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quality ingredients like fish meal, krill, shrimp and other natural food items. There are some brands of food that use a lot of fresh, natural seafood items in their foods. These would be excellent choices for almost all fish.

When looking at an herbivore preparation, look closely at the ingredients. Most of the prepared foods on the market are comprosed of mainly meat (fish or krill, which is good in its own right, but not for strict herbivores), with plant matter being further down on the list. The green color is often the result of dye, and not a good indicator of the quantity (or quality) of plant matter in the food. A good quality herbivore food will have some type of plant matter (normally spirulina, kelp or other types of algae) as their top ingredients.

One other consideration when choosing prepared foods is the color-enhancing ingredients. Substances such as carotenoids and astaxanthin are natural substances found in nature that will improve the color of your fish. There are certain ingredients (krill, carrots, cyclops) that can be very high in these naturally, and negate the need for artificial color enhancers.

Prepared foods also come in a multitude of shapes and sizes. Flakes and pellets are the two most common forms (though there are variations on size and type of each). Generally speaking, pellets offer more value for your money, but take the type of fish you're feeding into account when deciding on a type of food. Flakes are better for small fish and fish that have problem ingesting air (such as goldfish), wheras pellets are better for larger fish and bottom feeders.

There are also some species of fish that will not eat prepared foods. This is where frozen or live foods can come in handy.

Frozen foods are an excellent alternative to live foods, as they can be stored almost indefinitely in the freezer and most don't require any special handling before feeding to your fish. There are two types of frozen foods to look at.

Frozen prepared foods should be judged based on the same criteria as dry foods. The ingredients are important here just as with dry food. Following the same guideliens as with dry foods should allow you to choose a suitable frozen food for your fish.

There are also frozen whole foods, which are either pieces or whole prey items. Some of these include brine shrimp, mysis shrimp, various plankton, bloodworms, silversides, etc. Choosing one of these foods will be dependant on what you're feeding. Some fish, corals and anemones will eat

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