Feeding The Fish, How Much? And How Many Times?

[SSJ]

I still am confused about feeding my fish..i feed them once a day, and they eat as if its a free meal voucher at McDonald's and finish it up instantly. Tank contains 30 tetra neons and 12 guppies. 45 gallon tank

 

[seth rodgers]

For the first month of having my fish I fed them once a day at night, flakes for the mollies and platies and gourami and two pellets each for the corys (very small). Then I started feeding them a little amount every day and on the weekend some brine shrimp. Thats how I do it though I am sure others do it differently. Never overfeed them though or else you will have to do plenty more water changes then normal.

 

[Jenoli42]

I still am confused about feeding my fish..i feed them once a day, and they eat as if its a free meal voucher at McDonald's and finish it up instantly. Tank contains 30 tetra neons and 12 guppies. 45 gallon tank

for schooling species the guide is as much as they can eat in 1-2 mins. if flakes hit the bottom you may be overfeeding. sounds like you've got it about right

 

[finnipper59]

I agree that you are feeding correctly with what you are keeping. I have to feed smaller amounts but twice a day. My school of redeye tetras are gobblers, my 5 angelfish are slightly slower, and my betta wants to dine with mannerly slowness. By the time the betta is ready for his 4th bite, the food is already polished off. He then piddles around plant roots looking for missed morsels.

for schooling species the guide is as much as they can eat in 1-2 mins. if flakes hit the bottom you may be overfeeding. sounds like you've got it about right

 

[-Serenity-]

A good rule to go by is fish stomachs are only as big as their eyes.
Feed about that much per fish.
I feed once and sometimes twice a day.

 

[finnipper59]

I agree that you are feeding correctly with what you are keeping. I have to feed smaller amounts but twice a day. My school of redeye tetras are gobblers, my 5 angelfish are slightly slower, and my betta wants to dine with mannerly slowness. By the time the betta is ready for his 4th bite, the food is already polished off. He then piddles around plant roots looking for missed morsels.

A good rule to go by is fish stomachs are only as big as their eyes.
Feed about that much per fish.
I feed once and sometimes twice a day.

For a fish's stomachs being the size of their eyes is true with guppies and some other tetra species...it's perfect. But that's going to vary by speices. For instance, have you ever something like an Oscar gulp down feeder goldfish? But usually the fish with larger stomachs like certain cichlids and certain tetras like the pirhannas have bigger stomachs because they are predators and don't always get to eat everyday.

 

[xloe]

I want to confess that as a new fishkeeper, I am almost sure that I underfed my fish. I was totally freaked out about overfeeding. I read a lot about everyone should get a couple bites, the stomach is the size of their eye, etc. I now feed once a day, and I feed them until I feel confident that they are not starving. Once the mad dash appears to be over, I start scaling back to check if they still are interested in eating or not.
I think you just have to find a rhythm that works for you (and them).

 

[finnipper59]

That's good advice. Some fish like cory catfish like to graze in the substrate looking for food almost all day. But what they find to eat are very small particles at a time. So even though they appear to be pigging out all day they don't actually eat much more than one of your larger guppies in one feeding.

I want to confess that as a new fishkeeper, I am almost sure that I underfed my fish. I was totally freaked out about overfeeding. I read a lot about everyone should get a couple bites, the stomach is the size of their eye, etc. I now feed once a day, and I feed them until I feel confident that they are not starving. Once the mad dash appears to be over, I start scaling back to check if they still are interested in eating or not.
I think you just have to find a rhythm that works for you (and them).

 

[-Serenity-]

As long as you have some type of clean up crew fish/snails/shrimp there shouldn't be to much worry about over feeding.
Underfed fish eat tank mates.

 

[finnipper59]

As long as you have some type of clean up crew fish/snails/shrimp there shouldn't be to much worry about over feeding.
Underfed fish eat tank mates.

Your tank size coud still accommodate a schoo of 6 cory catfish or 10 pygmy cories. But if you substrate is gravel, I would choose the pygmy cory rather tahn the full size. The fill sized cories try to dig and wind up harming their bardels. The pygmies eat around one piece of gravel and in the little spaces at a time.