Without getting into a debate on under or over feeding, I think it's always going to be difficult to determine the exact balance and amount of food required for a community tank, so if one or the other is going to occur I would rather underfeed them with good quality food than drop a big pinch of crappy flakes in every day, regardless of the natural searching or foraging behaviour of the fish. A tank isn't a natural environment.
No, a tank isn't a natural environment, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't attempt to provide as close to natural environment as we can. The notion that some folks have ... "I would rather starve my fish than feed them a little too much" makes no sense to me. I think it just might be possible that the sin of over feeding has been over sold, creating myth(s) about feeding... "Fish are fine going for days w/o food" ... "it's good for fish to not eat one or two days a week to clean them out" ... "Feeding a lot every few days or once a week is better than feeding a little once or twice a day".
But lets talk about quality fish food. What follows is the result of some research I did a while back.
When you check the labels, many/most tropical fish foods are made with fish meal(s). Industrial fish meal is made from fish processing waste and/or low quality fish that can't be used for food grade. It has preservatives added, ground, dried, packaged and warehoused (sometimes for months) until an order is filled from a fish food manufacturer.
Because it's a dried meal, a starch must be used as a binder. Often rice, wheat, oat, soy flour(s) and/or gluten are used and are the second largest ingredient by weight. Sometimes additional flour is used in the recipe as filler to increase the crude protein value. Again, more preservatives are added and the fish food sits in another warehouse, then at the LFS until purchased.
There are two higher quality tropical fish foods on the market I know of that don't use fish meal. They only use
fresh food grade fish, with l
ittle/no flour as binder/filler (as the fresh fish protein is the binder).
I had been using a blend of commercial fish foods that all contained fish meal. I switched to the aforementioned higher quality foods a couple of months ago and have seen a distinct
improvement in growth, vigor and color (and so I expect health and longevity will follow). I have also noticed a
significant reduction in fish waste. I believe the flour binder/fillers can't be processed by the fish, so must pass through.
(as I pondered this later, it was wow...better food = healthier fish + less bio-load !!!)
So, you just might feed a high quality food less often and in less amounts and have better nutrition than feeding lower quality foods more often. However, every creature on the planet does better with a regular intake of quality foods. Starving and then over eating just isn't good for anything (or anyone).
Note: I have absolutely no affiliation with any fish food manufacturer.
I wuold be lying if I said I never forgot to feed my fish
