Interesting read for those who feed fish multiple times a day

[Judge Holden]

Great thread.

That is a freshly wild caught argentea. I think by any of our standards that that fish is a bit overweight. I think he must have found a nice isolated area where livebearers or something came to breed and was just horking them back.

Horking. Cool expression, an onomatopoeia. The best times of my life have involved horking.

I recently put my fish on diets. Someone complimented my pink Convict, said it was a rare albino Severum. Ouch.

 

[Egon]

Subscribed. Very good information here, sorry I missed this but I don't hang out in the cichlid area much.

I over feed. I'm going to change that. I feed once a day and I think I will change that to every other day.

 

[Miguel]

Great post! This is what MFK is all about. Serious discussions about fish!

And yes, my fish fast a lot.

 

[duanes]

Recently I was snorkling with Jack Demseys in Cenote Cristalino, which is filled with sailfin mollies, hundreds to to 1 ratio of mollies to cichlids. For a long time I watched a JD strike at the young mollies, think it caught 1 of every 15-20 strikes. When not fishing, the JDs seemed to graze on algae, as did the mollies (some as large as full grown JDs)
They all had great color and none were gaunt, except an old male JD with tattered fins living near the cave entrance.

 

[fishnutham]

Great info .. I have always been concerned about overfeeding my fish myself and this just qualifies my fears . I usually under feed blood worms to my tangs in the pm and mixed flake for the am feeding.
Maybe ill go once a day and mix the food up .
I still wonder about aggression though since i have Trets ,we shall see .

 

[Deathinnumbers]

I have always "underfed" my fish except when juvies. My redbelly tank ATM I fed them daily under 2". Now they are closer to 3" I feed every other day or skip two days. I just stopped feeding them for 6 days now n just gave enough food so there bellies are slightly bulged. Also tank has heavy current were my plants look like there in a wind storm

 

[F1 VET]

I have always "underfed" my fish except when juvies. My redbelly tank ATM I fed them daily under 2". Now they are closer to 3" I feed every other day or skip two days. I just stopped feeding them for 6 days now n just gave enough food so there bellies are slightly bulged. Also tank has heavy current were my plants look like there in a wind storm

I wouldn't skip days with 2-3" rbp, you may experience aggression issues and even worse some deaths. How old is you shoal?
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http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?504763-Cheap-plants-less-nitrate!-POTHOS

*Go S. Vettel #1 rb8--2 MORE RACES LEFT! SEE YOU IN TEXAS BOYS! LET'S MAKE IT 3 BACK TO BACK WDC!*

 

[Deathinnumbers]

F1 this is not my first rbp shoal I've done same with all I have kept in past 15 yrs. they have been in my tank for 6 ish weeks. And only time I have lost a piranha to cannabalism was to terrortorial dispute or a jumped divider lol. There are 11 in a 90g and I will give most away to make a red rhom cohab again. Most people don't understand that piranha cannabalism is not do to hunger but they see a weakness or terrortorial dispute

 

[CrimsonFog]

Bumping an old thread for anyone that missed it first time around.........

I absolutely cannot believe I missed this thread. Thanks for the bump, RD. Wait, that didn't sound right.

All my fish right now are "growouts" so I have been feeding 2x per day. Not heavy meals, but good portioned. I'd rather them grow big in a healthy way, rather than a quickly to only have a unhealthy organs. I'll cut back a bit, but I think I'll still feed 2x a day for now. I'll try and fast a few days a week as well.

I do have a question though. Someone on here mentioned that they feed their predators less. Should there be a real difference?

 

[Modest_Man]

Herbivorous fish eat pretty much continuously as it's hard to extract nutrients from plant matter (cellulose is very hard to break down) and they need to continually feed the beneficial gut microbes that help to break down the cellulose.

Carnivorous fish tend to miss out on meals a lot, but when they do get a meal it tends to be a lot of easily digested protein at once.

I'd be inclined to feed herbivorous fish multiple small meals (or allow for tank grazing) a day, and would feed carnivorous fish one large meal every few days. It's not less - it's just fed differently. Omnivorous fish (most cichlids) tend to fall into the middle of this spectrum.

It's not a cichlid but this smallmouth bass we sampled this summer had eaten a fish that was over half its length - they don't feed every day but when piscivores score a meal, it's a good one!

This yellow perch also found a large meal...It's not very relevant to the topic but I found it looking for the smallmouth photo.