What food do angelfish eat? A detailed guide to feeding methods

At first glance, angelfish have small, delicate mouths, but they are actually very cunning. When angelfish eat their food, their mouths protrude into a tube shape, sucking it in along with water like a straw. Their suction is very strong; taking an angelfish with a body length of 10 cm as an example, it can suck in a fish about 1 cm long in one go. Once angelfish reach their maximum size, it is best not to keep them together with small tetras, and especially not with black-shell shrimp, which are even more of a meal for large angelfish.

Tubifex@#@254@#@

With a body length of about 5 cm, tubifex worms living in water often curl up in sewers and under drains. They are thread-like and are the most suitable live food for fry and juvenile fish. Tubifex worms have the trait of instantly curling into a ball, so it is best to put them on a plate with a bottom, or install a hat-shaped feeding box on the wall of the aquarium.

Bloodworms

Bloodworms, like tubifex worms, are fish food with high nutritional value, and they are the favorite food of cichlids, with angelfish at the top of the list. But compared with tubifex worms, bloodworms have a harder shell, and feeding them to fry can sometimes cause indigestion.

Daphnia

From early spring to early autumn, daphnia appear in ponds and rivers with settled water. These small crustaceans, about 1 mm in size, are most suitable for fry and juvenile fish.

Daphnia overwinter in the form of eggs, so they cannot be collected during that season. But once spring arrives, you can see a large swarm of daphnia gathered on the water surface in the early morning. Unfortunately, places where you can see such a scene are very few. Daphnia consume a large amount of oxygen, and both transporting and keeping them are very difficult, so generally aquarium shops rarely use this kind of food. However, daphnia have very strong reproductive capacity; as long as you get a starter culture of daphnia and put them in a water-filled tank or large plastic bucket, you can collect them naturally. In winter, place them in a warm spot and sprinkle some milk powder as food, and they can reproduce all year round.

Brine shrimp

Brine shrimp are a type of crustacean that lives in seawater. They do not look like daphnia, but rather like a relative of small shrimp. Put the dried durable eggs into 2-3% salt water, keep the water temperature at about 25°C, and maintain aeration; they will hatch in about 1-2 days. You can use a dropper to suck them up and feed them to fry.

Artificial food

Recently, due to river pollution and various other factors, it has become increasingly difficult to obtain live food. It is believed that artificial food should be the mainstay of feeding in the future.

The advantages of artificial food are that it is cheap and easy to store. If you feed good-quality artificial food, then even if you also feed live food, you can still raise the fish to adulthood. In particular, the artificial food sold on the market in recent years has been continuously improved, and its quality is getting better and better.

Each form of food has its own advantages, but for angelfish specifically, it is best to use artificial food as the main food, supplemented with fresh tubifex worms and bloodworms. For fry, feed plenty of brine shrimp. The ideal amount of food is the amount that can be eaten in one go at a time. As for how many times a day to feed, at minimum you should feed once in the morning and once in the evening (2 times a day).

When feeding, you must keep in mind that fish, like people, should follow the principle of eating until "80% full". If you feed too much and the fish eat too full, the fish's body will be harmed, and moreover the leftover food will worsen the water quality.

In order to make fish grow faster, the secret of professional fish keepers in managing fish is to increase the fish's amount of exercise, feed only just the right amount of food, and pay attention to the fish's condition all day long. Ordinary hobbyists do not need to manage their fish so strictly; after all, it is just for enjoyment and peace of mind!