How much Should I be Feeding?

storkmpj

Member
I have a 55gal set up for about 10 weeks. I have 2 green cromis, 1 goby, 1 hawk fish and 2 cardinals. What is a good rule of thumb for how much and how often to feed them? I am now feeding 3 pinches of pellets twice a day.
Thanks
 

srfisher17

Active Member
Originally Posted by Storkmpj
I have a 55gal set up for about 10 weeks. I have 2 green cromis, 1 goby, 1 hawk fish and 2 cardinals. What is a good rule of thumb for how much and how often to feed them? I am now feeding 3 pinches of pellets twice a day.
Thanks
If no food is going uneaten, fine. I would vary the diet with some frozen mysiss, formula I; or something similar.
 

perfectdark

Active Member
I agree.... I use the 1 minute method too. All food is consumed in 1 minute.. if it takes longer I am feeding too much. I also feed my reef tank every other day.
 

jonthefishguy

Active Member
remember that a fish's stomach is roughly the size of their eye ball and that they will also scrounge around the tank for other things as well. The minute method is a good measure.
 

farslayer

Active Member
Originally Posted by jonthefishguy
remember that a fish's stomach is roughly the size of their eye ball and that they will also scrounge around the tank for other things as well. The minute method is a good measure.
Uhm, no, a fish stomach is not the size of their eye, where did you hear that? Here is a link to a diagram of the internal organs of a fish. I know it's wikipedia, but the source is verified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fish-anatomy.svg
 

perfectdark

Active Member
IMO the reason we are told that is to help prevent over feeding. Kinda like a safeguard as overfeeding is done by most without even knowing it. Imagine how much we would feed if we saw this diagram all the time. LOL
BTW this came from a very reliable source as I dont see many people argue with Bob Fenner.
in regards to a fishes stomach being the size of its eye.
"some are this size... but most... much larger... and very distensible to boot"
 

farslayer

Active Member
Do you have the original Fenner source? I'm not a fan of quote mines, they can be way out of context, but I'm always wanting to learn. I guess the real issue is to simply not overfeed; if certain fish eat more than others, we should feed them more. Then of course we get down into species morphology, which is just more stuff to learn :)
Of course another issue which comes to mind is metabolic rates; not all fish/organisms metabolize food to the same degree (hibernation is an example), so correlating stomach size to food intake could also be misleading for organisms which metabolize much more quickly. Just more to think about.
 

farslayer

Active Member
Er, let me rephrase, I'm not a fan of quotes due to context issues, quote mining is something else and is very bad, my apologies ahead of time.
 

perfectdark

Active Member
I do however.. i cannot post competitors websites here. its more of a forum based site where he answers peoples questions much like this.
The specific question was about the size of a fishes stomach and how someone was told that it was the size of its eye. The response was what I quoted....
I agree with taking quotes out of context however this was a very direct question with a very direct answer.
 

farslayer

Active Member
Ah, good, thanks for putting it into context, it just seemed as though it had been cut up. I'll just track down Fenner, always need another forum on which to lurk
 

srfisher17

Active Member
Originally Posted by Farslayer
Do you have the original Fenner source? I'm not a fan of quote mines, they can be way out of context, but I'm always wanting to learn. I guess the real issue is to simply not overfeed; if certain fish eat more than others, we should feed them more. Then of course we get down into species morphology, which is just more stuff to learn :)
Of course another issue which comes to mind is metabolic rates; not all fish/organisms metabolize food to the same degree (hibernation is an example), so correlating stomach size to food intake could also be misleading for organisms which metabolize much more quickly. Just more to think about.
Bob Fenner's book "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" is probably the most comprehensive and most read book on this hobby. You can get a like new copy cheap at that place named after a S.A. River.
 
Top