How much to feed

[bas12547]

I have a baby tang, two damsels, a clown, Chocolate star, 5 hermit crabs, three snails, and 1 pepermint shrimp. This is a 55 gallon.
I always here do not over feed. I was giving them 2 brine shrimp squares plus a day. The plus is part of the label that says that it has a blend of seafood, plankton, algee and vitamins.
I have cut it back to one a day. Is one square per day enough?
The one guy in the LFS said give two, the other said give one.
Thanks,
Brian

 

[dundar]

How quickly do your fish finish the food? I fell that if the fish finish eatting in a mater of minutes (like 2 or 3) then your about right with the amount of food. But if the fish are still eating after 15 min and theres bits floating in your tank then your feeding to much. If the water gets cloudly then your feeding to much. I normally feed all of my tanks twice a day once when I get up and once before bed. I feed just a bit each time (my chiclids get about two pinchs and my reef tank only has hermits right now so I let then munch on the LR) once a week I put a 1 inch by 1 inch flake of seaweed into the reef tank and give it to the hermits (they love it and come running from all over the tank). Most of the time I find that two small meals are much better than one large and you can judge which fish are eating and which fish aren't by watching who comes to the top of the tank at 8am and at 10pm (when I feed). HTH

 

[bang guy]

Hi Brian,
All I can say is - it depends.
If they consume all of the food then it's probably not too much. If you notice algae outbreaks or worse, Cyanobacter, then you're feeding too much. One cube sounds fine unless you have a live sand bed, then two.
I think one cube is good to start. It's trial and error for all of us.