Goldfish and Betta Flakes for Tropical Fish?

[lateinningmagic]

Ok, this might be a silly question, but I have three kinds of flake foods: Tropical Flakes that I bought for my Neons, Zebras, etc; Betta Flakes that I bought for my Bettas; and Goldfish Flakes that my mom's friend gave me.

Usually when I feed my fish, the Bettas ends up eating a couple of Tropical Flakes and the other fish end up eating a bit of Betta Flakes. I was wondering if this counts as varying in their diet, or does that only count with mixing veggies, flakes, live and frozen fish food? Also, the Goldfish flakes I got is almost completely full and its the big 2.2 oz size. I don't have any goldfish, so I was wondering if I could feed them goldfish flakes every once in a while, just to get rid of them. Maybe once a week?

P.S. I feed thawed Brine Shrimp about once a week, but am thinking about uping this up to twice a week, since I have a ton left and I don't want it to go bad. It goes bad right? After they go through the Brine Shrimp I plan on getting frozen Bloodworms or Tubifex worms, or whatever else my LFS has in their freezer.

Or should I vary their frozen food even more by having different types of frozen food available at once, or is rotating through different foods good enough?

 

[clb2196]

I feed all my tropicals a few different flake types, including TetraMin's BettaMin that has flakes and little shrimp bit, they love it. *shrug* Not sure about the goldfish food, I'd think that may have more veggie content than the others, but I don't see that it'd be harmful, especially when it's only part of a variety of foods. I think rotating through everything would be fine.

 

[kyryah]

I have a jar of goldfish flakes (I actually do not feed my goldfish flakes, these were given to me and I use homemade gel food for my goldies) and a jar or tropical flakes. I compared the ingredients. They are EXACTLY the same I don't think it would hurt your fish one bit to feed the goldie flakes, and since they are all pretty much the same I don't think it counts as a variety.

Kristina

 

[Wycco]

Is the size different? Goldfish have bigger mouths than many tropical fish. A flake/pellet/whathave you that is appropriate for a goldfish might not work for a smaller fish.

... unless you crumble it a little... and bigger fish can have smaller flakes- they just need to eat more of them.

 

[lateinningmagic]

I feed all my tropicals a few different flake types, including TetraMin's BettaMin that has flakes and little shrimp bit, they love it. *shrug* Not sure about the goldfish food, I'd think that may have more veggie content than the others, but I don't see that it'd be harmful, especially when it's only part of a variety of foods. I think rotating through everything would be fine.

All my fish love any food they can get. So getting them to eat different flakes isn't a problem. :

I have a jar of goldfish flakes (I actually do not feed my goldfish flakes, these were given to me and I use homemade gel food for my goldies) and a jar or tropical flakes. I compared the ingredients. They are EXACTLY the same I don't think it would hurt your fish one bit to feed the goldie flakes, and since they are all pretty much the same I don't think it counts as a variety.

Kristina

Gotcha. I'll feed em the goldfish flakes then a couple of times a week.

Is the size different? Goldfish have bigger mouths than many tropical fish. A flake/pellet/whathave you that is appropriate for a goldfish might not work for a smaller fish.

... unless you crumble it a little... and bigger fish can have smaller flakes- they just need to eat more of them.

I always crumble the flakes bit (except the betta flakes). I have the Tetra PRO and its a more circular and hard flake, so I crumble it up for them.

 

[bazil323]

I've read that goldfish need a different amount of protein and carbohydrate than tropical fish, and thus, you should not feed goldfish food to tropical fish and vice versa. While the ingredients may be the same, the amounts of each ingredient should be different (especially in higher quality foods that actually have what the fish needs instead of fillers).

However, betta food is very similar to tropical foods. I believe the only real difference is the sizes and that bettas hit pellets better than flakes. It's just fine to feed betta food to tropicals, but I would not make it the main food. A couple times a week is fine.

I would feed frozen foods at least a couple times a week in addition to the flake/pellets. I would not feed goldfish food to tropicals or anything other than goldfish. If you don't have goldfish, just toss the food in the garbage. Besides, flakes and pellets loose their vitamins pretty quickly after being opened. Like 3 months, I think it is. A variety of foods would be feeding one or two kinds of flakes/pellets a few times a week and then feeding a variety of frozen foods a few times a week. A variety of frozen foods would be bloodworms, mysis shrimp, glassworms (white mosquito larvae), brine shrimp with spirulina (plain brine shrimp have very little nutritional value), baby brine shrimp (much more nutritional value than adult brine shrimp), daphnia, cyclops, etc. You can also feed mixes like Emerald Entree which mixes several of those foods and freezes them together.

I have some of each of those foods, and I mainly feed them rather than the flakes and pellets I have. Since I have a good sized community tank, I will often thaw out a couple cubes of frozen foods (usually a combination of something small like daphnia and then something larger like bloodworms) and then also throw in a small amount of flakes. This is because I have a smaller tank with fish that will only accept frozen foods, but there is not enough of them to eat the whole cube of daphnia or cyclops. So, I feed the rest of the cube to the larger community with the supplement of other frozen foods plus the flakes or pellets or whatever.

Oh, and as long as you keep the frozen foods frozen and only thaw out what you need, they should not go bad for quite a while. However, they can only be thawed out for a few days (not sure how long exactly). I would not recommend allowing them to thaw and then refreeze.

 

[lateinningmagic]

You can also feed mixes like Emerald Entree which mixes several of those foods and freezes them together.

I'm going to keep an eye for this. Sounds delicious (for my fish)

 

[jm1212]

goldfish food is based primarily on carbohydrates. tropical food has protien and carbohydrates in it, so feeding tropical fish goldfish food really shouldnt give you any issues. the other way around, though, can. goldfish should not have much protien in their diet at all.

 

[Lupin]

Young goldfish need plenty of proteins by 40-60% range to ensure good body growth and wen growth for most variants. Hikari Lionhead and Oranda Gold along with Mazuri readily cater to their requirements. My goldfish get Hikari Lionhead and gel foods. You can add aquarium plants as part of their diet including bloodworms, mosquito larva, daphnia, krills, etc. Check the ingredients first. If the product contains plenty of starch-based ingredients, avoid it completely as it tends to cause floaty issues to fancy variants. If these were comets, shubs and common goldfish, these ones would hardly have any issues with the starch that is responsible for floaty issues.

 

[lateinningmagic]

Er, I don't have any goldfish anymore. I have on Tropical fish and the subject of this topic was if I could feed occasionally feed them goldfish flakes.