How Much To Feed?

[sammydee]

Hi guys.

I only just recently got my first fish - a 2 inch long firefish. It's very active now, and swims around all over th tank looking for little bits of food.

How much should I feed it? I have marine flake, frozen brine shrimp and frozen mysis. I was feeding a 1cm squared piece of flake in the morning, about 4 brine shrimp in the afternoon and a couple of mysis in the evening.

However I think that might be too much. How much should I feed my fish? I don't want him to starve, but I also don't want an ammonia spike or nitrates to rise.

Sam

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

As long as he eats it all you wont have ammonia due to decayed food. What your doing sounds ok, the number of brine shrimp could be higher but it doesnt realy matter. Just feed enough that they wil eat in about 2 minutes.

 

[sammydee]

The mysis shrimp are about as big as his whole head lol. And the brine shrimp are bigger than his eye. He won't really accept much more.

Should I be feeding that often?

 

[Aquascaper]

Little and often is best.

If you're using flake foods then add a little and make sure its eaten before adding more. Brine shrimp have no real nutritional value to fish so I personally would feed more mysis than brine. As with a lot of things its trial and error so you'll just have to experiment with feeding.
Do remember that fish live in the ocean and there's not always food available so they are used to periods where food is limited and where food is abundant so not having a set routine is not a huge problem.
I also feed my fish Cyclopeze and have had no problems with it at all, it's expensive but worth it in my opinion.

HTH

 

[sammydee]

Brine shrimp have no real nutritional value to fish so I personally would feed more mysis than brine.

Does that mean they contribute less to nitrates?

sam

 

[Aquascaper]

Brine shrimp are still an animal that will decay in your tank so they will still produce Ammonia (which produces Nitrites which produces Nitrates).
What I meant by no real nutritional value is that the fish don't get much out of eating them (apart from feeling less hungry I supose) whereas Mysis shrimp have more protein, oils, etc. and therefore have more benefit to the fish ........ like the difference between eating Celery and Steak

 

[RoyalGrammaPrincessHannah]

O yeah i kind of assumed that you were adding vitamins to the brine, but they are hollow when it comes to nutrition. Another food that fish love and is very nutritious is Brine Shrimp Plus by Formula Foods. It had shrimp, brine shrimp, clam, fish, green algae, and squid plus tons of vitamins which also enhance coloration. 3 times a day is not necessary but can be done if you want. If he wont eat as much as you feed, do less the next time and find a good amount. Fish will eat what they need.

 

[Chac]

I mentioned in another post I make up my own food

I blend a mix of Mysis Shrimp, King Prawn, Mussels, Cycloeeze & 1/2 cup of Delicasea Flake & Garlic.

I have this as a paste & frozon blocks, I add a block every day & smear some pasteonto my LR I also add some Marine dream in the eveing