Can you feed too much? Is it even possible?

[ralphie16]

I feed my moorish idol every 30 minutes while the lights are on. Many of those feedings are automated but nevertheless he still gets fed about 16 times a day. My water quality is still good though because of a number of reasons. The fish poop is eaten by a rabbitfish and further recycled. I have a lot of flow in my barebottom tank so anything floating is either eaten or taken to overflow to be processed by skimmer. I have lots of algae for all its benefits and besides carbon I also run phosban in a reactor to take care of extra po4 in the water.

I have since seen tremendous growth on him from starting out a really skinny specimen to a nice thick body with beautiful colors. He has literally doubled in size since I have had him (about one year).

He eats with much gusto every single meal. Since fish eat in the wild constantly (well maybe not the big predators) can we really feed to much in the aquarium? I was under the impression that the herbivores like tangs need to graze constantly since they get such little nutrition from their foods. So why are so many people feeding only 2-3 meals a day? Is it a time constraint thing or are we just under the impression that that is how they should be fed?

My puffer only gets a big meal once every day or two but he loves to nibble at the little mysis and other small stuff when I feed the Idol. But I think most fish should eat as many times as possible throughout the day. Its no wonder captive kept fish are so much smaller then their wild counterparts.

 

[MrSpiffy]

A huge reason not to feed so often is by doing so, you can foul your water if the food's not entirely eaten. Also, because of the increase in input into your system, you need to increase your output, too. So, if you feed often (or 16 times per day), it might be wise to keep an eye on your nitrates. Increased feeding = increased fish waste (poo) = increased ammonia = increased nitrite = increased nitrate. So, because your bioload has increased, the beneficial bacteria will increase to handle the additional waste. Theoretically, you shouldn't even see the ammonia or nitrite. But you will probably see increasing nitrates. And if you fed a dozen fish in one tank as often as you feed your moorish idol, you'd probably have to have a huge skimmer and do frequent water changes to compensate.

Since people aren't (usually) made of money, just buying a huge skimmer isn't going to work for us. And salt costs money, too, not to mention the water, RO/DI filters, and time/effort to mix it up. Fish can go long periods (a good week or more) without food and still be fine. Obviously, you don't want to do that regularly. But feeding 2 or 3 times daily isn't going to hurt them, if done properly and with good nutritional value.

Also, just like feeding us humans 10 times per day probably isn't a healthy way to live, I would assume that you can also overfeed fish to make them fat and unhealthy, too. I believe puffers don't have a sense of "I'm full." And overfeeding them could prove fatal.

Bottom line:
You can feed more often if you want, but be prepared to upgrade filtration equipment or do more water changes.

 

[ralphie16]

These 16 feedings a day are not your regular normal sized feedings. They are quite small and I can see with my own eyes that every single piece of food is eaten. From my understanding, fish will keep eating but the food inside of them will simply make their way through their system without the nutrients being absorbed. So I think feeding them many small meals a day would be much more optimal.

I only have three fish (and one of them is a detritus eater) in this tank (125 gallon) which I believe is more then enough for this size tank. FYI my nitrates in this FOWLR tank has never exceeded 5, phosphates almost always 0, no nuisance algae either. Water changes are 25 gallons (out of 125) every two weeks or so.

 

[MrSpiffy]

Well, your fish count is fairly low for that size of a tank. So I can see how your nitrates would stay pretty low. But try that in a reef tank that size with 10-15 fish in it, and you'd have mayhem with your nitrates.

 

[HPD Turbo]

Offtopic:
Can u post pics of your MI, can you tell me what do you feed him with?

 

[AquaKnight]

The title is a bit misleading. It should be could you feed too often, not too much.

The only problem I see is that the largest/fastest/bulliest fish is the one that will get all the food. Maybe not in your tank Raphie, but in higher stocked tanks, you almost have to overfeed somewhat to get the food to the other tankmates.

 

[ralphie16]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10911090#post10911090 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by HPD Turbo
Offtopic:
Can u post pics of your MI, can you tell me what do you feed him with?

Sure thing. I feed him sponge and sea squirts that I collect form the ocean. I also feed him angel&butterfly prepared frozen foods made by Hakari and the other by San Fransisco Bay. Both have sponge in them as well. I also feed fresh clams and cockles. And finally I make my own food using everything I find at my local Asian seafood market that is of marine origin (whole fish, squid, octopus, etc.) and mix it with nori sheet and blend it up, freeze,m and serve as needed.

First pic is a picture of him while he was being held at LA's Diver Den. Other one is in my tank when I first got him. No new pics though.

 

[seapug]

cool fish! Glad you are having such luck with it. Sure sounds like he's getting fed like a king. I guess that's why those fish always croak in regular reef tanks.

 

[m2434]

Many fish are and can be overfed in an aquarium. There are some "grazers" that tend to be underfed, but in my opinion this is the exception... Very cool MI by the way!