7 Incredible Benefits of Feeding Your Fish Live Food

By on July 4, 2020

There are 11.5 million American households that own at least one freshwater fish. This makes fish the most popular type of household pet other than dogs and cats.

Whether it’s a goldfish or a guppy, your fish will always rely on proper nutrition for a healthy and happy life. To make sure your pet is properly looked after, you should consider giving them live food.

Read on to learn about the seven most important benefits of live food for fish.

1. You Can Raise The Food Yourself

Many fish owners choose to raise their own live food. There are a few different ways you can do this. Daphnia, for example, is easy to grow in an aquarium.

If you don’t want to grow your own live food, there are plenty of different buying options, such as copepods for sale.

2. More Protein

Because of the processing that flaked foods undergo, they lose a lot of their nutrients by the time they get to your fish. With live food, on the other hand, your pets will be enjoying the sustenance of fresh food.

Protein is one of the most important nutrients for any living thing, and one which processed foods tend to be short on. A fish needs protein primarily for growth; unless you ensure your fish have enough of it, they won’t reach their size potential.

3. More Vitamins

Another nutritional area in which processed food is lacking in vitamins. Vitamins are vital for various aspects of fish health, particularly immunity from disease.

4. Gut-Loading

If you grow your own live food, you can gut-load it to ensure that your fish get the best possible nutrition. Gut-loading is the process of feeding high-nutrient food to your live food so that this nutrition passes along to your fish.

You can even choose the nutrients you want your fish to have more of. For a vitamin-deficient pet, for example, you could gut-load with vitamins.

5. You Can Freeze It

Many types of live food can be frozen. If you have too much live food on hand at a given time, there’s no need for it to go to waste.

You can also buy frozen live food from pet food stores. Brine shrimp, for example, are highly nutritious and freeze well.

6. Tank Hygiene

Processed foods can often break down in your tank, leaving residue and reducing the quality of the water. Live food does not cause this problem, and may actually improve the quality of your water.

7. Better Value

One of the main criticisms of live fish food is its price. However, these critics fail to look at the value that live food offers. 

Unless you feed your fish live food, they won’t reach their potential in terms of size, health, or quality of life. Also, if the price is an issue, you can grow your own live feed to reduce costs over time.

Live Food Makes Happier Fish

As you can see, there are many good reasons to consider feeding your fish live food. They’ll be happier and healthier, and you could even save money!

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