Feeding POLL! (hypothetical)

This may have been done before, but either way I say it's time again.

Just in this forum alone I hear everything from three small meals a day to every three days.

It should be understood that the more fish one has and the larger those fish are the more they will need to eat. So for the purposes of this poll, I will restrict the options to frequency rather than quantity.

I also understand that different types of systems use different filtration methods and that some can afford to feed more often than others. Again, for the sake of simplicity lets keep this simple and assume that our filtration is the ocean and that our nitrates will stay low no matter how often we feed.

I know that I need to eat more than once a day otherwise I'm terribly hungry and stressed out. If I ate every 2 days I would be starving to death. If I ate too much I would be overweight and unhealthy. It's hard to imagine that any living creature is much different.

So, under perfectly ideal conditions, how often does a marine fish need to eat?

 

I find that my animals keep eating until i stop putting food in the tank. Even though they know they get food later. hope that answers something

I feed twice aday.

 

Perfectly ideal conditions implies natural habitat, aka, ocean, in which most fish eat constantly throughout the day.

There is more to this question than meets the eye.

Different fish have different needs... ie, I feed my anthias twice a day, tangs only once a day or every other.

Also, depends upon the bio-load handling capacity of the system. If one is running large amounts of bio-pellets, he can feed much heavier than someone running simply a HOB skimmer.

Again, under ideal conditions, a fish should almost eat continuously. For my system, it is not practical to feed more than twice a day (one of those a very small meal for the anthias as previously mentioned).

 

I know what you mean, dogs are the same way. That's why this question is so hard I think!

 

I offer up a couple small pinches of pellet in the morning & evening, then every other day for dinner is when I offer up some mysis/brine, and every couple days some cyclopeeze. My anemones get a chuck of shrimp or squid about once-twice a week.

 

While it's true that most fish "eat all day", they invariably spend all day hunting and catching that one meal in the wild.

That said, I feed what my fish can eat in roughly 2 - 3 minutes once per day, and everyone stays fat and happy.

 

Herbivores tend to require to eat constantly, while many predators can go longer with out food. Of course there are numerous exceptions.

You question is far to open ended. narrow it down to a specific fish and you'll get much more accurate answers.

 

I think that there are really two questions that should be asked.

1) How much to feed?
2) How often to feed?

If we feed one cube of frozen food a day, feeding that all at once will put a heck of a lot more stress on your tank than feeding it over the course of several feedings. Building up 3 cubes and then feeding once every 3 days will put a lot more stress on your system yet. Nutrient export pathways work best when a natural stepwise progression occurs. Higher level organisms -> waste and byproducts -> lower level organisms -> waste and by products -> export via filtration and water changes. In this scenario, the biomass is tied to the mass of your higher level organisms.

There's definite problems with feeding less often. The obvious is that certain organisms, fish etc... have natural feeding habits and will do best if mimicked. This is what everyone thinks about, but is really the least important. In reality, feeding frequency needs to have little to nothing to do with the fish. Your entire tank is alive, not just the fish.

The bigger issue is everything in your tank, being alive requires food, but the more food you put in, at once, the more waste, as some will will settle before it gets consumed. This will either lead accumulation of nutrients, as no filtration is close to 100% effective. And/or accumulation of biomass, but not biomass in your fish and corals, instead a biomass of algae and benthic creatures. I.e. feather dusters, worms, pods, sponges, nuisance algae etc... This may be good to an extent if you like diversity, but it may become too much or take the form of undesirable organisms. Also, all biomass needs to be sustained or it dies off.

So, there's a second problem here too though. If you don't feed often enough, you can't sustain a large biomass, as higher level organisms will begin to out-compete the lower level organisms. Seems fine, but really lower level organisms contain lots of toxins, antibiotics etc.. When these organisms die off, they release them. If there is more to die off, there is more to release. When they die, their toxins kill other organisms, leading to a chain of parameters spikes and inability. By now many higher level organisms are feeding on lower level organisms as well. So, when they die off, the higher level organisms also die off. This cycle always happens to some extent, but will happen more with less consistent and constant nutrient input. When the cycle is more pronounced, the environment is to unstable for certain processes to occur, such as the establishment of a stable biofilter.

A second problem with feeding less often is that many seem to interpret that as feed less, AND feed a smaller amounts. The problem with that is again everything in your tank needs food. If it dosn't get the food it needs, it dies and you again have more of the above situation.

So, everyone focuses on the needs of their fish (which they probably don't meet) and then wonders why they have excess nutrients and algae (because their system is not being allowed to stabilize).
The solution is to feed consistently, the amount needed to sustain a desirable level of biomass (from the higher level organisms down) and feed often enough that there is no waste and the input gets to the right organisms first.

The more often you can feed the better, regardless of the fish. Of course, this is impracticable for many, as we work, but nevertheless, better to whatever extent is possible. However, the amount, to even a larger extent than frequency, should be matched to the needs of your system. If the needs of your system have become so big that they are unsustainable then yes, feeding should be cut back, to kill off some biomass. However, done slowly, so the dies off does not lead to more die-off and more instability.

 

I feed my fish roughly 2-3 cubes of mysis 3 times a day due to the type of fish I have.

 

I think you make some excellent points. Thanks for the contribution!