can you help the fight me and the wife are having?

[jordans]

me and her have been trying to figure out how much food to feed our fish. sounds silly but she thinks they look starved all the time. our stock list is
1 regal tang
1 yellow tang
2 clowns
1 toby puffer
1 blue cheeked trigger
1 6 line wrasse
1 watchman goby
1 lawnmower blenny
its in a mixed reef tank with a fairly large cuc.
40 hermits
10 nass snails
4 turbos
4 ninja snails
3 fighting conchs
2 yellow cucumbers
a couple of serpent stars and brittles.

there is also lots of palys that munch frequently during feeding. and i feed the other corals with reef roids twice a week. we feed pe mysis daily. now to fair for the argument i told her i wouldnt tell you guys how many cubes. how many would you guys feed?

 

[Sk8r]

Tell her do not look at the behavior. Fish are like spoiled dogs or cats, who believe the presence of people may mean food. Look instead at their bodies: if they are thin, they are underfed. If they're beginning to look like plushies, that can kill them on its own. They need to remain sharp and energetic and fish don't have a 'full'. They can also go two weeks without being fed, although by then they may start seeing each other as lunch.

 

[hbrochs]

Feed

Feed

How big is the tank, and how big are the Tangs?

Sounds like your bioload is kinda similar to mine, and I feed two cubes a day of different frozen food. Also give fresh seaweed everyday. Once a week I give some super fine food to the LPS with a turkey baster.

Happy wife, happy life.

 

[Arkayology]

Rule #5- Never get involved in other couples' fights

 

[jordans]

How big is the tank, and how big are the Tangs?

Sounds like your bioload is kinda similar to mine, and I feed two cubes a day of different frozen food. Also give fresh seaweed everyday. Once a week I give some super fine food to the LPS with a turkey baster.

Happy wife, happy life.

everything is fairly small right now tangs around 2.5 - 3 inches
tank is 120 gallon 72 wide

 

[d0ughb0y]

Rule #5- Never get involved in other couples' fights

Rule#1-The wife is always right.
Rule#2-If the wife is wrong, see rule#1.

 

[amps]

I have a similar stock list and all smaller fish (young). I feed the equivilant of 2 cubes of Larry's Fish Frenzy a day + a large pinch of flake food before bed.

 

[GimpyFin]

There's not really a rule except no more than your fish will consume in about 2-3 minutes, and generally you don't need to feed more than once a day (I do every other day.) Also, as sk8r mentioned, their bodies will help tell how fed/underfed they are. That said, PE Mysis does go pretty quick, especially with bigger fish as there are decent sized pieces per cube and not that many. I usually do about 5-6 cubes of rinsed PE mysis every other day, along with a few NLS pellets. Sometimes I'll do Reef Nutrition ROE or a cube of frozen Reef Caviar in lieu of some of the Mysis, or mix in some Hikari mysis. My fish list is as follows:

1 Purple tang
1 Marine betta
1 Flame wrasse
1 purple firefish
1 helfrichi firefish
1 starry belnny
1 midas blenny
1 bartlett anthias
1 fathead anthias
1 blue reef chromis
1 mitratus butterfly
1 black/white clown
1 flame angel

 

[cleverbs]

At one point in my fish keeping career I was really focused on how much I fed. I didnt want to feed to much as I was worried about the tank and not about the fish. Now I feed the fish a hefty amount. I watch how they act and look at their belly. They need to be FAT. My fish now get fed a few times a day. This all changed when I went diving and there was a group of yellow tangs that swam by me. They had bigger stomachs then their head. this is how fish should look. Now if you look at my tanks you will see my fish are fat and healthy.

Freshwater is a bit different but my freshwater fish are a perfect example. My Gold Vail Angels went from about 5" tall to easily 12"+ with streamers and they are extremely fat. Both pair in the tank spawn every 9 days without fail. My Geophagus ThreadFin pair spawned last week and they are huge and amazingly colorful because of their health.

I would feed 2-3 cubes probably 1.5 twice a day

 

[jacksonpt]

Rule #5- Never get involved in other couples' fights

I thought it was "Never go in against a Sicilian when death was on the line."

 

[scar79]

Looking at your stock list, I'd probably do a cube of mysis and a cube of spiru brine (2x cubes total) once or twice a day, along with a piece of nori for the tangs.

I took over care of a 90 gallon reef with crazy high nitrates (like 100+) and asked the owner how much she was feeding. 8 cubes in one feeding per day for about 14 small-medium fish. I cut her back to three (and told her she could feed twice/day if she wanted) and the tank turned around in a few months time.

Telling people that the fish's stomach isn't much larger than their eye usually gives them good perspective to prevent over-feeding.

If that doesn't do the trick and they insist the fish are self regulating and will eat only as much as they need, tell them to consider how much food they might prepare for their family if all uneaten food was left on the table or floor to rot and what that might do to their living conditions.

 

[Potatohead]

Ask your wife if she likes everything covered in algae. If she says yes, let her feed as much as she wants.

 

[Timfish]

Years ago I read an article By Dr. Gottman, University of Washington, on research that looked at the effectiveness of different therapy techniques for couples and the best predictor for success was if the husband listened to his wife.

Most aquarium fish are opportunistic omnivores and will do better with multiple feedings daily. To determine if a fish is underweight, has good body weight or is over weight look at the curve across it's face onto it's back. If the transition from it's forehead (skull) to it's back is pinched outlining it's skull it's underweight. If at the edge of the skull there's a hump, again outlining it's skull making it easy to see the transition to it's back it's overweight. If it's a smooth curve across it's forehead onto it's back and the edge of it's skull cannot be made out it has a good body weight.

 

[Scurvy Dawg]

Rule #5- Never get involved in other couples' fights

My wife and I are having a fight over rule #5, I was wondering if you can weigh in on the issue?