Do you enjoy feeding your fish to a fault?

[SDguy]

I just love feeding all sorts of random foods to my fish... pellets, shrimp, scallop, whatever.... the fact that they are hungry each time makes me want to feed them more. Besides obvious water quality issues, can this be a bad thing? I see pictures of fish in the wild and they are THICK!!

 

[Denis Araujo]

I used to give food only once a day, but now that i have an Imperator and a Falcula in the reef i am giving 2/3 times a day.
One day i give Nori, Thera+A and Cyclop Eeze.
Next day Spirulina, Vongoli and a mixture of Blod worms, Brine Shrimp and pieces of Shirmp

Be careful not to overfeed as it causes a lot of problems to the animals. Quive always small amounts.

 

[SDguy]

Be careful not to overfeed as it causes a lot of problems to the animals. Quive always small amounts.

Well now this is really the point of my thread. Can you elaborate?

 

[rnscross]

A fish's biology relates to the niche with which it sits. As such fish generally have small stomaches as they graze all day with the food passing through them at a constant rate. Thats why the small amounts multiple times a day thing is required. This changes once you have a predator which in the wild eats alot of food at once before having to find more. So things like angels and tangs benefit from small multiple feedings/continuous foods (mature tank with agae for grazing). Predators such as lionfish and groupers only need to be fed intermittently as they catch a fish eat it and then have to start trying to catch the next fish, which can be days between meals. This is also the reason it is hard to get tangs fat in captivity as they graze ALL day. You can get them fat on fewer feedings of highly nutritious food eg pellets, but you have to be careful you dont make them obese as they will suffer from the exact same sort of systemic problems humans do eg liver/kidney failure, insulin insensitivity etc.

Having said all that I also love feeding my fish and mix it up regularly between frequent small amounts of pellets (highly nutritious) from an auto feeder 4x a day and frozen (significantly less nutritious with upwards of 70% water in it) which I think also plays a role in thier diet in regards to their digestion.

 

[Dakota Reef]

Peter, I have to confess the same "problem". I had kept fish for years but when I got the chance to snorkel in places like Guam, Hawaii and the Caribbean I was amazed at how fat the fish were. Once we started using dried nori it was easy to fatten up tangs and other algae grazers.

Now that we've figured out better ways to feed butterflyfish I love being able to fatten them up so they are as thick in captivity as they are in the wild. Plus its just a joy to watch a Copperband relish a piece of scallop!

I just added a couple of gorgeous fairy wrasses and am currently feeding them fairly heavily with Ova and other small meaty foods to make sure they get off to good start.

Frankly I feel like I was underfeeding my fish when I followed the old "once a day only what they can eat in five minutes" rule. Improved food and feeding techniques are allowing me more fishkeeping success than ever before.

Fortunately, more efficient skimmers, carbon dosing and phosphate reactors allow us to feed fish better than the old without affecting water quality.

So why not feed more??

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Not to a fault, just right. I do like feeding the fish and watching them go after the food and interact with one another. It helps that they learn you are the source of food and act like they actually like you. :lol2:

I have always fed my fish at least 2-3 times per day, even when people typically were feeding only every other day to limit nutrients in the tank. It just never seemed right to limit food so strictly to an active animal that needs to take in more calories than it burns each day to survive.

 

[RynosReef]

For me, i try to limit the amount of food instead of the frequency of feeding. I think this helps a bit especially since i keep my tank with low nutrients. I love feeding them though, just not quite as much. I pre-rinse a cube of mysis a day and spread it out.

 

[n0rk]

In my last tank, I found because it was in my office I was feeding it anywhere up to 20 times a day with various things, and 3 or so times a day for the corals... all I can say is, thank god for powerful skimming and carbon dosing.

 

[aquaph8]

I feed a lot with as much variety as I can come up with. My whole tank seems healthier than ever. It also goes along way towards the fishes attitudes too.

 

[SDguy]

A fish's biology relates to the niche with which it sits. As such fish generally have small stomaches as they graze all day with the food passing through them at a constant rate. Thats why the small amounts multiple times a day thing is required. This changes once you have a predator which in the wild eats a lot of food at once before having to find more. So things like angels and tangs benefit from small multiple feedings/continuous foods (mature tank with algae for grazing). Predators such as lionfish and groupers only need to be fed intermittently as they catch a fish eat it and then have to start trying to catch the next fish, which can be days between meals. This is also the reason it is hard to get tangs fat in captivity as they graze ALL day. You can get them fat on fewer feedings of highly nutritious food eg pellets, but you have to be careful you don't make them obese as they will suffer from the exact same sort of systemic problems humans do eg liver/kidney failure, insulin insensitivity etc.

Having said all that I also love feeding my fish and mix it up regularly between frequent small amounts of pellets (highly nutritious) from an auto feeder 4x a day and frozen (significantly less nutritious with upward of 70% water in it) which I think also plays a role in their diet in regards to their digestion.

I should have noted that I wasn't talking about predators like lionfish and eels, hence my posting this in this particular forum. Thanks for clarifying that though, it's an important point!

 

[RynosReef]

I wonder how certain fish would do in a NPS tank. With the constant supply of food for the corals I'm sure certain fish would be in heaven.

 

[Kahuna Tuna]

I guess I do enjoy feeding my fish because they all look like canned hams with fins. I too have noticed how nice and plump wild fish are, so I would guess that as long as water quality isn't an issue and one is feeding appropriate high quality foods then all is good.

 

[SDguy]

I wonder how certain fish would do in a NPS tank. With the constant supply of food for the corals I'm sure certain fish would be in heaven.

Pretty sure that's how some people keep difficult anthias long term...

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/reefs-magazine/71849-boldly-colored-beauties-tuka-anthias.html

 

[Reefing Newbie]

As long as they don't get too WIDE! Obesisty isn't a good thing to have for any animal, an above post already mentioned that. How would you know if your fish is obese? Sorry to get off track, but I think it could be a very important point since we are talking about feeding lots.

 

[SDguy]

As long as they don't get too WIDE! Obesity isn't a good thing to have for any animal, an above post already mentioned that. How would you know if your fish is obese? Sorry to get off track, but I think it could be a very important point since we are talking about feeding lots.

Good question... for example, I have a pair of meredithi angels. Check out how wide they are in the wild in this video...

IMO it almost looks like they have a hard time breathing because they are so fat. Clearly I'm wrong. So... how would one tell if a fish is too fat?

http://australianmuseum.net.au/movie/Queensland-Yellowtail-Angelfish-Chaetodontoplus-meredithi

 

[Reefing Newbie]

It would be good to know because a lot of fish with a similar body shape look like they are gasping for air because they are obese. Although from the side they don't look quite as fat lol. An answer will hopefully come up for this.

 

[Norberg]

Hello, my name is Tommy and i overfeed fish!

I have choosen to fulfill the need of those fishes in my tank that have the higest food demand, in my case anthias. So my other fish tend to be... uh obese.

But have anyone noticed IRL that overfeed fish have shorter lifespan in a tank compared to those who are thin or normal built?

 

[BlueFyre]

It's not just my fish I love feeding. I love feeding my CUC as well. Once food hits the water my starfish come out and all the hermits and snails start zooming around.

 

[RynosReef]

Clearly off topic, but I have a fuzzy racer snail. Coolest looking snail and eats seaweed from my hand.

 

[aleonn]

I enjoy (over) feeding my fish too (3x/day, mainly NLS pellets and Nori). My tangs especially are fat. I'm not sure if they're "too fat" though, so I may have to back down a little. It's just that my skimmer, biopellets, chaeto, and GFO are working too well (nitrates are at 0, phosphates minimal).