How many times do you feed your fishes daily?

[DUCADOS]

For me sometime twice a day but smelly smelly also once a day.

[Mun Suk]

I also feed them twice a day.

Anything more than that water quality seem not that good. May be I over fed.

[jamesbond]

agreed with whale shark, feed as many times as possible with little amount, as fishes in ocean hunt for food 24/7; and it will deluge it out after few minutes, feed many times + low nutrion food. Times to feed and amount depend on kind of fishes, number of fishes and tank condition... therefore, there is no optimized figure. As long as your fishes is healthy, active and colorful ... then we are in right track.

i feed 3 times / day, floating food, and make sure one fish can eat 3-5 small pellet / time.

[Goondoo]

Its nearly impossible for wild fishes to find food daily, not to mention "sufficient" food. I remember I read somewhere that a good average is they find food once every 2 weeks. Some even months.

But in the wild, its a natural cycle. Hungry and weak fish soon become food for others. I usually feed my fish 1-2 times a week.

[jamesbond]

it is hard to say right or wrong ... if you have fish in your reef tank, it will find all their nutritive needs in the aquarium. it can also turn aggressive and learn to pick on corals and eventually feed on them.

I till believe that if we feed them less than one time / day, we are just lucky to keep them survival.

[[V]tEc]

i feed my fishes with auto feeder 5 times a day and frozen food of 5 cubes of mysis in the evening...

[yikai]

it is hard to say right or wrong ... if you have fish in your reef tank, it will find all their nutritive needs in the aquarium. it can also turn aggressive and learn to pick on corals and eventually feed on them.

I till believe that if we feed them less than one time / day, we are just lucky to keep them survival.

thats not quite true.

fishes will starve in a reef tank if not fed. unless you have an extremely large tank or your rocks are extremely proliferous in terms of fauna for consumption. this goes for dwarf angels, butterflies which are constantly grazing 24/7. that said, if the fauna on the rocks are consumed slowe than they regenerate, the fish will be alright. However, wether or not they get all their nutrition, is still uncertain. Certain things found in the ocean may not be found in your rocks, therefore it's still important to feed your fishes

if the fishes pick on corals by nature, example certain angels and butterflies, then no amount of feeding will prevent them from nipping. they will still nip your corals irregardless. it's not about hunger, it's about genes. they are programmed to do that and are not controlled by hunger.

[Terryz_]

Its nearly impossible for wild fishes to find food daily, not to mention "sufficient" food. I remember I read somewhere that a good average is they find food once every 2 weeks. Some even months.

But in the wild, its a natural cycle. Hungry and weak fish soon become food for others. I usually feed my fish 1-2 times a week.

Am I seeing things? 1-2 time a week? My feeding routine is morning and evening if I am working... I feed all day long when I am not working but pinch by pinch not like 1 teaspoon everytime.... LOL...

[yikai]

Am I seeing things? 1-2 time a week? My feeding routine is morning and evening if I am working... I feed all day long when I am not working but pinch by pinch not like 1 teaspoon everytime.... LOL...

what he meant is fish find food only 1-2 times a week in the wild lol.

this is true for some species of fish. like maybe some predatory or tertiary consumers.

but for most reef fishes, they eat more than what we feed them in the home aquarium. fishes like damsels, wrasses, angels, butterflies, anthias etc are constantly feeding 24/7 a day on either planktonic food or feeding on benthic inverts on rocks.

they eat tons in the wild!

and terryz, i know ppl who dun feed their tank at all -.- fish still alive. lol..

[Terryz_]

Its nearly impossible for wild fishes to find food daily, not to mention "sufficient" food. I remember I read somewhere that a good average is they find food once every 2 weeks. Some even months.

But in the wild, its a natural cycle. Hungry and weak fish soon become food for others. I usually feed my fish 1-2 times a week.

Bro, read again.. LOL...

[Terryz_]

what he meant is fish find food only 1-2 times a week in the wild lol.

this is true for some species of fish. like maybe some predatory or tertiary consumers.

but for most reef fishes, they eat more than what we feed them in the home aquarium. fishes like damsels, wrasses, angels, butterflies, anthias etc are constantly feeding 24/7 a day on either planktonic food or feeding on benthic inverts on rocks.

they eat tons in the wild!

and terryz, i know ppl who dun feed their tank at all -.- fish still alive. lol..

I know they eat ton in the wild, so I feed them tons when I can...

Faintz, No feeding of fishes.. Cant imagine...

[yikai]

Bro, read again.. LOL...

omg. PA JIAO LIAO HAHA

[jamesbond]

I fully agree that we are unsure if fishes get what it needs even we feed them well and regular, there is hundred of food in nature that it eats in the ocean. you will train them to have bad habit by limit feeding, it might copy eating behavious of other fishes, or turn to extremely aggressive.

i have one koran angelfish that also look for anemous, corals when it feels empty.

[Terryz_]

It is in their instinct to look for corals in the tank when they are hungry and yes, they will nip less but not stop eating eating when they are fed...

[Goondoo]

I don't know what give you guys the impression and food are easy to find in the wild.

From my personal observation, food are never easy to find in the wild. Even during seasons when there are (such as breeding season), their predator will be lurking around.

You would understand if you are a seasoned diver.

Just look at places that allow feeding of fishes, the water are always infested with algae and most corals struggling, bleached or dead.

There are a balance in Mother Nature to keep everything in a correct proportion and food/water is always the biggest challenge and many lost their life to satisfy this equation.

[poomoon]

I don't know what give you guys the impression and food are easy to find in the wild.

From my personal observation, food are never easy to find in the wild. Even during seasons when there are (such as breeding season), their predator will be lurking around.

You would understand if you are a seasoned diver.

Just look at places that allow feeding of fishes, the water are always infested with algae and most corals struggling, bleached or dead.

There are a balance in Mother Nature to keep everything in a correct proportion and food/water is always the biggest challenge and many lost their life to satisfy this equation.

well said bro. i agree on this. that's why when an imbalance happens (whether too much predators or too less down the food chain), catastrophe strikes. and man also plays a big role on possibly causing such imbalance.

[Goondoo]

well said bro. i agree on this. that's why when an imbalance happens (whether too much predators or too less down the food chain), catastrophe strikes. and man also plays a big role on possibly causing such imbalance.

Thanks poomoon,

It is really sad human indeed defies the nature order.

Anyway, I went Redang recently with my family and we went snorkeling. Laguna shipped us to different locations of the island and tourists were encourage to buy bread from them to feed the fishes (I am guilty of this but I koped from breakfast ). There are indeed a lot of fishes everywhere and the "life guards" even dived down to feed the Anemone with bread. It is obvious there were lots of corals especially SPS, but what I witness is pure white scape of dead corals. The ignorant tourists were even complementing how pretty it was.......

The next day, we decided to explore the island ourself. We rented a kayak and scuba around. We witness healthy corals in places that tourist do not visit.

[alcatraz01]

i have a longnose yellow butterflyfish which is now 2.5 months in the tank. i feed once in morning frozen brine shrimp and again in evening. only on weekend i feed live brine shrimp. it does eat a little bit of shrimp flakes. but i guess it won't last in my tank (probably poor quality water, as have not replenish with new water quite some time). any one out there keeping this same fish, need your advice.

[LaW]

actually, i believe they will be alot of plankton(zooplankton etc) for most smaller fishes.

i have a longnose yellow butterflyfish which is now 2.5 months in the tank. i feed once in morning frozen brine shrimp and again in evening. only on weekend i feed live brine shrimp. it does eat a little bit of shrimp flakes. but i guess it won't last in my tank (probably poor quality water, as have not replenish with new water quite some time). any one out there keeping this same fish, need your advice.

Hi alcatraz01,

if your water quality is poor, then try to solve it by improving your filtration system and do more water change. As long that fella is eating and treated for disease, it shld be good. do try your means to improve your LS's environment.

and do without live adult brineshrimp, they are "empty" food with poor nutrition value and never believe in live food because you never know what kind of bacteria/parasite they brought with them.

[yikai]

don't feed brine shrimp............................

just feed mysis. it costs about the same and is a hundred times more nutritious.

[spycoool]

One time only

[alcatraz01]

thank you, Law. will try mysis shrimp.

[alcatraz01]

thank you LemonLemon

[Oprime]

Wonder why the heck do they even sell brine shrimp! YOUSLESS. Some people will even say no need to change water - top up enough! The best part is they say it with such confidence! JIA LAT one!!! hahahahaha anyway this post is damn funny! you guys crack me up!!

[puppet]

Wonder why the heck do they even sell brine shrimp! YOUSLESS. Some people will even say no need to change water - top up enough! The best part is they say it with such confidence! JIA LAT one!!! hahahahaha anyway this post is damn funny! you guys crack me up!!

Brine Shrimp are good way to tempt finicky fishes to start feeding. I have used this method to encourage fishes who do not respond to frozen/ prepared food initially to get them starting and slowly train them to take alternate sources of food.

Some reputable LFS do sell Brine Shrimp which are pre-enriched or gut loaded, these can be very good. We can also gut load the brine shrimp before feeding to the fishes, this could be done through adding phytoplankton etc and adding a bubbling airstone perhaps an hour or 2 prior to feeding.

But I think what Oprime is trying to share is that Brine shrimp in itself really as very little nutrition value.

As for not changing water, whether it could be done really depends on the rationale of why we perform water changes.

1) remove unwanted compounds

2) replenish useful compounds

1) Could there be other methods of removal of undesirable compounds, I think there are plenty like skimmer, FR, ATS, Denitrator, K1 media, biopellets, macroalgae in refugium, DSB, activated carbon and the list simply goes on.

The question is whether the compounds removed through water change, are they the same as the above mentioned methods, if they really are, then we answered one aspect of the usefulness of water changes. But this can't really be verified unless someone does some lab test.

2) What is in NSW or prepared saltwater that replenishes what was lost in a closed aquarium? Could these compounds be added in through other methods like dosing? Again tests need to be done to first identify these important compounds and then a source other than water changes sought out. But I think there are quite a number of literature on the net in regards to this.

Well at the end of the day, if we invest in a lot of equipment to ensure the quality of the water for our LS, and changing water is one more layer of protection for them, then why not?

PS: I have yet to change my water for a long time, it all voice down personally for me to this, I am a lazy bum. If only I could translate the time and effort from relocating corals to changing water