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will eat whole foods almost exclusively. Trying to feed a larger carnivore with brine shrimp won't be very helpful, whereas trying to feed a small predator with whole lancefish will be an equal failure. Choose your whole food based on the size and diet of the fish you're feeding. You can experiment with different brands as well, as some companies enrich their frozen whole foods before freezing them while others simple catch and freeze the prey. Enrichment normally makes for a more nutritious food for your fish. The waste from frozen foods can also vary. Trying a variety of brands will allow you to pick one out that works for you.

The last (and in a lot of cases, the worst) type of fish food to consider is live foods. While live foods most definitely have their place in our hobby, there are a number of factors to take into consideration when choosing live foods for your fish.

If you're breeding and raising fish, live foods are in most cases a necessity, as live worms (grindal, micro, etc) and newly-hatched brine shrimp are often the staples for the first few weeks of a fry's life. Other common live foods that can be useful include daphnia, earthworms, fruit flies and any other number of insects or small creatures.

Many fish can be quite difficult to rear onto non-living foods. Seahorses, piranha and some others can be especially difficult to wean onto prepared or frozen foods. Providing them with the appropriate living foods while slowly introducing them to frozen or prepared foods can help with the transition and ensure they're getting the proper nutrients they need.

A common misconception in live foods is the use of "feeder fish". Goldfish are the most common feeder available, though they're truly not much more than a novelty as far as nutritional profile goes. These fish are raised on large farms without much consideration to their health and nutritional profile. Oftentimes they're diseased or sickly, and being coldwater fish, entirely inappropriate for what they're being fed to. The most common offenders are oscars, piranha and lionfish. Goldfish are very high in fat, and many lionfish (and other large predatory fish) have succumbed to organ failure due to fat deposits left on them from a diet of solely feeders. There's not many more painful ways to live and die, so weaning your fish onto a proper, healthy diet should be a top priority.

The bottom line here is that, in most cases, a staple diet of prepared food (flake or pellet) along with perhaps a "treat" food every once in a while is sufficient to keep most fish. If you pay attention to the ingredients list, choosing a diet that will be good for your animal can be quick and easy, not to mention not any more expensive than choosing an inferior food.

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