Flakes or Pellets: Which One is Better for Guppies?

Sabahat Ali
5 min readDec 1, 2023

Pet care is one of the most challenging tasks. Pet care is not confined to providing a home and food to an animal, but also their health is a concern with it. Fish are the most beautiful and playful animals and are kept as pets worldwide.

Among the fish, guppies are liked all over the world. They are easily maintainable fish, thus liked by many fish hobbyists. The choice of food directly concerns the health of your guppy. Among food choices, the most debated topic is, “Are flakes good for fish or pellets?”.

The answer to the question, Flakes or Pellets: Which one is better for Guppies? is that the flakes are good for guppies as food. The guppy’s mouth is small and is not able to hold the pellets. So, flakes are the best choice to feed your guppy.

The flakes are of ingestable size, have high nutritional content (both vegetable and protein content), and have color enhancers. The color-enhancing element makes your guppy more beautiful and intensifies its skin color. If you want to use the pellet food then use mini-pellets.

Ornamental fishkeeping is the most populous hobby worldwide. People profoundly keep different kinds of fish in their fish pots, pools, and aquariums. Among ornamental fish, the guppies liked the most. They have magnificent colors, for example, their bodies are silver or blue, and the body pattern and tail might be yellow, orange, blue, violet, green, black, or white. The brightness of color is directly related to the health of the guppy.

You can keep your guppy by paying a little attention to external conditions and especially using high-quality food. To find the detail about the food choice of guppies, whether you have to pick flakes for your guppies or pellets, and many more, Have look!

Which food form do you have to pick for your guppy, pellets, or flakes?

For feeding your guppy, the flakes are a good option. There are the following reasons:

· The guppy has a small-sized mouth that is disabled to pick up the pellets

· The guppies can easily ingestable the flake food

· You can crunch the large flakes by hand and then place them in the aquarium

· The flakes have all types of nutrients that are essential for your guppies’ normal growth, and health

· Flakes are good for your guppies’ immune system, energy, and coloration

· Flakes, stay at the surface that your guppy can easily see and eat its food

· They are made of mixed plant and animal matter thus great for guppy’s health

· Easily available in the market, pet food stores, and online

Can you feed your guppy with pellets?

Pellets are not a good food option for your guppy due to their larger size. The guppy has a small-sized mouth due for this reason, it becomes difficult or nearly impossible for your guppy to pick the pellet. If they are not eating well, it will affect their color and overall health. Yes, if you want to feed your guppy with fish pellets then choose the mini-sized pellets of 1mm or less than 1mm.

Is floating or sinking food good for guppy?

The guppies are tropical fish (found in fresh and marine water). They are also hard water fish. They are not truly bottom or surface feeders in aquariums. They behave like opportunist feeders (live just below the surface).

They can adjust themselves based on the food provided. In some cases, like illness, disease, danger, stress, and pregnancy they stay at the bottom. Thus every type of food you provide them is good for them but the point is you must feed them with quality food products.

What are the diet requirements of guppy?

Their diet includes:

Protein

Fry: 50% or more

Juvenile: 35% to 40%

Adult: 30% to 40%

Lipids: 30%

Minerals: Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorous, Iodine, Iron, Selenium, Zinc

Vitamins: Vitamin A, B, B-6, B-12, D, E

Can food enhance the guppies’ color?

The guppy fish’s health directly enhances their color. The health of fish depends on its diet. Some other factors include the background and aquarium lighting that trends the guppy to look more attractive. By adopting some feeding strategies you can improve your guppy color.

· Feed your guppy with a variety of food

· Use liquid supplements; enhances color and health

· Use freeze-dried food such as freeze-dried shrimps/bloodworms; contains unsaturated fatty acids good for health

· Artificial color-enhancing food

· Frozen crustaceans; are rich in carotenoids that are important in red, yellow, and orange color development

· Live food; urges fish to hunt that will boast its mimic and camouflage abilities

· Feeding guppy with carotenoid-rich food such as shrimp, bloodworms, and mosquito larvae

How much food does the guppy require?

Guppies are fish that do not require a bulk amount of food. Just grind up the junk pieces of flakes. Follow 5 minutes rule for feeding. It means only offering the controlled amount of food that your guppy can eat within 5 minutes. You can feed your guppy fish twice a day. Use a variety of food. Their diet shouldn’t be based on a single type of food item.

Bottom line

The guppies are one of the most easily handleable pet fish. It lives in freshwater aquariums. Guppies are usually not much sensitive to aquarium lighting. It is a hard water fish and thus can tolerate many pHs ranging from 5.5 to 8.

Guppies are the most beautiful creature in nature. If you are adopting them as a pet so take good care of them. There are only a few things by which you can keep your guppy in the aquarium. Provide them with the best food but note that do overfeed them. So, to avoid overfeeding follow the “5-minutes” rule.

Keep the pH of aquarium water between 7–7.5. Don’t compromise on the ammonia level because guppies are poorly adapted to it. Check the ammonia concentration regularly with the liquid kit.

Keep your aquarium water temperature at 22 to 25 °C. Because below 22 °C results in slow growth and above 25 °C the growth is tremendous which ultimately leads to guppy death. Oxygen level must be optimal.

Just as a pro-level guppy keeper, build hiding places within the aquarium. Set a day and night cycle, which means 16h a day and 8h a night. Guppies can leave alone but they like to chase each other so keep the male and female ratio equal. These tips can remarkably boost your guppy’s health.

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Niche (Pet keeping, Fishkeeping, Pet care, Fish food, Fish maintenance)

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Sabahat Ali

Word Weaver, Versatility in blood, Thriving for a collab with content enthusiasts. Let's talk about unique writing today at linkedin.com/in/sabahat-ali-sher/