Fish veterans please weigh in

I would love to hear everyone's opinion on flake versus pellets. And mostly sinking pellets. Please give me your take on it.

Tangcollector said:

I would love to hear everyone's opinion on flake versus pellets. And mostly sinking pellets. Please give me your take on it.

Click to expand...

Hey Greg any particular brands or are you comparing if they have same nutritional value which is better?
Things to consider are
Type of fish your feeding
Size of fish
Water currant
Other inhabitants snails/feeders
Filter/currant etc
But that's if both foods are the same
I have more questions if you they are different brands



Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

I prefer pellets for anything 4" and larger. I find that big, adult fish just make a mess of flakes and more ends up going into my filters than into my fish.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

This is going to sound weird, but I always start with a bit of flakes. I make sure I get something where the flakes are big (and not dust). I like Cobalt Spirulina flakes. I like that the flakes spread out and everyone gets at least a bite and it brings everyone out. Then I follow with sinking pellets. I do not have large fish, tho.

jonclark96 said:

I prefer pellets for anything 4" and larger. I find that big, adult fish just make a mess of flakes and more ends up going into my filters than into my fish.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Click to expand...

I agree it seems to pass right through their gills lol


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

I'm with John Clark, anything big enough to eat pellets gets pellets. I only use flakes for smaller fish.

though i don't really feed either too regularly, i'm in agreement with the consensus of flakes for smaller fish, pellets for larger.
my bucktooth tetras don't seem to care for pellets, so they get flakes. my grow out tank where the cichlids range from about 3-7" get a mixture of flakes and pellets. everything else gets pellets when i do 'dry food'.

unknown_saint said:

though i don't really feed either too regularly, i'm in agreement with the consensus of flakes for smaller fish, pellets for larger.
my bucktooth tetras don't seem to care for pellets, so they get flakes. my grow out tank where the cichlids range from about 3-7" get a mixture of flakes and pellets. everything else gets pellets when i do 'dry food'.

Click to expand...

Men buck toothed are cool and makes sense they like flakes since they eat scales


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

I do live balckworms every morning and either Aqua-Pharm pellet (for fish that have yet to reach sexual maturity) and NLS (for sexually mature fish +). Other than that, I treat them with earthworm flake every now and again. Variety is key.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

jonclark96 said:

I prefer pellets for anything 4" and larger. I find that big, adult fish just make a mess of flakes and more ends up going into my filters than into my fish.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

Click to expand...

I agree with john, back when I was breeding fish allot, I would switch them to pellets once they were around 2" or so. Not a huge fan of flakes in general but I like that you can brake them up for smaller fish and leave them in big pieces for the big guys.
If your fish are small, and you dont have allot of current or run mainly sponge filters, I'd go with flakes. Otherwise, I'd go with pellets

I use a little of everything and don't have a favorite. Fish seem happy. Just use good quality food.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using MonsterAquariaNetwork App

First priority for me is food quality and ingredients. With flakes, some hold together better than others, depends which brand, so there's not really a blanket rule for flakes being messy or not. Pretty early in my fishkeeping experience I discovered that, beyond a small size, fish grew noticeably faster on pellets, and this was years before some of the more premium foods we now have.

It's simple for me-- fry get crushed up foods, whether flake, freeze dried items, etc. (I like freeze dried brine shrimp for starting fry, crushes to powder pretty easily). Once they've grown enough, it's pellets and freeze dried (floating) foods like mysis, blood worms, etc, depending on the species of fish.

As far as floating vs. sinking or floating foods causing bloat or trapped air, etc... bah, I've used plenty of both types and I've never seen it. Maybe so with some products but not with anything I've used. Most of my fish, including kapampa fronts, are up at the surface competing to get the first bits anyway, then they simply follow the food as it sinks. Some think cyphotilapia can't or shouldn't feed at the surface due to being a deep water fish-- no one's ever told mine that, whatever type I've had have come up to compete for food at the surface, some of them with head and mouth clear out of the water if it's something they really like. No big deal.

Gary Rosenthal of Aqua-Pharm gives a talk about how to size the pellets. Hi point is that if a fish can easily fit the largest size pellet for its mouth it is the right size but giving oversized pellets or crushing them is counter productive. He only makes pellets but goes on to say that the process of forming pellets uses less heat so it preserves some of the nutrients that would be lost from the heat used to dry flakes.

For my small to medium sized cichlids I have switched to sinking pellets from Aqua-Pharm and have been happy with no wasted food and a cleaner tank. For non-cichlid tropical fish I still feed flakes. Dry foods make up about 50 percent of what I feed with the rest being live food.

For my large cichlids I feed stick form foods which are like pellets only about an inch long. I then give them live food weekly to keep them in condition. Nothing keeps a Dovii smiling them having something to chase and eat.