regulatorocks

most fish food labels and advice state that fish should be fed 2-3 times daily with as much as they can eat in 5 minutes.

is it just me or is this a little too much? i have read that fish can go as many as 8 days without a meal, and holding female cichlids often go longer. isnt 2-3 times daily overfeeding, and this much food would definately throw your ammo/nitrite/nitrate levels through the roof.

lately, in an effort to get my nitrites down, im only feeding my tanks once a day. the fish seem crazy hungry now, but i give them a few pinches of flakes once a day. they are juveniles, so should i feed them more?

dont get me wrong, i LOVE feeding my fish, but i worry that i overfeed them sometimes. if i can get away with feeding them 2-3 times a day and it would NOT be overfeeding i would love to feed them more. but my nitrites have been high lately and i want to get my bioload down a bit..

any opinions??

mattrt09

they probably just say that to get you to buy more food.

i feed mine 2 times daily. Once when i wake up around 7:30 ish and then when i get home at around 9 ish

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penna32

i feed my fish once a day .. at night .. but i feed them quite a lot .. none falls to the ground as i feed a little .. let them eat it .. feed a little more .. but your fish tend to know and recognize that you are their food source, and "beg" and make themselves look hungry, but they really aren't

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Sniperelite8243

i feed my fish 3 times a day. in the morning when i wake up. before i go to work, about 12:30, then once more before i go to bed, say about 10:00. my levels are all zero, my tamk is heavily planted so i think it helps to keep the levels down alot. tanks also been p since august.

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pappyy3

When you consider fish in the wild, they are eating all day long. ie: They will eat at every opportunity because they don't know when their next meal will be..

Ideally fish should be fed 4 to 5 small feedings per day. The reason why many people don't do this is because they just don't have the time.

2 to 3 feedings a day is a pretty good regime.

Overfeeding dosen't happen when you feed a number of times. Overfeeding occurs when you feed too much at once, and food is left to decompose in your tank. Feed just small amounts & you'll be fine

Praetorian27

I feed morning and night. It seems to be a good schedule, as my levels are all where they should be and the tank stays clean. Little pellets in the morning, and flake at night. LFS says you shouldn't feed them the same food forever. They recommended a little variety.

Kuli_Loach

I feed once a day with flake food and frozen blood worms. I feed two of my tanks in the morning and two in the afternoon. I stopped feeding twice a day when my nitrogen levels went sky high and started killing my fish.

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Too Many tanks!!!

pappyy3

Feeding your fish twice a day won't kill them.

Without knowing your tank set up, I'd say one possible reason why you're fish were dying was that perhaps you may have been Giving too much food at each feeding and the left over food was causing the nitrate levels to skyrocket???

Kuli_Loach

I was feeding alot so I knew some was getting to the bottom for the bottom feeders. I now use waffers for them.

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Too Many tanks!!!

BJP

Look at what type of fish you have, how old they are, what their activity level is, water temperature, food sources availible in the aquarium and their overall appearence compared to what they would look like in the wild.

That might mean feeding six or eight tiny meals to fry. It might mean feeding a big carnivore like an oscar that's full grown once a week but a huge meal. A black rubber eel might disappear for several months just to show up and eat enough shrimp pellets at one siting to about equal his body length.

The more active the fish and the warmer the water, the more often they'll need meals.

Grazers might be fine getting algae and plant matter from the tank with only once a day supplimentation.

If your fish look over weight they probably are but search the net for pictures of others to compare to.

The nitrate level doesn't really care whether the ammonia started from food laying around uneaten or wether it passed through a fish first. Very little food is actually retained permanently as fat or body mass. Adding more fish to eat the food left laying around accomplishes little. If the food isn't disappearing quickly then feed smaller portions.

Almost all healthy fish can go a long time before starvation becomes a death threat just like with people. Don't confuse that with thinking they don't need food regularly just like you do. If you have to place them on a less than ideal feeding schedule to keep the tank maintence frequency where you want it your fish would be better off with a larger tank or having the population thinned.

If you can't be there to feed them for a week they'll be fine. If you can't be there for a couple days regularly, invest in an automatic feeder.

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