Feeding fish

[dmitry]

Just out of curiosity: how often do you guys feed your fish? It's interesting to see how most web-sites that sell fish tell you to feed the fish a few times a day. Some major books I've read do the same. Most people, however, feed their fish just once a day and some people every other day - with no apparent negative effects on the animals. In fact, less food keeps the water cleaner. So, why the wide divide between what's recommended and what we actually do? :notsure:

 

[mr.p]

yeah i've been wondering that also, i feed my fish once a day but i have small ones now clown fish and damsels, when i had a yellow tang and a blue tang they ate a lot more so i fed them around twice a day. I would think it would be on your own fish characteristics, maybe many hours later if your fish look hungry again drop a little food in the tank and see if they go after it strongly, then you'll know if you should feed them a little more. But yeah i'm wondering that also. :thinking:

 

[reefnut]

I feed once a day. Some forget that the fish will find some natural food in the tank.
There are fish that do better when feed more often, Tangs for example really NEED food more than once a day or every other day 'but' they can find food in most systems... if not, supplement feeding would be needed. Tangs are grazers and in nature graze all day, they do not gorge themselves once a day. One reason Tangs are not recommended for new systems.
I really think the three times a day rule comes from the older days when LR was not used to the extent as it is today.
I would stress that fish in tanks w/o a natural food source may need to be feed more often... just do not overfeed.

 

[dogstar]

I feed every other day but like reefnut says, I have tons of liverock and sand and a fuge that provides food for for them as well. My tangs graze constaintly on the rocks as well as the drwarf angles and my wrasses and butterfly has plenty of pods and worms to find. The Hippos, anthias, and chromis do not graze but seem fine on this schedule.

 

[dmitry]

My Clowns are always begging for food! As soon as they see me they zoom to the corner where I usually drop it. I never feed them more than once a day, though, and sometimes skip a day. They're growing and seem happy, so apparently are getting enough. The Sixline Wrasse I recently added has been rather temperamental about the food I drop (even stuff he ate while in the QT tank he takes very little of), but I see him picking at the rocks all the time - so perhaps he's getting food from there. Hard to tell!
The other difficulty is finding food that all the fish will eat! So far they've all agreed on cyclop-eze. The rest is is still up in the air.

 

[baggin]

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[ophiura]

I definitely agree that one thing not taken into consideration is the natural grazing that live rock provides. In a tank without live rock, there may be the need to feed some fish more frequently. In a tank with LR, it may provide additional food.

 

[dougai]

twice
when i wake up
and before i go to bed