Feeding advice

[Katmandu]

Hello everyone!

My 29g biocube is right around 5 weeks old with a royal gramma, bengaii cardinal, 2 small hermits and 2 turbo snails. Up until yesterday I have been feeding the fish a few pinches a day of marine flakes that I bought from petco. I tested my parameters and everything looked fine except that my nitrates shot up to 30ppm. I went to my LFS and they said the flakes and overfeeding are the most likely culprits of the spike.

They told me for the two fish I have, half a cube of frozen brine shrimp a day would be about right. Today was my first feeding with the brine shrimp and I noticed that a lot of the shrimp were going straight into the filter and once the fish were done eating a fair amount of shrimp we’re settling throughout the tank... would a quarter cube a day be enough for the two fish?

Should I try feeding a quarter cube twice a day maybe?

 

[absowry]

Smaller, more frequent feedings are always better than large feedings. General rule of thumb is only feed what your fish can eat in 3 minutes.

When you do feed, make sure to turn your circulation pump off before you add the food. You will waste less food this way. It's safe to leave the pump off for about a half hour or until the food is consumed.

I would generally avoid brine shrimp unless you have finicky eaters or you buy the enriched brine shrimp. A few better choices would be a multi-type frozen food like rods or hikari, or frozen mysis shrimp.

 

[zoalander1]

I would also avoid the cubes. Go with the flat packs that way you can break off what you need. I shut down all pumps when I feed them let the food settle for about 10 min or so. This give any bottom feeders a chance to get some plus a few corals. Then I put my power head back on for about another 5 min until all the food has been eaten by fish. The my filtration pump goes back on. Most fish will only eat suspended food.