Maintaining feeding small fish

[xxnonamexx]

I have my fish in my 120 fowlr 2 percula clowns, yellow wrasse, arc hawkish, kole tang, blue spot puffer, elibi angel. They are doing excellent. Since they are all approx 1.5" in size I have been feeding flake and frozen brine shrimp since they are small fish. Should I feed them less since they are small and don't eat as much? I just dont want to underfeed or have food sitting in sand wasting away. I just added the fish on Thursday so I don't know when to do a water change w/o messing with the tank chemistry. Thanks.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Do you mean that you put 7 fish in the tank last Thursday? If so, you are likely to have an ammonia spike even if the tank was completely cycled previously. How long has it been set up? Have you been testing for ammonia and what are the results? You are likely to need to do a water change now if you dropped 7 fish in 5 days ago.

It is best to go slowly and quarantine all of your fish before introducing them to your main tank. Ask questions here before you take action.

Just feed small amounts of food - only what gets eaten in a minute or less. You can feed the small amounts 2-3 times per day.

 

[xxnonamexx]

Yes I understand the nitrate, ammonia which is ok so far I will test again this evening but if it spikes should I do a 30% water change? Yes the tank has been resetup for 56 weeks and this is the first shot of fish added the water levels no ammonia, nitrates, at time of fish introduction as well as the 3rd day. I will test again this evening and if there is since food has been added to the tank more should I do a 30% water change? I understand about quarantining before adding I read so much on multiple forums and this was another option to acclimate w/o quarantine which is the route I took. In reality the main tank is a quarantine since they are the first mates. Small portions what do you consider small portions? I give a pinch of spirulina flakes (the green lid and purple lid) along with brine shrimp.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Yes, if you see ammonia spiking, use 30% water changes to manage the ammonia levels down. You may need to do the water changes every couple of days for a while to keep up with ammonia until your biofilter ramps up.

The pinch of flakes plus a third of a cube of frozen brine should be an ok amount. I would substitute mysis for the brine and use frozen spirulina-enriched brine and not plain brine. You can increase the amount of food once you are sure your biofilter can handle the full load of fish, say in a week or ten days. Right now, make sure each fish gets something to eat but hold off on stuffing them with food until the tank can handle it.

 

[Monkeyfish]

I'd feed them twice per day, as much as they will eat in 2-3 minutes and keep an eye out to make sure no one hogs all the food and that everyone is eating. You may want to put a small piece of nori on a clip in the tank for the tang depending on how mature the system is and how much algae is hanging around.

Brine shrimp has little to no nutrtion - switch to mysis if possible. Since the fish are so small you may want to use Hikari mysis which I've found to be smaller than PE.

...and yes, if there is an ammonia spike, do a 30-40% water change and maybe skip a meal or two (the fish not you ).