Feeding my new Firefish, some questions

[Poonagi]

So i got a new firefish yesterday for my 12G. he's the only fish in there right now though.

(picture here for those of you interested): http://bootie.org/~johan/tank/firefish.JPG

anyways, i currently have some mysid shrimp to feed him. i'll also try picking up some flake and/or pellet food sometime this weekend. my questions to you all are:

1. how often should firefish be fed, and how much per feeding? (i gave him 3 or 4 of the mysid shrimp yesterday and he devoured them all)

2. what flake/pellet food do you guys use for your firefish?

3. is it possible to overfeed and kill the fish? i understand overfeeding can cause excess nutrients to be in the water, but how about fish death?

thank you all for your help.

 

[papagimp]

I don't think a firefish will eat itself to death. I'd just keep sticking more mysis or whatever in their until he's "done" eating. The excess nutrients caused from overfeeding isn't from the fish eating too much, it's fromt he excess food settling in the tank somewhere and dissolving, adding to the dissolved organics, nitrates, phosphaes, ect. ect.
Even though my firefish only lasted an hour before a Dominoe Damsel chased them out the tank, I did get a chance to feed em first, and they really seemed to like the freeze dried cyclopeeze. Although I wouldn't make that the main food, but a very nutritous supplement to their daily feedings. Mysis is always good, reef plankton cubes are nice. The only pellet food I feed is the Thera A by New Life Spectrum.

 

[Poonagi]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9718280#post9718280 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by papagimp
I don't think a firefish will eat itself to death. I'd just keep sticking more mysis or whatever in their until he's "done" eating. The excess nutrients caused from overfeeding isn't from the fish eating too much, it's fromt he excess food settling in the tank somewhere and dissolving, adding to the dissolved organics, nitrates, phosphaes, ect. ect.
Even though my firefish only lasted an hour before a Dominoe Damsel chased them out the tank, I did get a chance to feed em first, and they really seemed to like the freeze dried cyclopeeze. Although I wouldn't make that the main food, but a very nutritous supplement to their daily feedings. Mysis is always good, reef plankton cubes are nice. The only pellet food I feed is the Thera A by New Life Spectrum.

great, thanks for the response papagimp. yeah, i meant overfeeding would allow excess food settling, not that the fish would somehow create extra pollution.

i'm assuming you never got a chance to see if your firefish would touch the thera A pellets? i kind of wanted to mix up his food... some flake, some pellet, and of course the shrimp. didn't know what a good food would be that he would actually eat.

 

[six.line]

papagimp gave great advice.

In addition to the food stuff, though, make sure your tank has a tight fitting lid. Firefish are notorious jumpers.