Feeding Debate

[Corriebh]

Hi guys,

Want to get involved in a domestic dispute? My husband and I have constantly been debating how much to feed our fish since we got our first tank a year ago.
I am more of an "under feeder". I only feed what the fish can eat in a minute or two. They attach the food when I feed them and always seem to be looking for more when it is "gone". My husband thinks I am starving them. But since I am the one who does the water changes and cleans out the smelly skimmer I tend to feed less. I should point out in a year we have lost two fish, both having nothing to do with feeding. Once fish get established in our tanks they tend to do very well.

Now my hubby will feed a lot (at least in my opinion) but he has good points. Some of the fish seem to eat for five minutes if they have that food available, the CUC needs to eat, and our numbers are always good. I thought for a while that it was just him over feeding and me under feeding and it was just evening out. But last week I let him feed the fish all on his own and surprise the world kept turning, oh and the fish and numbers are still fine.

So the debate rages on.....Can fish get "fat", Are fish like people, thinking they are hungry when in reality the signal from their stomach hasn't told their brain yet they are full, Are we putting our CUC at risk by having hungry fish in the tank, If the numbers are good, what does it really matter, We only have a few fish over a year old so if they are growing won't they need more food, How long would it take for our numbers to go up in a 90g tank if we were over feeding, Other than our numbers going up what risks are there to over feeding.......heck I can think of a million more points we have discussed and debated in the last year.

I know this is one of those questions where there might not be a "right" answer, but I am just curious to see what has worked for others. OH and maybe get a few more points to use in my debate with my husband. I guess if you have points for his side of the debate you can post those too

 

[LittleBeard]

What fish do you have and how frequently do you feed them?

I think the only risk of overfeeding is really the water quality and unless you have sensitive corals or an algae problem I wouldn't worry about overfeeding.

Underfeeding can be an issue as well. Many ocean animals (fish, inverts) are opportunistic and if underfed, they may resort to killing each other. Are you losing snails to crabs? etc.

It's a delicate balance that I think is often overlooked, but whatever you decide I would error on the side of changing that habit slowly.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Plus one. And to add, when you under feed, you promote more aggression from the dominant fish which will result to stress of all tank mates and lead to death.

One other thing to consider is that while the feeding frenzy is taking place the dominant fish seem to get the loins share leaving others starving.

I have fish that wait until the feeding frenzy is over and scour the rock for left over food. So I tend to over feed, trying to balance the amount of food wasted with the happiness of the fish.

I tend to follow and old reefer that was sorta a mentor to me, and say, "I like to keep my fish fat and happy"

 

[gone fishin]

I tend to feed a lot. I do not have aggression, although I have gone out of my way not to add aggressive fish. I do have some fish that may nip at coral but if they are full they seem to leave the coral alone. Finally a full fish makes for a healthy fish. I have never seen a muffin top around a fishes gills..

The down side is I clean my skimmer more. Excess nutrient in the water can cause algae. I also dose vodka. Just my two cents I am sure more points will be made on both sides.

 

[Corriebh]

Currently we have a box fish who is a very slow eater but eats a lot. We put his food into a mesh bag and let him suck out what he wants and doesn't need to worry about the other fish eating his food.

We also have two clowns, two cardinals, a dwarf angel, a goby, and two chromis. With the exception of the goby all the fish are smaller. We like to get younger fish and watch them grow. So most of the fish haven't reached a year with us yet.

It is a FOWLR 90 g tank. I have one chromis in my QT tank right now and once he goes in we are done with adding anything else (may be a little full as it is, but it is hard to hold back )

It is a hard balance for many reasons! We use Rods which comes in a flat frozen sheet. So I cut up cubes to feed the fish. You know how hard it is to cut that evenly! Plus like I said they are all growing so they seem to change on a weekly basis.

I also agree it can be over looked. Once the tank is established feeding and water changes are really all that is left for you to do, so it is easy to get into a routine and not notice if things need to be adjusted.

 

[Goldndoodle]

I've noticed that different fish like to eat differently ...

My Clowns and Chromis like the pumps off, lights low, and they eat off of the surface.

My Firefish likes the water moving and he picks stuff out of the water as it's floating around - he looks like he's hunting while doing that.

I always felt like I was underfeeding both sets of fish. I didn't want to put a lot of food on the surface, but by the time the pumps came back on there didn't seem like a lot for the Firefish to eat.

They're all alive and doing well, and all noticeably bigger than when I got them.