Fish Food

Fish food from API, Tetra and Nutrafin, covering tropical community fish, goldfish, cichlids, bettas, discus, plecos and bottom feeders, plus pond sticks and holiday feeder blocks. Choosing well comes down to two questions: does the food reach the level of the tank your fish actually feed at, and does the formula match what that species eats.

Flakes, pellets, granules or wafers

Flakes float first and sink slowly, which suits surface and mid-water community fish. Pellets and granules sink faster and come graded by size, and a pellet that is too large simply will not be eaten — that is why the cichlid pellets here are sold small, medium and large, and the tropical pellet comes in a mini. Sinking pellets and tablets get food past fast surface feeders to anything living lower down. Wafers and algae logs are made for plecos, corydoras and algae eaters: they hold together on the substrate long enough for a slow grazer to work at them. Gel treats such as the Tetra Fresh Delica bloodworm, krill and brine shrimp are supplementary rather than a staple, and freeze-dried bloodworms work the same way.

Matching the food to the fish

Goldfish are not tropical fish and should not live on tropical flake — they want more carbohydrate and less protein, and sinking goldfish pellets cut down the air swallowed at the surface, which matters for fancy varieties. Cichlids divide further again: herbivorous African cichlids do better on spirulina sticks than on the high-protein pellets meant for predators. Bettas need a small floating pellet and very little of it. Fry take a powdered starter such as Nutrafin Max Baby Fish Formula. Colour-enhancing formulas work on pigment in the food, so they change how a display tank looks rather than what the fish is fed nutritionally.

API, Tetra and Nutrafin

API's range is built around flakes and pellets for tropical, goldfish, marine and cichlid tanks, plus algae eater wafers and squid-based bottom feeder pellets. Nutrafin Max is the broadest of the three — tropical, goldfish, cichlid, discus, livebearer, predator and spirulina recipes in flake, pellet, granule, stick and tablet form, down to a baby fish formula. Tetra covers the TetraMin and TetraPro staples, Fresh Delica gel treats, pond sticks, and the Vacation 14-day and Weekend 5-day blocks for when nobody is home to feed.

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