How much food
- Thread starter Karalak42
- Start date
One rule is: Only enough food that can be eaten with five minutes, once per day.
With live food, you can 'power feed', where you flood the tank with live feeders (ie. tilapia fry or ghost shrimp). Your fish can really grow quickly like this.
However, feeding moderately can let your fish live longer.
With live food, you can 'power feed', where you flood the tank with live feeders (ie. tilapia fry or ghost shrimp). Your fish can really grow quickly like this.
However, feeding moderately can let your fish live longer.
I've always tried to stick to the "what they can eat in a couple min" rule, but some people feed way more and some people feed less who both get better results after longer in the game than me.
I say as long as no one is starving to death and the water params are good so are you.
I say as long as no one is starving to death and the water params are good so are you.
I would like to add that this varies with the size of the fish. Small fish (say, cardinal tetra sized) should only get as much as they can eat within 30 seconds or so, because their small size means they need less time to eat their fill and can overeat if given 5 minutes of food.|
That rule does apply well to larger fish though. Their size and resulting larger food requirements mean they may need up to 5 minutes to eat the proper amount.
Just my opinion, but I wouldn't recommend to powerfeed unless the powerfed fish is undernourished. If it's not undernourished, all the powerfeeding as opposed to normal feeding will make it obese at a point.
+1. No obesity or water quality issues.
This is a minefield of a question and if truth be told I don't think any one given formula can be given to cover all our individual set ups. I think each hobbyist as simply got to make a judgement call for themselves. The key is to observe.
Two main factors for me as to whether I'm feeding the correct amount of food are the appearance of the fish (primary) and water quality (secondary).
Are fish looking fat and bloated, or have they got the sunken shoulder or stomach look? Is your nitrate creeping really quickly? Are you constantly experiencing planaria problems (worms associated with over feeding)?
Those are just a couple basic things to observe.
One thing's for sure, don't just feed because your fish are glass surfing and therefore must be starving to death. Feeding simply because your fish "appear" hungry is one of the biggest mistakes.
Two main factors for me as to whether I'm feeding the correct amount of food are the appearance of the fish (primary) and water quality (secondary).
Are fish looking fat and bloated, or have they got the sunken shoulder or stomach look? Is your nitrate creeping really quickly? Are you constantly experiencing planaria problems (worms associated with over feeding)?
Those are just a couple basic things to observe.
One thing's for sure, don't just feed because your fish are glass surfing and therefore must be starving to death. Feeding simply because your fish "appear" hungry is one of the biggest mistakes.
I don't think there is a hard fast rule to feeding your fish. There are a couple "rules of thumb", how much in a given amount of time typically 2-3 min, also I've heard the one that states the fishes stomach is the size of it's eye so you can judge how much it should eat by that. Either way if you do either you are probably going to be overfeeding.
What I do is for babies I feed daily and depending on activity level of the fish maybe a couple times each day but I feed smaller amounts. Once the fish is a couple months old I switch to everyother day. In the wild fish don't eat every day, there isn't always food available or they can't catch it.
Another thing to realize is what the particular fish eats carnivore and omnivores need to eat less often then herbivores. I don't or usually don't keep strict herbivores but the way their digestion works they need more food sources more readily available.
Overall I usually side on the underfeeding side of things. 1 less waist on multiple levels loss of food, water parameters. 2nd more active interested fish. It's a fine line you don't want your fish eyeing up it's roommates as potential meals.
In most of my tanks I have scavengers if possible catfish of some sort or snails or other inverts that I typically don't target feed and I'll feed a little heavier and they will clean up the leftovers. As long as they are tolerated and they don't look malnourished it's a good way to go.
In the end it's really up to you to judge the health of your animals this includes water parameters which is directly related to feeding and your maintenance. If you tend to feed heavy you may have to do more maintenance. If your fish aren't fat or too skinny and your water is clean then you are doing it right.
What I do is for babies I feed daily and depending on activity level of the fish maybe a couple times each day but I feed smaller amounts. Once the fish is a couple months old I switch to everyother day. In the wild fish don't eat every day, there isn't always food available or they can't catch it.
Another thing to realize is what the particular fish eats carnivore and omnivores need to eat less often then herbivores. I don't or usually don't keep strict herbivores but the way their digestion works they need more food sources more readily available.
Overall I usually side on the underfeeding side of things. 1 less waist on multiple levels loss of food, water parameters. 2nd more active interested fish. It's a fine line you don't want your fish eyeing up it's roommates as potential meals.
In most of my tanks I have scavengers if possible catfish of some sort or snails or other inverts that I typically don't target feed and I'll feed a little heavier and they will clean up the leftovers. As long as they are tolerated and they don't look malnourished it's a good way to go.
In the end it's really up to you to judge the health of your animals this includes water parameters which is directly related to feeding and your maintenance. If you tend to feed heavy you may have to do more maintenance. If your fish aren't fat or too skinny and your water is clean then you are doing it right.
This and depending on the fish species kept a few need food a couple times or more a day for example Small fry require multiple feedings, The freshwater Pipefish must eat all day.
To my mind, the term "overfeeding" refers to two entirely different problems associated with aquarium fish.
The more dangerous one is dumping way too much food into the aquarium, often compounded by leaving it there for way too long. Videos showing a group of fish being presented with a quantity of food that is several times larger than what they need are frequent. So are pics of tanks with huge amounts of un-eaten food littering the bottom. These conditions are often accompanied, unsurprisingly, with cloudy, murky water conditions, and perhaps a weak alibi about "I just did a water change" or some such excuse. That pile of fungused-over food over there? Oh, I will remove that tomorrow...
This version of overfeeding results in chronically poor water conditions, with all their attendant stress on the fish. The old saw about "as much as they can eat in X minutes..." would help out drastically, IF the keeper actually removed that stuff after X minutes...rather than X hours or days...
The other version of overfeeding is probably more common, and certainly more insidious; it is overfeeding by the aquarist, combined with over-eating by the fish. Let's face it, watching the fish actually do stuff is the main attraction of fishkeeping; and, aside from breeding, one of the most interesting things they do is eat. Once again, feeding only what they will consume in X minutes solves this problem nicely...but the whole idea is not to dump a huge excess of food into the tank and then remove whatever is left after X minutes, but rather to learn how much they will actually eat in that time frame and then only provide that quantity. This takes some experience, not only with aquarium-keeping in general but also with your particular individual fish. We hear a great deal about fatty deposits on the liver and other obesity issues, but knowing about this issue and being able to prevent it are two different things.
There are lots of variables thrown into this question of feeding. Age of fish, dietary requirements (carnivore vs. omnivore vs. herbivore), temperature, activity level (i.e. energy expended), quality of nutrition and caloric content provided by the particular food being used, acceptable rate of nitrate rise, frequency and percentage of water changes,/non-breeding, probably many others as well. There cannot be any simplistic formula or rule of thumb.
This comment ^ should be made into a bumper sticker and then applied to the front of every beginning aquarist's tank!
^ Gold!...but, dang it, too long for a bumper sticker...fridge magnet, maybe?
Except for predators that are accustomed to infrequent, gigantic meals...I think that most fish do best with frequent, small feedings. In this case, the smaller the fish...or perhaps the smaller the fish's mouth...the more important and beneficial this will be. The Pipefish is the extreme example.
I don't really buy this; way too simplistic. A cardinal tetra or other small fish, with a mouth that is small even compared to the size of the fish, might be healthy with thirty seconds of feeding if this is done multiple times in a day. This would simulate the way such a fish likely feeds in nature; tiny quantities, a bite here and a bite there, all day long.
A big fish like a Pacu or a Giant Goramy (i.e. big fish, highly herbivorous, with a mouth proportional in size to its body but not huge) might work on this diet plan...maybe...but if they are fed the largely herbivorous diet they should have, 5 minutes, once per day, might not give them a chance to bite, masticate and swallow a sufficient quantity of this low-protein food for health and growth. Cattle graze all day.
But a big fish, with a big mouth, and likely a big stomach...a combination near and dear to my heart...like a Jelly Cat or Gulper Cat, could literally overeat in 2 or 3 seconds if you fed it every day. Carnivorous ambush hunters are adapted to eat prey items that may be gigantic with respect to the size of the predator itself...and then to perhaps go without another meal for extended periods. If you insist on oohing and aahing over that "predator rush" every time you look into the tank...you will be sentencing the fish to an early grave, and it will need to be extra-wide to accommodate the corpse.
So, once again...it's less a "rule of thumb" and more of a rulebook that needs to be understood to avoid overfeeding.
The more dangerous one is dumping way too much food into the aquarium, often compounded by leaving it there for way too long. Videos showing a group of fish being presented with a quantity of food that is several times larger than what they need are frequent. So are pics of tanks with huge amounts of un-eaten food littering the bottom. These conditions are often accompanied, unsurprisingly, with cloudy, murky water conditions, and perhaps a weak alibi about "I just did a water change" or some such excuse. That pile of fungused-over food over there? Oh, I will remove that tomorrow...
This version of overfeeding results in chronically poor water conditions, with all their attendant stress on the fish. The old saw about "as much as they can eat in X minutes..." would help out drastically, IF the keeper actually removed that stuff after X minutes...rather than X hours or days...
The other version of overfeeding is probably more common, and certainly more insidious; it is overfeeding by the aquarist, combined with over-eating by the fish. Let's face it, watching the fish actually do stuff is the main attraction of fishkeeping; and, aside from breeding, one of the most interesting things they do is eat. Once again, feeding only what they will consume in X minutes solves this problem nicely...but the whole idea is not to dump a huge excess of food into the tank and then remove whatever is left after X minutes, but rather to learn how much they will actually eat in that time frame and then only provide that quantity. This takes some experience, not only with aquarium-keeping in general but also with your particular individual fish. We hear a great deal about fatty deposits on the liver and other obesity issues, but knowing about this issue and being able to prevent it are two different things.
There are lots of variables thrown into this question of feeding. Age of fish, dietary requirements (carnivore vs. omnivore vs. herbivore), temperature, activity level (i.e. energy expended), quality of nutrition and caloric content provided by the particular food being used, acceptable rate of nitrate rise, frequency and percentage of water changes,/non-breeding, probably many others as well. There cannot be any simplistic formula or rule of thumb.
This comment ^ should be made into a bumper sticker and then applied to the front of every beginning aquarist's tank!
^ Gold!...but, dang it, too long for a bumper sticker...fridge magnet, maybe?
Except for predators that are accustomed to infrequent, gigantic meals...I think that most fish do best with frequent, small feedings. In this case, the smaller the fish...or perhaps the smaller the fish's mouth...the more important and beneficial this will be. The Pipefish is the extreme example.
I don't really buy this; way too simplistic. A cardinal tetra or other small fish, with a mouth that is small even compared to the size of the fish, might be healthy with thirty seconds of feeding if this is done multiple times in a day. This would simulate the way such a fish likely feeds in nature; tiny quantities, a bite here and a bite there, all day long.
A big fish like a Pacu or a Giant Goramy (i.e. big fish, highly herbivorous, with a mouth proportional in size to its body but not huge) might work on this diet plan...maybe...but if they are fed the largely herbivorous diet they should have, 5 minutes, once per day, might not give them a chance to bite, masticate and swallow a sufficient quantity of this low-protein food for health and growth. Cattle graze all day.
But a big fish, with a big mouth, and likely a big stomach...a combination near and dear to my heart...like a Jelly Cat or Gulper Cat, could literally overeat in 2 or 3 seconds if you fed it every day. Carnivorous ambush hunters are adapted to eat prey items that may be gigantic with respect to the size of the predator itself...and then to perhaps go without another meal for extended periods. If you insist on oohing and aahing over that "predator rush" every time you look into the tank...you will be sentencing the fish to an early grave, and it will need to be extra-wide to accommodate the corpse.
So, once again...it's less a "rule of thumb" and more of a rulebook that needs to be understood to avoid overfeeding.
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The biggest killer of fish by far is over feeding.
Fast growth correlates to shorter life spans.
Just because a fish swallows food doesn't mean it's digested.
Fast growth correlates to shorter life spans.
Just because a fish swallows food doesn't mean it's digested.