Feeding multiple times a day?

[davocean]

All animals are different and metabolism may vary a great deal.
It's well known that anthia require multiple feedings, and most fish pretty much spend their time looking for food, so to me it's just a more natural feeding regimen.

 

[Rilelen]

I've always found this article - on the natural feeding habits of the fish we keep in the wild, contrasted with typical aquarium husbandry practices - to be quite interesting.

"From this study, it is apparent that these fish are feeding continuously throughout the daylight hours. They are eating small items, but on the average they eat an item of food every three minutes all day during a twelve hour day. During that period they eat an average of two grams of food per day.

As a comparison, during my food and additive study (Shimek, 2001) Ocean Nutrition Products, such as Formula 1, had 70 cubes per 7 ounce package of food. That meant each cube weighed 2.8 g. On the average, if you wish your fish to have the same mass of food that they are likely to eat in nature, presuming the data of Hamner et al., 1988, is applicable to other fishes, you should feed each fish in your aquarium that is the average size of a damsel fish, the equivalent of about 70% of a cube of this food per day. Large fishes would get proportionally more."

I've also found copps' tank of the month profile interesting; he's a big believer (and has had great success) in keeping angels and other borderline reef-safe fish in reef settings, and feeding seems to be a big part of that.

"Almost as important as what you feed is how often you feed. I cringe when I hear some reefers only feed their tank once every few days. I feed a varied assortment of all frozen foods twice a day on every one of my tanks. With this I’ve been able to keep every specimen you see happy. That second feeding really makes a difference, and will also keep your angelfish more satiated and less apt to pick on your reef.

One exception is in my quarantine tanks on newly acquired specimens. I will feed these sometimes five or six times a day to help recoup the body fat they’ve lost during the long chain of custody many of the fish in our hobby see, often with little to no feeding at all!"

There's also this quite cool experimental study on damselfish, where scientists fed damselfish pairs either once a day, two out of three days (low quantity diet), or every day twice a day (high quantity diet). Food used in this study was a combo of commercially available flakes & pellets.

They found that the low quantity diet was the minimum needed to reproduce, while the high quantity diet was the amount needed to enhance adult condition. Condition was measured by length & weight of the adult fish after six weeks on the diet. Parent fish fed a high quantity diet (twice a day every day) were bigger and longer than the fish fed once a day, two out of three days. They laid more eggs (and bigger eggs), and reproduced earlier and more often. Their babies were larger at hatching and more likely to survive. So yes, amount of feeding absolutely can make a difference to fish' health and condition.

 

[PAXpress]

I've always found this article - on the natural feeding habits of the fish we keep in the wild, contrasted with typical aquarium husbandry practices - to be quite interesting.


I've also found copps' tank of the month profile interesting; he's a big believer (and has had great success) in keeping angels and other borderline reef-safe fish in reef settings, and feeding seems to be a big part of that.


There's also this quite cool experimental study on damselfish, where scientists fed damselfish pairs either once a day, two out of three days (low quantity diet), or every day twice a day (high quantity diet). Food used in this study was a combo of commercially available flakes & pellets.

They found that the low quantity diet was the minimum needed to reproduce, while the high quantity diet was the amount needed to enhance adult condition. Condition was measured by length & weight of the adult fish after six weeks on the diet. Parent fish fed a high quantity diet (twice a day every day) were bigger and longer than the fish fed once a day, two out of three days. They laid more eggs (and bigger eggs), and reproduced earlier and more often. Their babies were larger at hatching and more likely to survive. So yes, amount of feeding absolutely can make a difference to fish' health and condition.

Very interesting. I wish I had the time and patience (mainly this) to feed 3 times a day. That's why I think I'll have to get an auto feeder.

I appreciate all the responses received. Think as a plan of action, continue feeding as often as I can muster, and add an auto feeder in the near future to not replace manual feeding but to supplement in between feedings.

 

[Fredfish]

Analogy was with dogs. Body condition of the fish will tell you if you are feeding enough and if they are healthy, period. That was my point. OP mentioned about hearing that frequent feedings was recommended. Another poster eluded to the fish being healthier if you feed more frequent. I have experienced healthy fish without going to the trouble of multiple frequent feedings and they are thriving.

What do I care if people chase frequent feeding, but to suggest fish are healthier with more, than reference please.

Funny, My experience with two farm dogs was exactly the opposite. They had food any time they wanted (set amount per day) and they ate as they were hungry. In the end, they trained me on the amount of food to set out for the day. Never got fat, or bored, but then they had many acres to wander and do dog stuff every day.

I would think your feeding strategy would depend entirely on they type of fish you have and their natural feeding behavior. You won't feed a lion fish multiple times per day. You would with seahorses (and anthias?) because that is the way their gut is designed (short path optimized for constant feeding).

I will agree that you should watch your fish for signs of malnutrition/health.