health, the environment, life circumstances (stress / spawning) and the characteristics of the aquarium lighting. We recommend using "COLOR food" as an important, but additional feeding for fish.

Vegetable fish food

Vegetable fish food

Now let's talk about the vegetable fish food series. PRODAC VEGETABLE FLAKES, SPIRULINA FLAKES, VEGETABLE CICHLID GRANULES, VEGETABLE TABLET, ALGAE WAFERS are all herbal based foods. They differ from each other in the concentration of the plant element, as a rule, it is spirulina. And also the shape and properties, which is very important!

Will there be herbivorous African cichlids of the Mbuna group sinking tablets for catfish - ALGAE WAFERS? Of course they will! But those who have tried to feed like this understand what we are hinting at - Christmas trees , pseudotrophs and others, grab wafers like pit bulls and rush around the aquarium like Papuans until the tablet gets wet and it can be swallowed. The question arises, why do this, risk that the fish will choke if there are VEGETABLE CICHLID GRANULES ?! It seems that all this is trifles. But firstly, as Exupery said: "We are responsible for those we have tamed." And secondly, what if the aquarist keeps savages or F1...? It will be very disappointing if the $100 tail chokes and dies.

What other foods are available? There are specialized foods for certain types of fish. For example, PRODAC GOLDFISH - a series of food for goldfish, for PRO GUPPY guppies, for BETTA FOOD cockerels, DISCUS QUALITY discus, AROWANA STICKS arowana, for a pond POND series. All these feeds are designed taking into account the specifics of the nutrition of a particular fish species.

We want to draw the reader's special attention to vitamin and prophylactic feeds. For example, PRODAC has this series with the prefix GARLIC (translated from English - garlic).

Garlic fish food GARLIC PRODAC

Everyone knows that garlic is very useful, aquarists have long adopted it and add it to homemade minced meats and mixes for their pets and even arrange garlic herbal medicine for the entire aquarium.

PRODAC GARLIC contains 6% garlic - a very useful and preventive additive to avoid problems with internal bacterial infections in fish and strengthen their immunity. Garlic is an excellent prevention hexamitosis .

So, if we really went deep into the classification of aquarium foods, then it’s worth saying a few words about such foods as PRODAC STICK-ON - entertainment food, sticks to the aquarium wall, fish peck at it, which is very funny and interesting, especially for kids. HOLIDAY FOOD - weekend food, if you need to leave for a couple of days, and there is no one to leave your pets with, Holiday food will help you out. And finally, freeze-dried food. Lyophilization is a method of soft drying of substances. Freeze-dried feed is obtained by low-temperature dehydration (sublimation) of freshly frozen semi-finished products. Such processing keeps many components in their original form for a long time and does not reduce the biological value of the feed. Company Prodak lyophilizes: krill, brine shrimp.

Dried artemia krill - food for fish

Concluding the article, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that whatever your choice of food for aquarium fish, when buying, be sure to look at the expiration date of the product, do not buy food by weight or in damaged packaging . Like any product, fish food deteriorates and, if storage conditions are violated, pathogenic flora develops in it.

That's all who are interested in Prodac products, http://www.prodacinternational.it/ru.html - welcome to the official website! We wish health to you and your fish!