When it comes to feeding guppies, we are lucky, because they will eat almost anything you give them. However, if you want to raise beautiful and healthy guppies, you need to feed them high-quality fish food. I always like to choose the best flake food from reputed brands.
With so many options available, it is hard to decide what food to feed your guppy fish. In this guide, I will review eight brand’s flake food, which I consider the best on the market.
Best Commercial Flake Food for Guppies
Many commercially available flake foods contain additives that can’t be digested by the fish and will only pollute the water. You should avoid using just any random flake food. Always choose a well-known brand. Here is the list of commercial flake food I use and recommend for feeding guppies:
| Flake Food Name | Guaranteed Analysis | Price | |
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New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes |
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Aquacarium Tropical Flakes |
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Omega One Super Color Flakes |
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API Flakes |
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Aqueon Tropical Flakes |
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Tetra Tropical Color Flakes |
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Aquarian Tropical Flake Food |
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JBL Novo Guppy Mini Flakes |
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Best Guppy Flake Food Reviews
In the following, I will review and give you more details about the above-mentioned guppy flake foods.
1. New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes
The NLF Optimum flakes are specially designed to promote health and colors in tropical fish. In my opinion, this is the best flakes food for guppies. At least I use it on daily basis and have really good results with their products.
This food contains krill, herring, squid, natural ingredients that help boost colors and develop a strong immune system.
It is rich in protein and has all the necessary nutrients and vitamins that guppies need. It also contains garlic, which is a natural antibiotic, really beneficial for the health of fish. Garlic can prevent or treat many diseases in both humans and guppies. Garlic has antioxidant, anticancer and antihypertensive properties (source).
New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes are my top choice when it comes to guppy food, besides my home-cultivated live food.
I highly recommend this food, especially for guppy breeders.
2. Aquacarium Tropical Flakes
The Aquacarium Tropical flakes are designed for all types of tropical fish, including guppies. It is a great choice for community tanks, as well for guppy-only tanks.
This food contains salmon, shrimp, kelp, krill and spirulina, which makes a complete diet for guppies. It does not contain fillers and natural coloring, unlike most other flake foods. It is also rich in vitamins (A, D3, B1, B12, C).
Though this brand might not be very popular, they produce very good food. What I really like about this food, is that they don’t use any additives or food coloring to make their food “pretty”.
Because this food contains only natural ingredients, it is easier for the fish to digest and use up more nutrients. This is great because they produce less waste and the water will not get polluted so fast.
Its high protein content (45%) makes it an ideal food for guppy fry as well.
3. Omega One Super Color Flakes
If you want to raise healthy and colorful guppies, the Omega One Super Color flakes is a great choice for you.
This food contains naturally occurring pigments, which help in accentuating those vibrant colors in your guppies. It is rich in Omega 3 and 6, which helps guppies develop a strong immune system.
This fish food is made of salmon, halibut, shrimp, wheat flour, wheat gluten and fresh kelp. It contains lots of vitamins (A, D3, E, B12) and minerals, which are essential for guppy’s health.
The Omega One is designed to offer a complete diet for guppies and other tropical fish. It contains low ash, which results in less waste and cleaner water.
4. API Tropical Flakes
The API Tropical Flakes food is another great choice for guppies and other tropical fish. This formula contains all the key nutrients that guppies need to have a complete and balanced diet.
This food contains elements that help guppies use more nutrients and digest it faster. The result is less waste and cleaner water.
The API flakes contain lots of goodies such as menhaden fish meal, wheat, squid meal, wheat starch, calcium, fish oil, spirulina, dried seaweed, lecithin, vitamins (A, D3, E, K, C) and minerals (copper sulfate, zinc sulfate, inositol) and more.
This food is made to sink slower, which makes it easier to guppies to consume it.
5. Aqueon Tropical Flakes
The Aqueon Tropical Flakes provides a balanced diet for guppies and other tropical fish. It contains natural ingredients, trace nutrients, minerals and vitamins, which helps in developing a healthy immune system.
This food contains a higher concentration of spirulina, marigold powder and chili powder which helps bring out the colors of the guppies.
These flakes float at the surface for a longer period, which makes it easier for guppies to consume them. It is known that food that falls to the bottom will be ignored by guppy fish.
The food contains herring, wheat flour, soybean, shrimp, gluten, dried yeast, squid, corn, garlic, spirulina, fish oil, and lots of minerals (manganese sulfate, copper sulfate, ferrous sulfate, calcium) and vitamins (C, A, D3, B12, B6).
The Aqueon Tropical food is designed for better and faster digestion, which results in less waste and cleaner water.
6. Tetra Tropical Color Flakes
The Tetra Tropical Color flakes provide all the nutrition guppies need.
This food is ideal for guppies and other tropical fish because the flakes float on the surface for a long time.
This formula contains antioxidants, which helps in developing good health, proteins that are essential for growth and prebiotics, which help indigestion.
The ingredients found in this fish food helps a lot in growth and in color development: fish, dried yeast, brown rise, shrimp, wheat gluten, soybean oil, algae, sorbitol, calcium extract, lots of vitamins (C, E, A, B12, D3) and minerals.
This flake food has a very high protein and fat content, which makes it a great food for guppy fry. If you want to speed up the growth of your baby guppies, feed them with this food.
7. Aquarian Tropical Flake Food
The Aquarian Tropical food offers a complete and balanced diet for guppies and other tropical fish. It contains marigold meal extract, which contributes in developing amazing colors.
This food is great to feed guppy fry too because it is rich in oils and fats. This formula contains the following ingredients: fish, cereals, vegetables, oils and fats, algae, egg, yeasts, mollusks and crustaceans. It is rich in vitamins (A, D, C, E) and minerals too.
Due to high ash content, the fish will produce more waste and will pollute the water more than the other flakes I mentioned above.
This food is a bit pricy, compared to others, but guppy fish seems to love it and I had great results with it.
8. JBL Novo Guppy Mini Flakes
The JBL Novo Guppy is specially created for guppies and other live-bearing fish. It is designed to promote growth and vibrant coloring.
This product contains phosphate, which makes it ideal for planted guppy aquariums.
This flake food contains cereals, vegetables, fish, algae, yeast, eggs, mollusks and crustaceans. It is rich in antioxidants and vitamins (A, D3, E, C).
JBL is a German brand. It might not be very popular in the US, but in Europe it is a very big name.
From my experience, guppies and live-bearers in general love this food.
Why Choose Flake Food for Guppies?
In my opinion, flake food is the best dry food when it comes to feeding guppies. Flake food offers a complete diet for guppies.
Flake foods contain a lot of protein, which is essential for the always-active guppies to gain energy.
These foods also contain lots of minerals and vitamins, which are a must need to keep guppies healthy.
On top of that, flake food is very convenient to feed and is cost-effective. It can be fed to guppy fry too. You just need to grind up the big flakes with your fingers, and it is ready for the baby guppies.
How Often to Feed Guppy Fish?
If you raise guppy fry, and you want them to grow faster, you might want to feed 2-5 times a day. Keep in mind that the more you feed the more water changes you need to do. Guppy fry need a lot of food in order to grow and develop vibrant colors. Flake food is ideal for this purpose.
Adult guppies should not be fed more than 2 times a day.
How Much to Feed Guppy Fish?
How much food should you feed your guppies? Offer them as much food they can consume in less than one minute. If you want to can go for two rounds, but make sure that they eat all of it.
Guppies are top feeders, this means that they will usually feed at the surface of the water. Don’t dump too much food in the tank, because guppies won’t eat the food which falls to the bottom.
Uneaten food will pollute the water and will cause diseases.
What to Feed Guppies When Out of Food?
I always like to keep extra food at home. But what should you feed them if you run out of guppy food?
As mentioned in the beginning of the article, guppies will eat almost anything you feed them. If you run out for fish food, you can prepare homemade food very quickly.
Just take some frozen or fresh vegetables and boil them. You can use cucumber, spinach leaves, zucchini, carrots, peas or broccoli. Boil the vegetables for 3-5 minutes to become soft. Put the vegetables in cold water and let it sit for a few minutes. When the vegetables are cold, you can add it to your tank. You can read more about home-made guppy food in my other article.
Guppies will nibble on the vegetables and will start eating it away. Obviously, they will not eat it all. So you will need to remove the remaining piece after 3-4 hours. This is necessary because the boiled vegetable will start decomposing and will pollute the water.
It is good to know, that adult guppies can easily survive without food for a few days. So they will be fine without feeding for 2-3 days.
Should You Only Feed Flake Foods?
All flake foods I’ve mentioned in this guide are suitable for a complete guppy diet. Though, if you want to mix up their diet, even more, you can certainly feed other foods too.
I like to feed my guppies with a variety of different foods. This gives me the best results in growth rate, coloring and health.
Guppies will eat veggie pallets, spirulina tablets, freeze-dried brine shrimp, blood worms and tubifex worms as well.
Conclusion
I hope this guide has helped you to understand the importance of high-quality food for guppies.
If you choose good flake foods, you will be able to raise and breed colorful and healthy guppies. Always choose food, which is high in protein, has vitamins and minerals in order to offer your guppies a well-balanced diet.
If you have any questions regarding guppy food, please leave a comment below, or send me an email using the contact form.
With a Betta and my 5 guppies who eats 1st, and do they need different foods?