Things to Consider Before Buying a Pet

Back to my previous topic......

Basic needs also include dietary requirements. It is the easiest on anyone's mind but again, this is the pitfall of several beginners and even among experienced hobbyists. It should be easy if we really put ourselves in the fishes' place and fed daily with the same food for every meal (flakes, pellets, or even frozen forms for fish). That would make for a boring existence really. The operative word in fish keeping should be 'variety' and 'appropriate' diet.

Variety to make it not as boring but more so because we want to provide what may be a missing component of the diet in feeding just one kind of fish food. Of course, most producers make the claim of completeness in their fish feeds but why not try. Taking into account how my earlier community of goldfishes gobbled up the duckweed with so much gusto, there must be something when one provides variety or atleast incorporate part of their natural diet once in a while. Of course, I also went for staple, growth and color enhancing fish food.

Appropriate here means knowing whether your fish is an carnivore (or simply meat-eater or high in protein content), herbivore (prefers plants) or an omnivore (will do good with both). In some cases, some may even have special requirements like panaques (a member of the locariids just like the invasive plecostomus inhabitants of Marikina River and elsewhere) need some substance from driftwoods to aid in their digestion. Or fishes whose main staple is algae (like otocinclus), can one provide enough algae (and the right kind) for the fishes?

To be continued....