Feeding help!

Can anyone help me with feeding my clown fish? I've given them some "formula one" frozen food a couple times, in small pieces, it floats down, they each take a bit or 2 and then the bulk of it sits on the bottom and they look up waiting for more. I thawed it out before giving it to them. What am I doing wrong? It's not like they don't want it, but once it's past them, they just ignore it. Help?!?!?

 

I'm going to guess their small. I feed mine brine shrimp or flake food. They seem to like the flake food more.

I too have a small pair.

 

Clowns rarely if ever feed from the substrate. I would feed them flakes as it stays in the water column for a bit longer than frozen and doesn't pollute your water as much.

 

What's the best way to remove the uneaten portions of the formula1 from the tank (I assume I don't want to leave it in there)? Some of it has settled under the rocks - I don't have to pull all the rocks out to get it do I?

 

If you have hermit crabs or nassarius snails, they should eat whatever remains. If you don't and you can't get to the food, I wouldn't worry about it. More for the bristle worms

 

Sounds like you are feeding too much. Cut down until you find them getting most if not all of it. My old percula didn't seem to need that much food.

 

I don't think it's overfeeding because they literally take about 1 or maybe 2 bites of anything and that's it. I would think they'd eat more than that...

 

I found that if I retrieve the uneaten portion that falls to the bottom and re-insert it at the top, they'll eat a couple more bites and so on. Tried mashing it so smaller and takes longer to sink and seems to be working better, but now I need to determine if I'm feeding too much, as I think if I keep re-inserting it, they'd eat whatever I gave them. The "what they can eat in a couple minutes" rule doesn't totally apply because the food drops to the bottom in 30 seconds... Any more thoughts on all this?

 

Is Formula one the stuff that even when thawed stays in cube form because of some sort of Gelatin? If so get the stuff that completely breaks apart when thawed. Also if you are feeding an entire cube to 2 Clowns I would have to say thats too much. Maybe cut it in half

J

 

Yes it is the cubes in the gelatin, and no, I'm not giving them an entire cube. Have been using about a fourth of a cube.