Best Fish & Coral Foods of 2022

Piscine Energetics Frozen Mysis Shrimp sits at the top of the charts for hobbyists, fish breeders, and professional aquarists because it is highly palatable and nutrient-rich. Aquarium fish love it and it contains much higher levels of protein and fat compared to brine shrimp.  

The small shrimp are naturally gut loaded with phytoplankton and harvested sustainably from mountain glacial lakes. It is packaged fresh to reduce nutrient loss and comes in a bulk flat pack or a convenient blister pack of cubes.  

One of our hidden gems, the BRS Premium Pellet food is one of the most protein-rich pellet fish foods available to saltwater hobbyists. It was originally formulated for fish breeders and is an excellent staple food for reef aquariums containing a variety of small high-energy fish.

The 1mm pellets are neutrally buoyant so even the most finicky fish can easily capture the food from the water column. The small size makes them perfect for clownfish, blennies, gobies, dottybacks, and a variety of other similarly sized aquarium fish.

Amino Acids have taken the hobby by storm and have been proven to increase both coloration and growth among aquarium corals. The liquid formula can easily be mixed into your daily coral food offering or dosed directly into the water column where corals can absorb it. 

Amino acids are essential for building proteins and support a variety of metabolic functions within the coral. In an aquarium, amino acids are often limited and with regular additions of Brightwell Aquatics CoralAmino, you can literally see the improvements in as little as 30 days! 

Fun and functional, the Brine Shrimp Hatchery allows you to easily hatch your very own LIVE Brine Shrimp at home. It only takes 24 hours for the shrimp to hatch, doesn't require any special skills or propagation tanks, and the shrimp can be fed directly into your aquarium right out of the hatchery.

Fish love chasing the tiny shrimp and feeding live Brine is just as entertaining to watch as it is beneficial to the health of your fish. They are especially useful for finicky fish like dragonettes, pipefish, angels, and wrasses.

The bundle includes the reusable hatchery and a bottle of eggs. 

Amino acids made the list twice and for good reason, they really do work. Acropower from Two Little Fishies was one of the first amino acids supplements available to saltwater hobbyists and is uniquely formulated to improve the health of SPS corals in reef aquariums. 

Acropower is a liquid that can be added to ANY feeding regiment and is intended for direct dosing into the water column. Corals will absorb the nutrients directly and any leftovers are easily removed by your protein skimmer. 

Reef Chili is one of the only coral foods that was scientifically proven by the University of Hawaii to increase coral growth. When tested side by side with other artificial coral foods, Reef Chili produced the largest increase in growth and only required 1/10th of the amount of food to achieve those results. It is nutrient-rich, incredibly versatile, and will get results.  

Reef Chili is a dry blend of zooplankton, copepods, rotifers, phytoplankton, daphnia, spirulina, and neutrally buoyant marine-derived nutritive powder. This produces a wide range of particle sizes from just a few microns to over 1,000 microns. It is this nutritional variety and wide range of available particle sizes that make Reef Chili so successful.

Reef Nutrition is a leader in saltwater aquarium nutrition and the popular TDO Chroma Boost made the list because of its versatility and effectiveness in improving coloration.  The dry fish food comes in 7 different sizes, from a tiny crumble up through a large 2.3mm size pellet to accommodate a wide range of fish. 

In the way of nutrition, Chroma BOOST contains both an impressive protein and fat content but is also enriched with astaxanthin to promote vibrant coloration. It is free of fillers and unnecessary preservatives too so you won't be stuck with excess waste.  

Feeding live phytoplankton to your reef is beneficial in a few ways, not only is it a natural food source for corals, clams, and small invertebrates but it will also help sustain a natural food chain in your tank. 

Tommy's Phyto Live Phytoplankton is a mixture of four live phytoplankton strains: Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, Isochrysis, and Thalassiosira. These species of microalgae are able to reproduce in your reef which means they will naturally consume excess nitrate and phosphate from the water column as they grow. When the phyto is consumed by your tank inhabitants, those nutrients are then recycled.