Is It Good To Give Fish A Straving Day?

[aquaticman1]

like not feed them for a day i heard this is good i just wanted to see if it was true

 

[cowboy507]

its not good to overfeed them, so a little under feeding will be good. It might also help with constipation. but im not sure.

 

[Hiya70310]

I have read that many people only feed their fish every other day. Maybe only 3 times a week. And others just skip one day out of the week.
I don't do any of those because I look forward to feeding my fish every morning.
They say fish in their natural habitat have to look for food and they may not come across it everyday. So we should try to mimick that. Really I think the most important thing is not over feeding and having food in the aquarium rotting.
Then again fish are able to live for weeks without food, up to 3 weeks from what I have read on this forum. Perhaps they are not made to come across food so often

 

[rewlyn]

fish certainly dont mind missing a day or 2,honestly its like they turn into savage beasts(well for a fish), i recommend giving it a go cause youll see how they are in the wild, its also a lot of entertainment, like when i feed my cichlids after missing a day they turn into little pigs, ill give them pellets and theyll liturally get as many as they can and then try to eat them, then all of a sudden theyll spit out about 4-6 depending on size of fish, its amazing how much they can hold and eat. have fun!!!

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, nice answer from HiYa there, agree with that.

I've been one of those that sometimes throws in the random day without feeding. But I believe I remember OM47 once commenting that many smaller fish like neon tetras and the like will perhaps find a more frequent feeding schedule ok, in other words the light once a day feeding might really be a more fair thing for these little ones. (The actual comment I remember was perhaps twice a day but very light but only for very small-bodied fish.. but this was ages ago so I may not be remembering it right.)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Amunet]

I'll skip a day here and there.
Skipping a day won't hurt your fish in the least.

 

[england]

my feeding is very crazy, some day's yes, then a day no then yes, then a couple of days no, then a day with very little, then a couple of days nothing again, then a feast of a day and so on

 

[gaz gun man]

my feeding is very crazy, some day's yes, then a day no then yes, then a couple of days no, then a day with very little, then a couple of days nothing again, then a feast of a day and so on

sounds similar to the way I feed my fish, only I tend to have 1 or 2 starve days per week

 

[Cheery-up Bear]

Interesting thread. I didn't know this was okay. We go away for a couple of nights every few weeks. How would this tie in with that? I'm intending to feed the fish each evening, so I presume a light feed on the morning we leave then miss the next day and a feed at the normal time the day after would be okay?

 

[paulbr1]

Hi, I miss a couple of days per week - it keeps them on their toes - but I'm not tight

Paul.

 

[mike os]

let me put it like this... you only need feeding two or three times a week, but how would you feel about it?

Personally I can see no realistic basis for the idea for most fish. Preds have their own needs.

 

[meguro]

de-shelled peas anyone?

 

[waterdrop]

de-shelled peas anyone?

They always get great reports from members here. Particularly useful for a suspected constipation case.

Have no idea to what extent they would be recommended by the experienced ones for use as a regular food and at what frequency, although I suspect some might use it once or twice a week.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

WD you are right about how I do things. I seldom skip a day and sometimes feed the smaller fish twice a day but very little each time. I also do not get all stressed if I need to miss a day because I know that my fish are well fed and they can miss a day with no real trouble. Since almost all of my tanks contain some fry, I try not to tempt the adults by letting them get really hungry. I breed mostly livebearers who are notorious for being fry eaters but I also have good survival rates because my fish seldom really get hungry. Fry growth would dictate feeding several times a day but I am not that fanatic about growth rates and am patient enough to let them grow at a reasonable rate. Frequent feeding like I do can be dangerous if you don't have a pretty good feel for how much your fish will eat in a single feeding.

 

[waterdrop]

WD you are right about how I do things. I seldom skip a day and sometimes feed the smaller fish twice a day but very little each time. I also do not get all stressed if I need to miss a day because I know that my fish are well fed and they can miss a day with no real trouble. Since almost all of my tanks contain some fry, I try not to tempt the adults by letting them get really hungry. I breed mostly livebearers who are notorious for being fry eaters but I also have good survival rates because my fish seldom really get hungry. Fry growth would dictate feeding several times a day but I am not that fanatic about growth rates and am patient enough to let them grow at a reasonable rate. Frequent feeding like I do can be dangerous if you don't have a pretty good feel for how much your fish will eat in a single feeding.

Ah, very enjoyable that I got it right. I'm sure you will appreciate this too: I've come to give a bit of a smile when I see some extra food making it too the bottom as it makes me think about some of Diana's chapters. I also of course know that my tank maintenance habits will never get so bad as to let it become a problem causer for me. WD