Who else feeds 3 times a week?

[skjl47]

Yes, you are right. It doesn't necessarily mean that by skipping days one is underfeeding. I suppose one should stick with the feeding regime for the duration of the fish's life to make any long term conclusions. I don't skip days but if I am away I don't feed either.



I think overfeeding doesn't equate with daily feeding either. I do not think I overfeed but I don't let the fish stay hungry for long periods of time.

On a side note, what were the positive effects you noticed? Is that related to better water quality or is it directly related to feeding the fish less? I tend to separate the two because of course one can foul any tank if any of the other factors like tanks size, stocking, water changes aren't sufficient.

Hello; Daily feeding does not have to equate to overfeeding, but has been in my own personal experience and my observations of other fish keepers.
Before moving to skipping feeding days I tried to moderate the amounts fed daily. Getting enough food down to the bottom feeders required some sort of extra planning. I use to keep sinking pellet food on hand for this.
I also tried to be more precise with the feeding amounts in general. One of my observations was that some of the individuals or some species were not as aggressive during feeding as others. The quick feeders would get most of the food while the slow feeders might not get what they need.
I tried other strategies but found that heavy enough feeding one day followed by a fasting day, sometimes two, to work out well. The heavier feeding allowed both the slow feeders and the bottom feeders to get a fair share. The amount of excess food was then searched out by most all the fish and my snails population.
This was one of the benefits I had first observed after a weekend away. That being that the fish and snails had scoured the tank for whatever was available while I was away. I began to note that the tanks looked better when I returned. I eventually began to make a connection to better water quality and tank conditions with the fasting days. It seems much easier to maintain my tanks now and they seem to tend to run years longer since going to fasting days.
I suppose those wanting to have the absolutely largest fish possible may find fasting days a negative. As you point out it may take a dedicated experimental setup over time to find out. I imagine the commercial food fish growers may have some relevant data. I also imagine that every day feeding tends to require more effort at tank upkeep, at least that is the take I have from my personal experience.

 

[Coryloach]

I understand what you are saying and why you have taken a different approach. And I am glad it works for you better.
I've fed mine daily for years without any negative effect. Plus it depends what everyone's idea of too much food at one time is.
The overly greedy fish issue I counteract by more pellets but smaller sizes of 1-3mm, this way my clown loaches for example can't swallow/steal all food before my corys get some. I feed only sinking pellets even though I have some top fish too. But they always catch enough of them on the way down. I've never fed flakes and such floating stuff, not for years..

My tanks are planted although to different degree. I can afford extra feedings, plus I am the large weekly water change type of person and have heavy filtration on top of that. All of these together allows a big margin of user error so I guess it depends...

Here is one of my tanks. It's not a monster fish tank. It has small fish in it. It's a 5f, has about 30 livebearers, 30 corydoras and a bristle nose pleco, plus an army of shrimp. I have always fed it at least once a day and even a bit more here and there. This tank can take a lot of bioload without any issues without a hiccup.
It very much depends on the overall setup and maintenance routine how much you can feed and what happens to the water quality. My fish food becomes plant food and I even need to dose additional nitrates and other fertilizers to keep the plants happy. There was a lovely puffer tank setup I saw around here based on the same principle.

My tank below has seen better days than this but it's been neglected aesthetics wise so excuse the messy look and cables running. It's also got two externals and an internal filter.

 

[Coryloach]

And this is the amount of food that went into the tank just now. I put that in daily.

 

[bottles]

Just thought I'd add that water temperature plays a factor, as well as how active the fish are. My subtropical predators get down to around 64F in the winter and are only fed about once every 3 weeks during this time. My large tropical predators are fed around 3x per week. Large predators that are constantly swimming will require more food than ambush hunters.

 

[piranhaman00]

I feed three/four times a week as well.

 

[skjl47]

Just thought I'd add that water temperature plays a factor, as well as how active the fish are. My subtropical predators get down to around 64F in the winter and are only fed about once every 3 weeks during this time. My large tropical predators are fed around 3x per week. Large predators that are constantly swimming will require more food than ambush hunters.

Hello; Good points.

 

[Coryloach]

Yes, temperature plays a huge role in the appetite and activity of fish. Take clown loaches for example who come from warm waters.

Wild caught specimen:


Captive raised(mine)


Question is should I aim to achieve a "wild" clown loach look by feeding mine sparingly....

When I bought that loach above less than 2 years ago he looked like this:

 

[jaws7777]

I always notice that my fish are more active after a fasting day. Not sure if they are big enough for everyother day but do plan on using that schedule down the road

 

[skjl47]

Yes, temperature plays a huge role in the appetite and activity of fish. Take clown loaches for example who come from warm waters.

Wild caught specimen:
View attachment 1125069

Captive raised(mine)
View attachment 1125071

Question is should I aim to achieve a "wild" clown loach look by feeding mine sparingly....

When I bought that loach above less than 2 years ago he looked like this:
View attachment 1125076

Hello; While it is possible that the fish had a shrunken belly from not feeding well in the wild, there are other possible reasons to consider. If it were to turn out that most wild fish had malnutrition, then the point would be stronger.
During my fishing over the years I have landed a few wild fish that appeared to be underfed. Most have had a well fed appearance. Again this is a weak point as there are too any factors to consider.

My take and experience with fasting days has been that the large majority of my fish have good body mass and appear well fed. Setting fry and young fish aside, mature fish do not have to eat every day to remain healthy. I have only been doing the fasting days for around fifteen years or so and have not tried it with a large variety of fish. There may well be a number of circumstances where daily feeding is a suitable plan. For that matter I could make daily feeding work, I did it for many years, with what I now perceive as some extra diligence and effort on my part.

Not that anyone has mentioned it yet in this thread, but some fish keepers I have known tend to approach feeding based on two things. One is that they think the fish must need to eat much like they do every day. Another is that the fish "appear" to be begging for food whenever the keeper approaches a tank. My current school of tiger barbs do this whenever I go near their tank. I know from experience that the fish will eat as often as I am willing to feed them. It seems to me now that such frequent feedings are not needed.

Perhaps one side effect can be reported. It is a bit early to tell for sure. In the last few years I have added more fasting days that before. The fish have been doing fine, but my population of snails has been declining. There may be other reasons than the fasting days? I have taken to throwing extra food in the quarantine tank in order to promote the numbers of the ramshorn snails. I also have had to pick up some MTS last week from an area fish store to try and get them going again. For me the loss of snails is a negative and a mystery so far.

 

[Drstrangelove]

Herbivores typically eat every day, sometimes most of the day. E.g., cows aren't fed just 3 times a week at 7 PM. In the wild, when they catch fish that are herbivores and examine stomach contents, they typically always contain something whether it's vegetation, krill, plankton, crustaceans, invertebrates. That's how many feed.

Krill and plankton feeders swim and feed most of the time, much like cows graze most of the time. Great white sharks, lions, snakes on the other hand don't eat all the time. Most of the time, they aren't eating at all.

Piscivores when they are caught more often than not will have empty stomachs because they have infrequent but large meals.

So, depending on what type of fish a person has (including those that operate between those extremes) feeding very infrequently could be correct or incorrect. When I kept my plecos, I arranged it so they could eat all day long...and they pretty much did.