Water quality aside, can you overfeed your fish in which the food is no longer providing 100% of the nutrients to the fish and is just being wasted. I know fish farms has a formula for this to get maximum yield vs cost, but since this is in a home aquaria, cost of the food is not a factor. My goal is to maximize growth (Red Devils) from 7 inches to 12 inches, I know they get bigger, but 12 inch is the target size
Overfeeding
- Thread starter qguy
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Besides issue of waste overfeeding runs the risk of lots of health issues so to answer your question, I'd say yes. If you're after bigger size fish (and water quality aside) imo the bigger the tank you can arrange from an earlier age will have more positive effect than overfeeding.
Lots of space, lots of food, lots of water changes, and warmer temperatures results in rapid growth.
Agreed with the above, power feeding (as i think it was once called), clean water and ample space is the key to maximizing fishes growth potential...
But you have to be careful what you use to power feed your fish with or there could be potential side effects, such as too much thiamine (sp?)...
Also, last but not least, you also have to hope that the genes of the fish will allow it to reach its max potential...
But you have to be careful what you use to power feed your fish with or there could be potential side effects, such as too much thiamine (sp?)...
Also, last but not least, you also have to hope that the genes of the fish will allow it to reach its max potential...
Yes, absolutely. A fish can only assimilate and retain so much in nutrient content - the rest is simply wasted, and lost to the environment. (your tank) Commercial aquaculture uses what's known as a feed conversion ratio (FCR) which basically compares and gauges the efficiency of the amount of feed used per unit weight gain of the species being grown. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00K8MQ.pdf
Also agree with the others, power feeding generally is not healthy for the fish, and can lead to long term health issues such as excessive fatty deposits in organs and tissue.