Feeding Habits

[agusf]

Hello
I'm a beginner (of course) and my tank has been up and running for about 1 month and 1-2 weeks, cant remember well.
Ive had 6 zebra dainos and 3 bronze corys in the tank for about 1 month now (I fell for the lfs fish in cycling trap)
and 3 otos for 2 weeks now
And yesterday after leaving the tank alone for 1 week and having a reading of 0.0 nitrite i decided my tank was ready for more fish.
so I bought my 2 kribensis and 2 pearl gouramis (Im not sure they are pearl dainos but Ill check later)
Ive got an eheim 3582 automatic feeder and have been feeding the fish tetra min, ive got enough fish food for a long time.
their feeding habits are the following:
fed 6 times a day, first time at 8 am and last time at 6 pm.
1 of the 2 feeding compartments turns once for each feeding.

I read somewhere that you should feed your fish as many times as possible in little amounts.
so, am i feeding my fish correctly?

 

[RobW1983]

I feed mine once a day, and only what they'll eat in about 2-3 minutes.

I like to vary there diet as well, usually every other day there fed bloodworm, brine shrimp or daphnia. Did try freeze dried Tubifex but they didn't seem to take to that.

 

[Zhent]

I'm certainly no expert, but 6 times over 12 hours sounds pretty excessive personally. I'm not sure the size of the feeding compartments, but unless they are quite small I would have to suggest that that is too much food.

I've been feeding once a day what they can comfortably eat. Once they start leaving the surface of the tank between eating [usually about a minute] i skim the surface and clear out the extra food, if any.

I also drop one pellet of hard food into the bottom of the tank per cory that I have, so they have something to eat as well.

 

[kelvinrankin767]

Zhent got it 100% right.

A fish's stomach is only so big and you are be overfeeding only feed what is the same size as the fish's eye, Once a day is a good routene not 6 times. On sunday i dont feed my fish to give them time to digest all the food throughout the week to stop constipaton and further problems this is good practise.

 

[divegirl]

Hi, I feed my fish once a day, if they're lucky! I do it all different times and with all different foods....spice of life and all that! Never lost a fish through starvation yet!!!

Lisa x

 

[agusf]

thanx for advice but,

does anyone with the automatic feeder I have have any advice?
It would be REALLY helpful and highly appreciated

thanx!

 

[waterdrop]

In the ideal world it actually -would- be quite natural to feed your fish really tiny amounts a number of times per day but its got to add up to roughly the same amount that they would get if you used the typical guideline of one feeding of an amount they can eat in about 2 to 3 minutes (which is actually a pretty long time to sit there if you time it.)

Personally I'm like divegirl and my fish get their once-per-morning feeding (and they consider themselves lucky because its no uncommon for a day to get missed maybe one every couple of weeks.) I take pity on younger new ones and do multiple much smaller feedings for them for a while.

I also like it when a tank gets much more mature, has lots of plants and is running nicely. When a tank is like that there is much less need to worry so much about over-feeding as the plants will absorb some of the excess if there is any.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[SlyPolak]

My fish are LUCKY if they get fed 5 times a week.... like 4 tops.......dont get me wrong, i dont starve them for days at a time but i will feed like 2 days then skip one and so on...... i say a hungry fish is a happy fish...

 

[OldMan47]

If you can properly judge the amount to feed, a 6 times a day feeding would be great. I feed mine once a day as the multiple feeding strategy is just too hard for me to judge properly. With fry, I do make the attempt to feed multiple times each day but I am sure that I am overfeeding when I do that so I also do tons of water changes.

 

[drobbyb]

Yeah, feeding fish is an art form! It's not easy to get the correct amount fed, but it is better to underfeed than overfeed. There are loads of natural food in a healthy tank with plants in it, we just can't see it very well because they are very small, but there nonetheless. When we remove the chlorine from our tap water, this opens the door for all kinds of natural food to form. Ever see a fish pecking at a plant, but it isn't eating it? The fish is eating small microorganisms that may be near or attached to the plant.

I only feed fry and juveniles more than once a day, and I tend to overfeed them to make sure that everyone gets their share, but after the feeding I vacuum all the uneaten food from the tank (my fry and grow out tanks are bare for this reason. This results in superior and even growth rates while maintaining the very best water quality. This isn't always possible in a show tank though but I always use good judgment when feeding my show tanks by not letting the food hit the bottom. If it makes it to the bottom, I stop feeding. Sometimes it's difficult to feed all your fish this way because not everyone will get fully fed...at first that is. After missing a feeding or two, they get really excited at the next feeding time and aggressively feed to get their share. If they eat it all before it hits the bottom and are still looking for food, I put a little more in and observe again. I repeat this until they stop being so aggressive. The result is about two to three minutes of total food in tank time with no waste on the bottom.

My 2c (2p for you UK peeps)!