Neptune Aquatics

How much to feed fish? Do we tend to overfeed our pets? Easy to feed a lot, difficult to feed the right amount

Fortunately for mr, I’m not as analytical some
But in general and from my experience what I see people don’t understand the amount of energy fish spend swimming around and in place. And they don’t offer enough often enough of a varied diet.
“Uhhh yeah, I’ve got a pellet and frozen mysis and I alternate them” just ain’t cutting it!
There are past posts where I have shared my feed menu
Nothing has everything, but everything does!
 
MichaelB said:
Does what your fish eat in two minutes not apply? I also saw something about their stomach being the size of their eyeballs to estimate how much to feed?

You mentioned weight and body %based feeding prob has potential just seems a little impractical long term like i don't see myself weighing fish food before feeding them or weighing the fish to make it really accurate.
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It is my understanding that this is the approach from professional fish farms translated to our hobby and I assume fish farms want their fish well fed and healthy too.

I am not sure if it is impractical really. Seems rather easy to weigh food. The auto feeder can be calibrated once to consistently feed the amount I want. Weighing frozen food is easy too.
 
clownvan said:
I think you can feed a fish in a tank too much. It is not like it is out in the wild where it is constantly working for its food, hustling away from predators, etc. and in need of that many calories.

A fat fish is not necessarily a healthy fish.
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I tend to agree in general. Although I do not know if a fish can actually overeat. I lean towards a maybe. My father in law has a trout farm, and there are concerns with fish eating too much, but need to check. I think it is more a waste, vs negative impact to the fish, which makes me believe there is a sweet spot to feed the fish adequately and do not pollute the water too much in which the fish actually has to swim in.
 
Kensington Reefer said:
Fortunately for mr, I’m not as analytical some
But in general and from my experience what I see people don’t understand the amount of energy fish spend swimming around and in place. And they don’t offer enough often enough of a varied diet.
“Uhhh yeah, I’ve got a pellet and frozen mysis and I alternate them” just ain’t cutting it!
There are past posts where I have shared my feed menu
Nothing has everything, but everything does!
Click to expand...
I am really curious who you see not feeding enough. I feel it’s mostly the opposite.

The variety piece is interesting. Paul Baldessano who is as passionate about fish as you are thinks a fish can live very happy and healthy on the same food for decades, demonstrated through regular spawning etc.

Still, I tend to support the variety argument, but I also believe that pellet food has much evolved in the past few years, and some provider have excellent varied ingredients. So it is not as one dimensional nutrient wise as it could appear. I have 6 different types of pellets in my auto feeder mixed, but I am not convinced it has to be.

Also, LRS frozen food is a good alternative for those who do not want to prepare their own food.

I do not consider brine shrimp an adequate food source.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Paul Baldessano who is as passionate about fish as you are thinks a fish can live very happy and healthy on the same food for decades, demonstrated through regular spawning etc.
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I don't have too much input here, but spawning cannot be a reliable indicator of "happy and healthy". I've seen some very consistently-spawning clowns in minuscule containers. Sanjay Joshi, at least at one point, had several pairs of clowns in his overflow alone, each with maybe a gallon of water, which bred regularly.

I need to ask one of my angelfish keeping friends about this. He went deep into the fish nutrition rabbit hole
 
Alexander1312 said:
While not the main point here, I just want to address the concern that I do not feed my fish properly.

This is their current diet:

- 3 x daily 40 secs high quality pellet food each 2 hours apart with AVAST auto feeder
- 1 x daily frozen food LRS various types
- 2 nori sheets daily
- several larger dandelion leaves daily
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This is a complex issue. Reducing it to a recipe is a good rule of thumb to get going, but all fish and tanks are different, the amount of food to keep fish healthy going into a low flow tank for fish will be different than a high flow tank. Also, different fish need food at different amounts (and often different foods). The recipe eventually can get reefers into trouble because it has nothing to do with the actuality of living in your tank.
The starting body weight/compisition matters, and that matters for folks that say somtimes they don't feed their fish for a week or two. What they snack on in the tank also matters, as does the amount of exercise the fish get from flow or flow changes.

Fish can over eat.
You also need to think about how much of your fish food is for corals.

I get skinny fish in the lab tanks when I don't pay enough attention for various reasons or the auto feeders have clogged. Its not great, and I fix it when I see it.

I aim to have autofeeders on all my tanks for the fish that don't need frozen. In there I put coral foods, pellets, and flake (I love a good flake food, and the NPS can catch the flakes). I feed frozen intermittently. I would like to be feed it evey other day, or every third day.

There is no way I can give you direction on animals I have not seen. If the fish are thin, feed more, if they are too fat, feed less. I think chasing numbers is generally not good, but worse when making feeding choices - you don't stop feed the baby less because you don't like changing diapers. :)
 
Thales said:
This is a complex issue. Reducing it to a recipe is a good rule of thumb to get going, but all fish and tanks are different, the amount of food to keep fish healthy going into a low flow tank for fish will be different than a high flow tank. Also, different fish need food at different amounts (and often different foods). The recipe eventually can get reefers into trouble because it has nothing to do with the actuality of living in your tank.
The starting body weight/compisition matters, and that matters for folks that say somtimes they don't feed their fish for a week or two. What they snack on in the tank also matters, as does the amount of exercise the fish get from flow or flow changes.

Fish can over eat.
You also need to think about how much of your fish food is for corals.

I get skinny fish in the lab tanks when I don't pay enough attention for various reasons or the auto feeders have clogged. Its not great, and I fix it when I see it.

I aim to have autofeeders on all my tanks for the fish that don't need frozen. In there I put coral foods, pellets, and flake (I love a good flake food, and the NPS can catch the flakes). I feed frozen intermittently. I would like to be feed it evey other day, or every third day.

There is no way I can give you direction on animals I have not seen. If the fish are thin, feed more, if they are too fat, feed less. I think chasing numbers is generally not good, but worse when making feeding choices - you don't stop feed the baby less because you don't like changing diapers. :)
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I am available to come comment on your fish “thickness”.
And damn, you’re late to tell me not to feed less to conserve on diapers…

Fish should not look like runway models…where you can see bones
They should be convex in shape, like “()”
 
tribbitt said:
I don't have too much input here, but spawning cannot be a reliable indicator of "happy and healthy". I've seen some very consistently-spawning clowns in minuscule containers. Sanjay Joshi, at least at one point, had several pairs of clowns in his overflow alone, each with maybe a gallon of water, which bred regularly.

I need to ask one of my angelfish keeping friends about this. He went deep into the fish nutrition rabbit hole
Click to expand...
Interesting point. But I have to admit that referring to spawning clowns in a 400 gallon tank overflow not necessarily being a sign of happiness seems harder for me to relate to :).

Also, if this is not a sign of optimal fish health, curious what is?

Lastly, just wanted to emphasize that I am in camp food variety, but it might be overrated to an extent, except the fact that some fish have specific dietary requirements that need to be considered, in some cases extremely difficult to meet requirements.

The thought I had was if a moorish idol, e.g., would be totally happy with the same type of (unlimited supply of) sponges (and some algae) over a variety of other food which does not match their natural preference.
 
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