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Ok, I was reading in the profile for Tiger Barbs that it's good to feed them live foods from time to time.

What type of live foods are we talking, and are they readily available at most LFS?

Right now I feed them flakes daily and bloodworms a few times a week and the occasional shrimp pellets.

Well, by livefoods, most people mean frozen livefoods, since truly live foods tend to carry parasites.

All the usual ones will be accepted by tiger barbs, bloodworm, brineshrimp, glassworm, black worm, tubifex,mycid shrimp,and whiteworms. Daphnia are often ignored except by tiny fish. They will also take small portions of frozen foods like cockles and beefheart chopped finely. Most fish shops will carry these foods.

Those with an urge to feed them very live foods and have an exotics or bait shop nearby can also raise their own cultures of brineshrimp, microworms, earthworms, crickets, maggots, waxworms, and mealworms fairly easily in the home, although home cultures are often not without a certain smell... You can of course also give them the fry of other fish should you ever find yourself unable to cope with livebearer and cichlid fry numbers etc. For baby fish you can also culture infusoria etc , in the home. I would recommend raising your own, becuase you can guarantee the gut contents of the livefoods and ensure they are raised parasite free.

TBH though, the frozen gamma irradiated livefoods will probably be the safest,and best option for your fish, and you can offer a little a few times a week , perhaps even daily , together with flake to maintain the vitamin balance, and if you do wish to offer tigerbarbs livefoods daily, make sure its only in small amounts , or obesity can be a real issue. This species is a greedy eater, and may eat itself into an early grave.

The diet your already giving them is perfectly sufficient, but a little extra variety does no harm as long as you source them safetly, and eliminate the possibility of parasites introduced into the diet. Some fish are dependant on livefoods in the diet,and almost all fish will benefit from some, but tigerbarbs are not one of the livefood dependant species, if anything , they are very robust dietarily. They are true omnivores and will accept almost any flake and granule food indended for most tropical fish. Their ease of feeding is one of the reasons they do well as beginner fish.

No worries when it comes to feeding tiger barbs, they are a truly easy species to feed, the only thing to watch is that you dont overdo it and make them obese, and a fat tiger barb is easily spotted, so again , no worries.

You can get pinhead crickets at most any petstore. Not sure if your tigers are big enough for that yet but my congo tetras loved them. Mealworms also work and are available at most stores but you have to cut the head off before feeding. Some people will get earthworms from their yard but it's not suggested if you spray your yard or live near neighbors that might. Other than that I mostly stick with frozen food since not much else is easy to get. A few fish stores will offer live foods but none around here. You can also start your own cultures of various worms and other critters for feeding the fish. There are starter kits across the net for live foods. It's not really necessary though. A good mix of frozen foods will keep most fish in just as good of condition. I've usually got 4 or 5 different foods in the freezer and alternate between them. Mine rarely get dry food. I only keep it around as a backup in case I'm too busy to thaw out the frozen. Just remember variety is the most important thing. Don't feed only 1 thing or especially only 1 type of frozen food everyday. The more variety the better health and color your fish will have.

You are surely not joking when you say they are easy to feed! I think they would eat sawdust if I tossed it in there, lol. They feed in a frenzy and it is fun to watch.

Everything I have right now is dried or freeze dried. The next time I head to the LFS, I will check out the "frozen foods" aisle.

Thanks for your feedback... I will copy and paste the posts for future reference, should I decide to go the live route with in home growing of live foods.

I feed live blackworms pretty regularly to all my fish, and they go nuts!! I've even used them as conditioning food for breeding, and have even had spawns when I wasn't trying when using the live food. I've never had an adverse effect on my fish using live blackworms. I get a portion special ordered for me (used to work at an LFS) and it usually lasts 2 weeks. You just have to rinse them 2x daily and keep them in the fridge and they last a while depending on your feeding frequency. I love using a medicine dropper to dose it out, or just letting them nibble on what they want from my worm feeder. Loaches regularly come up to suck some down as well. I suggest them