Feeding my clownfish

[Shilpan]

Just need some reassurance here. So I feed my clowns every alternate day. I swap between pellet food and frozen mysis each time. So in a week they would have 2 servings of pellets and 2 servings of mysis.

I feed 15-16ish mini pellets each time. Which I think is around 5-6 standard pellets. And I syringe mysis, about 1/20 of a cube (cause I drip feed them with a syringe making sure each mysis fragment and each pellet is eaten). So very little mysis is used which I thaw.

I noticed today when I fed pellets they went frantic. Zapped up like lightning and ate all 5 pellets within 2-3seconds. So I did another 5 pellets. Then another. Each time 2-3s to eat them all. Then I stopped.

Then they buzzed around a bit, the bigger one whacked the smaller one, and then they started picking at the snail poop on the bottom breaking it all up trying to see how it tastes.

I'm not underfeeding right? I'm just too attached and being tricked by their cuteness?

 

[deejeff0442]

Fish are always hungry unless they are stressed or sick.
No need to feed that much. I feed daily .you want to eat everywhere day ? I don't just sayin

 

[Shilpan]

Ahh so I'm currently overfeeding?
Or are you saying I should feed the same amount but spread it over every day?

 

[deejeff0442]

A little over feeding won't hurt as long as they eat it all. I feed heavy
I do have alot of rock like 120 pounds in a 90 gallon

 

[Shilpan]

Ok so I could feed more and they're not underfed. Cheers

Well as long as they're not being underfed I might stick to this routine since I have a new tank and it says probably not very stable.
Appreciate your advice!

 

[deejeff0442]

If what you been feeding hasn't bothered ammonia . you are plenty good. I feed heavy to make sure there is alot of good bacteria in there. obviously my tank is over a year running and I increased load as I went. I have about 60 corals and 12 good sized fish like 2 to 4 inch fish . the system will mature pretty quick after 5 or 6 months

 

[2quills]

I feed 2-3 times a day, just smaller portions to help minimize any aggression. Fish have such small stomachs I know I'd get grumpy after not eating for a day.

.02

 

[Shilpan]

Ok thanks guys, might try feed daily smaller amounts. Well where I can, somedays im not home till late so the fish are asleep.

Feed heavy to make sure there are a lot of bacteria? What is the reason for this? I thought if you feed less and had a smaller bacterial load then that's ok because there's is less waste to process subsequently.

 

[deejeff0442]

Don't get me wrong my fish eat all the food. to me if a fish dies or something dies and my tank has more bacteria then the tank needs I won't get an ammonia spike or a crash. been at this 30 years.
If you are a beginner probably smart to be carefully.

 

[Shilpan]

Oh I see what you're getting at, understood, so like back up bacteria.

Yup agreed.

 

[deejeff0442]

Well kinda. like I said I have a 90 reef. big skimmer and 20 pounds of rock rubble in the sump. Nothing fancy. I am old school .
Alot of rock and alot of flow. always worked for me

 

[2quills]

Back Up Bacteria. Kinda has a ring to it lol.

Jeff, with a abundance of live rock do you ever have a hard time preventing detritus build up? I've heard so many stories about old tank syndrome it scared me away and I chose to take a more minimal approach.

 

[deejeff0442]

Nope never. I suck the rocks on water changes and blow them off when I put the new water in. start the system and an hour or so later wash the sponge in the overflow. sump don't get and debris .
Ran alot of tanks this way. never had an issue

 

[deejeff0442]

Wish I could post a pic of my tank it's only a year old this week.
Looks awesome. had alot of different sized tanks 45 to 250 and my 90 was always the easiest

 

[2quills]

Heck yeah, you got 40 sps in here and you ain't sharing the love? I need some eye candy lol.

 

[deejeff0442]

I would post a pic but this site sucks for posting them.
No idea how to reduce size . idiots who built this new site needs to fix it

 

[lmforbis]

I email the pix to myself.

 

[deejeff0442]

I send pics to other sites . no fish sites other stuff I do .
All I do is hit attach and it's done. shouldn't have to email it.
Again who ever built this site didn't do it right
I have a sweet video of my tank and no way to post it.

 

[2quills]

Yeah we got screwed on pics. Have to either re size them or upload to a 3rd party and share the link. a lot of people were not happy about it. People lost pics and some of us lost parts of our threads.

I know they had to do something when Huddler got bought out and dropped the forums. But after 3 years in I wish they'd have come up with a better way to share pics by now.

Hard to complain about a free site but it is what it is. People wanna share and they want it convenient lol.

 

[Shilpan]

Quick questions, ok so I fed my clowns frozen mysis today. I used about hmmm around 1/20 or 1/15 of a cube. I syringed it slowly waiting for the fish to eat each piece.

1) Near the last few drops I noticed the clowns were spitting the odd piece out. Is this a sign they are full? Initially they ate everything with gusto.

2) With mini pellets they eat every last piece. With mysis lots of smaller particulates get missed by the fish. However because pellets are more nutrient dense, would you guys say that the missed mysis particles are no concern?