Feeding Fish

[Thyra]

There are so many warnings about "overfeeding", but the amounts to feed are very vague - like only feed the amount they will eat in "x minutes" and x seems to vary any where from 1 to 5 and so does the number of times a day. Is the overfeeding bad because the fish eat too much or because it fouls the aquarium if they don't eat it all? How much does a Molly or Platy eat at a time and how often? I have three Mollies, two different kinds of flaked food and dried bloodworms. I put a pinch in, which is about 1/8 teaspoon, and it is gone in about 1 minutes before any of it gets to the bottom of the tank. They get excited every time I go by the aquarium, so I wind up doing it 3 or 4 times a day. I have also fed them some mosquito larva and they go crazy for that. Its like they are always hungry.

 

[tom91970]

Yes and yes. Food that sinks and is not eaten fouls the water. And the more food that is consumed means more biowaste. Remember: the more it eats, the more it excretes.

I used to go by the rule of feeding once in the AM, once in the PM. Now I feed only in the evening, and might skip a day or two each week. Fish will always appear hungry. In nature I don't imagine they eat every day, but as they find something. Might be alot in one day, not much the next.

I recently did a cleaning job on a tank ($150 was my share). By the next week (actually maybe three days later) the ammonia level in the water was very high due to massive over-feeding (food was all over the bottom). Had to redrain the tank which put another $100 in my pocket (again, my share, so that was a $200 mistake on the customer's part).

So, in sum, over-feeding es no bueno.

 

[josephus]

I don't know if this is true and would appreciate it if someone knowledgeable would comment, but I've been told that a fish's stomach is about the same size as it's eyeball. So, I sort of use that as a guide when feeding and I feed twice a day, early am and late afternoon.

 

[OrangeCones]

In the lab work I've done in biology, I would say it is not true (eye = stomach size). Look at fish anatomy books and websites and you can see the differences in size, with the stomach being much larger.

That being said, fish are opportunistic feeders and will eat as long as there is food available in most cases. In the wild they will eat every day all day if they can find food. The trouble in an aquarium is that its a controlled environment. Our fish do not need to swim miles to find food (using lots of calories to do so), nor are the dodging larger fish that want to eat them (unless you are not stocking your tank right).

Except for small, developing fry, I only feed my fish once a day, with one day of fasting each week for most fish. One species eats only 2-3 times a week. It all depends on the fish.

Feed enough so that they are not losing weight (too little food) and no uneaten food is fouling the water (too much food).