10 Best Flake Food for Guppies

Keeping guppies in a pond or aquarium is easy but what about feeding them? In my experience, it’s even easier. Guppies will eat almost anything you give them, which makes things considerably easier.

However, you still shouldn’t feed them just about anything. If you want to keep your guppies safe and healthy, then, you only have a few options left to try. Not all of them are great, though.

The market is chock-full of guppy food, so it may be hard to distinguish between cheap grub and premium feed. But that’s why I’m here! I’ll give you a list of the 10 best flake food for guppies and tell you more about each, based on my experiences.

Flake food is not all there is when it comes to fish food, but this is what I’ll focus on during this article. Homemade food is still a great idea whenever possible, so be sure to try it!

1. New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes

By far, one of the best flake foods for guppies, the NLF Optimum contains herring, squid, krill, and other natural ingredients. This product will promote a natural color in your guppies and improve their immune system.

It’s like a health shield that protects your fish from falling ill and offers plenty of nutrition in the meantime. Guppy fry will grow quite quickly if you feed them with these flakes, as well.

Guppies need a lot of protein, vitamins, and nutrients, and the new Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes has everything they need. There’s some garlic in there, as well, which helps your guppies with its antibiotic properties.

Many diseases can be prevented or even treated by the antioxidant, antihypertensive, and anticancer properties of New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes.

I strongly recommend you try New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes for yourself, but don’t exclude homemade food. If you have no time to cultivate your own food, then NLF Optimum is an ideal choice.

It provides the proper nutrients that guppies need to grow healthy and resilient. Through, I also recommend you prepare homemade food or provide other commercial fish food for added variety. The more diverse the diet, the better off your guppies will be.

2. Aquacarium Tropical Flakes

Yet another great food option for guppies, the Aquacarium Tropical Flakes is a comprehensive feed rich in vitamins and nutrients. It’s not only for guppies, though, which makes it a bit more general than New Life Spectrum Optimum Flakes. A mixed aquarium will benefit the most from Aquacarium, but guppies will do just fine.

This fish feed contains krill, kelp, salmon, shrimp, and spirulina, which offer the greatest nutrient concentration to guppies. Even if you only feed them with Aquacarium Tropical Flakes, your guppies would lack for nothing. They’d grow up healthy with no foreseeable medical problems.

Not only this but Aquacarium has plenty of vitamins (B1, B12, C, D3, A), with no natural coloring or fillers. The food isn’t visually pretty but it’s highly nutritious for guppies and other fish alike.

No artificial additives means that the fish will absorb and digest the food better. More nutrients will be absorbed, which means the water won’t be polluted with extra waste. The 45% protein content is also perfect for guppies’ growth.

It’s not every day that you get to try such a premium fish product, especially one with such a great track record. Beginners and advanced fish keepers use Aquacarium equally, and the results are stellar.

Guppies grow at a spectacular rate and experience almost no health problems after being fed with Aquacarium Tropical Flakes. If you add some homemade food somewhere in there, your guppies’ lifespan will increase by a lot!

3. Omega One Super Color Flakes

Guppies are only as beautiful as the colors their radiate. But did you know that their colors will pale with time if you don’t feed them adequately?

Omega One Super Color Flakes are a great supplement that will keep the guppies colorful and pretty. The naturally occurring pigments in the flakes will emphasize the guppies’ bright colors, while the Omega 6 and 9 will improve their immune system.

Omega One Super Color Flakes contain shrimp, salmon, halibut, fresh kelp, wheat flour, and wheat gluten, as well as minerals and vitamins (D3, E, A, and B12). These aren’t just healthy but essential for guppies’ optimal health. If you want to keep them as healthy as possible for longer periods, then Omega One Flakes are a great solution.

Unlike other fish food, Omega Flakes are comprehensive on an extended scale. They provide everything guppies need, from minerals, vitamins, protein, and nutrients.

You could feed them Omega Flakes exclusively and there wouldn’t be any problem. The low ash content also leads to less waste in the water, which means you won’t have to clean it as often.

Omega One Super Color Flakes will decrease fish mortality and keep diseases away. Moreover, this is a meal-free food made from unprocessed proteins which are cooked just once. Naturally, the nutrients will bind together and create a stronger bond, which means they won’t break apart in the aquarium.

4. API Tropical Flakes

Like any other pet, guppies need a wide array of vitamins and minerals to maintain their top condition and overall health. API produces some of the most comprehensive flakes for fish.

They contain wheat, squid meal, menhaden fish meal, calcium, fish oil, wheat starch, lecithin, dried seaweed, spirulina, minerals (inositol, zinc sulfate, copper sulfate), and vitamins (A, C, K, E, and D3).

For a balanced diet, API Tropical Flakes are a no-brainer option. They provide just what guppies need, and more. The extra nutrients are key to continued growth and preventing illnesses like fin rot.

Moreover, API fish food contains certain elements that help the fish digest the flakes better. They’ll digest it faster without creating too much waste, which means the water will be cleaner.

API Tropical Flakes not only help your fish stay healthy but also make your job easier. The food will also sink slower, allowing your fish to eat it faster and with little to no effort.

As I said, API fish food is a great option for any guppy aquarium. I’ve used it myself and found it to be excellent for a beginner. Advanced guppy owners will often use it to provide an extra oomph to their guppies’ diet.

5. Seachem Fish Flakes

Using Chlorella Algae as a base ingredient, the Seachem Fish Flakes offer an energetic and nutritional boost to your guppies. A diverse range of vitamins is available from the get-go, with amino acids and other nutrients that are essential to guppies.

Seachem is a potential superfood thanks to its superior nutritional content when compared to other similar products. GarlicGuard will stimulate your fish’s appetite, making them healthier and a bit plump.

Guppies often have to scrap for food and get injured, so their tissue repair functions need to be top-tier. Vitamin C in Seachem Fish Flakes improves the immune system and targets collagen production, enhancing tissue repair and growth functions.

Proteinate and hydrolysate compounds allow for rapid and seamless digestion of nutrients, so the fish waste less energy eating.

This means there will be less waste in the aquarium after a fish meal. Nutrient uptake will improve, leading to an increase in immune functions. That’s not all, though. Seachem Fish Flakes also revitalizes the natural colors of your guppies through a natural color enhancer.

Who doesn’t like pretty and shiny guppies that look like a rainbow underwater? Everyone does, and so Seachem Fish Flakes are good for everybody!

6. Cobalt Aquatics Tropical Flakes

Cobalt Aquatics is the first company to incorporate probiotics into their fish flakes, greatly improving fish gut activity and overall health.

Because the fish digest the flakes faster, they’ll eliminate less waste, so the aquarium stays cleaner. And we all know how important a clean aquarium is. More often than not, it’s not inappropriate food that kills your fish, but rather a dirty aquarium.

Some of the components in Cobalt Aquatics Tropical Flakes include corn starch, wheat flour, salmon fish meal, dried kelp, dried krill, dried plankton, lecithin, vitamins (B1, B12, D3, A), and more.

All in all, this is a great fish food that brings an ultimate health boost to your guppies. The probiotics are especially unique for these types of flakes, and they enhance fish digestion and overall wellbeing.

I’ve personally used Cobalt Aquatics Tropical Flakes for a few aquariums and I got the best results for mixed aquariums. While guppies benefitted the most from the high nutritional value of these flakes, other fish (angelfish, swordtail, goldfish) had good results as well.

During the time I used Cobalt Aquatics, I didn’t use any other fish pallet, and the fish had no health problems at all.

7. Aqueon Tropical Flakes

Balance is key to keeping guppies healthy. When it comes to food, you need an equilibrium between proteins, vitamins, and minerals. It’s also ideal to focus on natural ingredients rather than artificial supplements, when possible.

Aqueon Tropical Flakes are all-natural, with a high vitamin and mineral content, and plenty of nutrients. They’ll help your fish’s immune system evolve quickly and naturally.

Aqueon also contains spirulina, chili powder, and marigold powder, which make your guppies colorful again. Regardless of the reason, they lost their colors, these flakes should revitalize their appearance after a few uses.

Moreover, Aqueon flakes stay afloat for longer, allowing your fish to eat them more easily. As you know, fish generally ignore fish food that falls to the bottom of the aquarium. They just don’t have the patience to go down there and pick it off, lazy assholes.

Your guppies will enjoy the variety of natural ingredients in these flakes. Aqueon contains:

• Shrimp
• Wheat flour
• Herring
• Squid
• Corn
• Gluten
• Soybeans
• Spirulina
• Fish oil
• Garlic
• Died yeast
• Minerals (copper sulfate, manganese sulfate, calcium, and ferrous sulfate)
• Vitamins (B6, D3, C, A, and B12)

You should expect your guppies to fall in love with Aqueon Tropical Flakes from the first bite. But don’t let them fool you – don’t feed them more than they need. About two times per day is enough for adult guppies.

If you feed them more often, they may become bloated and fall ill. Aqueon Tropical Flakes are especially delicious, and your guppies may become greedy, so take care not to overindulge them.

8. Tetra Tropical Color Flakes

If I were to say that this fish food will put the color right back into your guppies, would you believe me? Most guppies will lose their natural luster over time due to various factors (illness or age).

But some fish food contains natural colorants, which help bring back that nice color to their gills. Tetra Tropical Color Flakes aren’t just for the visual impact, though. They contain plenty of nutrients in the form of sorbitol, wheat gluten, fish, dried yeast, shrimp, brown rice, vitamins, and minerals.

Your guppies will get a healthy dose of vitamins B12, D3, C, E, and A, as well as a large portion of minerals. These flakes contain just about everything guppies will need during their lifetime.

There are antioxidants and proteins in these flakes, as well. They’ll help your guppies stay healthy and avoid falling ill, as well as promote consistent growth. A batch of probiotics also helps them digest the food better.

With better digestion, there’ll be less food floating around in the aquarium with no fish to eat. Pollution will be at its lowest thanks to this.

Fish food that helps you keep the aquarium clean is rare enough, but from personal experience, I can tell you that guppies will devour Tetra Tropical Color Flakes. The taste drives them nuts, that’s what it is, and you should remember not to overdo it. As tasty as these flakes are, they can still bloat your guppies.

9. Aquarium Tropical Flake Food

This was one of my first attempts at feeding my guppies with commercial fish food, and I should say it was more than expected. The marigold meat extract is especially good at helping guppies develop those amazing rainbow colors everyone loves.

Guppy fry will benefit as well because the Aquarium Tropical Flake Food contains many fish oils and fats. That’s healthy food for all your guppies, helping them grow rapidly.

This fish food contains eggs, algae, fish, vegetables, cereals, oils and fats, crustaceans, yeasts, and mollusks. There are minerals and vitamins as well (A, E, C, D), which help your guppies develop a sturdy immune system.

It should also protect them from various diseases like fin rot, dropsy, and various protozoans. With so many protective properties and nutritional value, this flake food fully deserves its higher price tag.

However, there’s something in particular that makes Aquarium Tropical Flake Food lose its sharpened tone – the high ash content. This means your fish will defecate often, producing more waste, and thus polluting the aquarium water.

You’ll need to clean it often to keep your guppies healthy. Other flakes are better in this regard, so you’ll need to weigh your alternatives before choosing the right fish food.

10. JBL Novo Guppy Mini Flakes

Last but not least, I have to recommend JBL Novo Mini Flakes for its high phosphate content. It’s ideal for planted guppy aquariums, as it promotes continued growth and the development of vibrant coloring.

It’ll also reduce the growth of algae, increasing the overall quality of the water. Guppies and other live-bearing fish find these flakes very tasty, possibly because of the mollusks and crustacean content. There’s algae, yeast, cereals, vegetables, eggs, and fish in there as well.

JBL Novo has plenty of vitamins like E, C, A, and D3, with antioxidants to top things off. I’ve tried JBL before, and I have to say that my guppies were hungrier than ever before.

They completely devoured a whole bag of it in what seemed like an instant. It’s also good that these flakes will float for longer, allowing the fish to easily grab them. This prevents a build-up of fish flakes on the bottom of the aquarium.

Personally, I fed my guppies enough so they could eat continuously for a few minutes. I did this twice a day, and their development was astonishing in the long run.

No run-ins with any diseases or genetic problems, and the fries were very resilient and sturdy. JBL Novo may not be as renowned as other entries on this list, but I found it useful for my needs.

Why Would You Feed Guppies Flakes?

There is more than one type of fish food out there, so why flakes? Well, because flakes contain a lot of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. They offer a complete diet for all guppies.

Proteins are vital to the proper development of guppies, and flake food is rich in protein. The minerals and vitamins are also superb supplements for all that extra health and resilience to disease.

But if this wasn’t enough, how about this? Flake food is cheaper than most other types of fish food. It’s also convenient to use. Just shake the bag above the aquarium and let the flakes fall into the water.

Your fish will gather around at the surface of the water, waiting for food to fall out of the sky. Even guppy fry can eat flakes if you crumble them into smaller bits.

But if you want to try something else, you’re free to add something else to your guppies’ diet. Flakes are just an idea, but there are more fish food ideas out there. Homemade food works excellently in combination with flakes from my experience, so you’re free to experiment.

Veggie pallets, blood worms, spirulina tablets, tubifex worms, and frozen dried brine shrimp are also great for your guppies.

They’ll gobble them up right away without waiting for you to give them a nod. I tried this tactic before, and I have to say that diversity beats everything. Feeding guppies with flake food only isn’t that great, especially if you want them to be as healthy as possible.

While flakes offer a complete diet, it won’t hurt to add a bit more minerals, vitamins, and nutrients from other sources.

Feeding Instructions for Guppies

This is where most beginners fall into a trap – how much do you feed your guppies, and how often? It depends on your patience. Do you want guppies to grow faster, or are you content with watching them develop at their own pace? If you’re in a hurry, you may want to feed your guppy fry 2-5 times per day.

But more feeding times equal more water changes. You’ll need to perform more water changes if you feed your guppies more often. That’s because they produce waste every time they feed. As for adults, don’t feed them more than two times a day because they’ll get bloated and obese otherwise.

Also, never feed your guppies with more food than they can’t eat in one minute. You can feed them a second time if they’re hungry but don’t overdo it.

Make sure all the food gets eaten because guppies won’t eat the food that reaches the bottom of the aquarium. Those flakes become pollution, which may cause diseases to spread through your guppy population.

Feed Guppies Homemade Food

It’s not a problem if you run out of commercial fish flakes. Guppies aren’t picky at all when it comes to food. They’ll gobble up just about anything, so you can easily make something at home.

Fresh vegetables like broccoli, peas, cucumber, zucchini, carrots, and spinach leaves work great if you boil and put them in cold water afterward.

Guppies love eating boiled, cold vegetables but make sure you remove the leftovers after 3-4 hours. Guppies will not eat everything, and those tiny morsels will decompose and increase water pollution tremendously.

You shouldn’t worry if your adult guppies don’t eat for a few days. They can, in fact, survive for three days with no food, and it won’t affect their health or lifespan.

If you have other questions, feel free to contact me down below!