If you are thinking about setting up a tropical fish tank in your home so that you can enjoy the relaxing beauty of fish, it is a good idea to learn about the different factors that go into great aquariums. One of the essentials to any good tropical fish aquarium is the aquarium fish food that you choose, in order to help your fish thrive.

Making a choice about the right aquarium fish food is a basic and key element to ensuring that your fish stay happy and healthy. There isn't one fish food that is right for all kinds of fish, so you will need to invest some time and effort into becoming informed and educated about the best choices for the selection of fish you have in your tropical fish tank.

Different species of fish are naturally born to need different kinds of food. For this reason, there is a wide variety of aquarium fish food available. Pre-packaged and prepared fish foods come in different styles as well as the different elements of the food. There is flake food, pellet food, staked food, frozen dead food and also live food choices.

Some of the fish species have unique and specific food requirements when it comes to their dietary needs. Other types of fish have a great deal of variety in the type of aquarium fish food they can ingest and still be healthy and thrive. But, because of these differences, it is important to you, the fish keeper, to know what your specific fish varieties need so that you can supply the correct food.

It is also a good idea to complete some research about the kind of food a fish needs before deciding to buy it and adding it to your tropical fish tank community. Maintaining a collection of fish that have similar dietary needs will make it much easier for you to supply your fish with what they need. It also assures that one type of fish is not going to end up eating the wrong kind of food, when you are trying to feed a different tropical fish species in the same tank.

One of the things you will need to learn about your fish, is whether or not they are herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. If you have ended up with a mixture of different kinds of fish, each requiring a different type of aquarium fish food, then you will need to have the food for each type on hand.

Also, take the time to notice which part of the tank your fish gravitate toward when they are feeding. You will discover that some of them are top feeders that linger at or near the surface of the tank water, while others are clearly bottom feeders. This is also important to know in selecting the right tropical fish food. If you have bottom feeders, you need to be sure that you have selected fish food that will sink to the bottom of the tank rather quickly.

Also, there are some fish that will only eat during the day, while others will only eat in the dark. If you know that you have fish that only feed at night, be sure you turn out the lights in the room when they are being fed, allowing them to eat their aquarium fish food naturally.

There have been many instances of night-feeding fish starving, even with adequate aquarium fish food in the water for them. This has happened because the aquarist made the mistake of leaving the overhead light of the tropical aquarium on through the night.