Is it possible to overfeed your tank?

[prnces1988]

I have gotten conflicting information on how much food to feed and how often. I have a 75 gallon reef tank with 5 fish(sailfin, hippo, clown, pajama, engineer), 3 anenomies, and a cleaning crew(3 shrimp, various crabs and snails, live rock). I want the fish to grow but don't want to overfeed. My lfs says feed once every other day but I've read numerous places to feed as much as 3 times per day every day. A little help going forward would be much appreciated.

 

[GroktheCube]

If water chemistry is negatively impacted, you're feeding too much.

I personally think feeding a small amount several times a day is the best way to go, but healthy fish can certainly last quite a while without food with few negative consequences.

By feeding a few times per day, you can increase the number of calories the fish get in a day (thus promoting growth), while wasting less food in the process. Most fish don't have huge stomachs, so their stomach can become the limiting factor for energy intake when fed only once a day (or every other day).

I think frequency of feeding is something that takes a little bit of experimentation to get the hang of.

 

[RayL]

I have gotten conflicting information on how much food to feed and how often. I have a 75 gallon reef tank with 5 fish(sailfin, hippo, clown, pajama, engineer), 3 anenomies, and a cleaning crew(3 shrimp, various crabs and snails, live rock). I want the fish to grow but don't want to overfeed. My lfs says feed once every other day but I've read numerous places to feed as much as 3 times per day every day. A little help going forward would be much appreciated.

I personally feed minimum twice a day up to 5 times a day, I just dont throw too much food in the tank unless I know I am not going to be able to feed them again and its still early in the day.

On another note, a sailfin and hippo are far too active for a tank that size

 

[frostyjay1]

I feed frozen food every other day and flakes/pellets alternating. seems to work well for me to lower my phosphates after a bad algea outbreak

 

[MrTuskfish]

As long as food doesn't remain uneaten, i don't think you're over-feeding. IMO & IME: there are far more underfed than overfed fish----fear of overloading the bio-filter. I see nothing wrong with feeding most fish as much as they'll eat, within reason, and this doesn't apply to predators that gulp, lions especially. As RayL said; I would expect some serious aggression from those two tangs as they mature. Fish of this genus rarely get along in smallish tanks.

 

[Dmorty217]

As long as food doesn't remain uneaten, i don't think you're over-feeding. IMO & IME: there are far more underfed than overfed fish----fear of overloading the bio-filter. I see nothing wrong with feeding most fish as much as they'll eat, within reason, and this doesn't apply to predators that gulp, lions especially. As RayL said; I would expect some serious aggression from those two tangs as they mature. Fish of this genus rarely get along in smallish tanks.

+1 I feed 3-5 times a day but only a little each time as in all the food is eaten within 3 mins

 

[Ambition]

I've never understood why people say feed fish every other day unless they are predators like lionfish, groupers, eels, etc. The fish we commonly keep in a reef community naturally feed as food items flow by or are founds on the rock/substrate. While our fish will survive on one feeding every day or every other day, I have found that my fish seem to thrive more so when fed multiple small feedings throughout the day. I don't time how long it takes the food to get eaten since my fish seem to fill up within 30 seconds of the food hitting the water. After initial purchase of a fish it takes a little bit of figuring, but I can usually get just the right amount of food in each tank without anything left over after having the fish a couple of days.

Right now with my fish in QT I'm feeding a minimum of 3x daily, this is for an orchid dottyback, two springeri dottybacks, and a pair of black snowflakes (dottyback species in separate tanks). Once out of QT and in their proper broodstock tanks I expect to be feeding at least 4x per day, maybe 5 if I can get the dottybacks to eat flakes and pellets.

 

[drej424]

I feed 3 times a day, just not too much at once. It's usually some seaweed flakes or nori first, then pellets, and then mysis, krill, and/or cyclopeeze.

 

[humaguy]

I feed heavily...3-5 times a day minimum...

 

[krzyphsygy]

I feed 2-3 x a day everyday. Nori clip full all day with fresh nori and frozen and pellets. My fish are fat and my corals eat better this way from the fish waste they produce.
I do not broadcast feed my corals. I rely totally on fish waste for coral feeding and my corals are doing well.

 

[MrTuskfish]

I think all of this goes way back to the days when the use of LR started and the the "cycle" was just becoming understood. I can remember fish books & mags and the warning "Don't overfeed or everything will die" were everywhere and this was the the first rule of fishkeeping at the time. Now that we know a mature tank will have two types of friendly bacteria that multiply very rapidly when needed and a little extra food isn't a big deal. LFSs seem to always underfeed so customers can see a fish eat; then the kid passes on this info, thinking its the way to go.
IMO, the new #1 rule should be "Quarentine Everything, Always". And feed as much as the fish will eat, as often as you want. (within reason.)

 

[Allmost]

I feed enough to keep fish fat. for me and my stock, this means once a day frozen food, and twice a day pellets, and half a nori sheet, daily.

I increase my "filtration" abilities to allow me to take out what I feed.

 

[Rea17]

I'm also someone who feeds on the heavier side. My fish get 2 sheets of seaweed twice a day and pellets/flakes/or frozen 3-5 times per day. My fish are happy/fat/peaceful and my maintenance routine makes up for the extra food.

 

[Ranger Daryl]

I know the rule of thumb on some fish is to feed several times a day, but how far apart should the feedings be? I work eight hours a day so obviuosly there is a long period of no feeding. On weekends I will spread feedings out over several hours each day. My now closed local fish store would feed his tanks any time someone walked into the store(which was quite often). he even came in on closed days to feed fish and check tanks. He used to joke that he went through more Rods Food than his customers.

 

[ca1ore]

For me, primarily, feeding in such a way that no excess food decomposes in the system is the key. Secondarily, monitor nitrate levels to ensure there are adequate export mechanisms. Having said that, there are countless organisms in a reef tank beyond the fish to consume food - worms, crabs, shrimp, pods ... even corals - so perhaps monitoring nitrates is most important.

My feeding schedule:

Feeding #1 - 1 cube equivalent of nori/seaweed in a clip
Feeding #2 - 1 cube of mysid, cyclopese, or brine
Feeding #3 - 1 cube equivalent of flake or pellet food
Feeding #4 - 1-2 cube equivalent Reef/Fish Frenzy

So, total of 5 cube equivalents/day. Export mechanisms include simmer, water changes, macro in fuge and a just-installed ATS.

 

[tmz]

I lke to feed my fish and feed heavily but the biofilter and other filtration in my system keeps up with it. If imports nutrients( or ganic carbon , nitrogen and phoshorrus and other elemts from food) exceed the tanks filtration then there is a problem;i.e. ,the tank is under filtered or overfed depending on which you want to call it.

BTW, it doesn't matter much if the fish eat all the food ,most of it particularly phosphate is processed out as excess in fish waste.

The only way I know to start to answer your question is to test and look at DIN ( dissolved inorganic nitrogen levels,i.e, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) and inorganic phosphate( PO4) . If they are high then input is out of balance with export( skimming, gac, gfo, denitrification , filter socks, etc). If the tank has nuisance algae and or cyano bacteria it likely has high nutrients.