How Often Do You Feed Your Fish?

[reeftankdude]

Need a little help with this one. I read that fish should be feed what they can eat in two minutes twice every day. I have also read what they can eat in five minutes once every day. I have a 20GH with six fish. Looks like my fish can consume a leveled quarter teaspoon of food in three minutes. Since adding five corals inside of two weeks my nitrates and phosphates are very low to zero. Should I add more fish or feed more. I am thinking of adding maybe two more Chromis fish and feed twice every day what they can eat in two minutes. I vacuum and change out two gallons of water every week. I also change out a third a cup of Matrix carbon every week. Thanks all

 

[mattdg]

You shouldn't need to feed them more than a few pinches of dry food, several times a day. Pellets are very nutrient dense. Two feedings of what they can consume in 3 minutes / day, is basically what I feed my fully established 120 mixed reef. Sounds good to me.

Far as your nutrient levels. I'd simply go by how your coral are doing. They look like they are maintaining color just fine. If they start to bleach, you can dial your PAR down a bit. You want to keep your feedings slight, while the tank is settling in. PO4 and NO3 tests don't tell you the entire story. Over time, your levels will increase. In my experience, adding gobs of food to artificially increase nutrient levels, in a new system, is a recipe for a serious bloom of something ugly.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Need a little help with this one. I read that fish should be feed what they can eat in two minutes twice every day. I have also read what they can eat in five minutes once every day. I have a 20GH with six fish. Looks like my fish can consume a leveled quarter teaspoon of food in three minutes. Since adding five corals inside of two weeks my nitrates and phosphates are very low to zero. Should I add more fish or feed more. I am thinking of adding maybe two more Chromis fish and feed twice every day what they can eat in two minutes. I vacuum and change out two gallons of water every week. I also change out a third a cup of Matrix carbon every week. Thanks all

You should definitely keep up with routine water changes since you're just starting out. It will mitigate a lot of problems and you'll be building good maintenance habits. On a 20 gallon, 2 gallons a week is perfect.
What kind of clean up crew do you have? Try to have some omnivores and/or detritivores as they will help consume any extra food the fish don't eat.

As for overall feeding and nutrients levels, there's a common phrase in this hobby, "don't chase numbers". It's great that you're testing and keeping an eye on things, but look for trends, not specific values. You said your nutrient levels have dropped since adding the coral, but what were they running prior to that? Coral definitely consumes nitrate and phos, so you certainly might need to increase the amount available in your system, but I agree that you don't want to go overboard either. Although without knowing what kind they are it's hard to say, six fish in a 20 gallon sounds like enough. You can try increasing feeding a little, maybe add a second meal 3 days a week and see if that works.
There's another common phrase, "nothing good happens fast in this hobby". Take your time and make small changes when needed.

Sounds like you're off to a good start

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

One thing you can also try is to not vacuum the sand as much during your water changes. That might raise nutrients a bit as well.

 

[reeftankdude]

Thanks for all the advise. I once thought about adding sodium nitrate etc, but decided against. I would like things to happen naturally in my tank other than the feedings and water changes. I have a lot of rock in the tank which leaves me 12 gallons of water. Maybe I should cut back to just one gallon water change each week.

 

[i cant think]

I feed all my fish 1 time a day, I feed them 6 frozen cubes (3 Mysis, 3 Brine) and it gets split over my two tanks. In total, I feed 20 fish give or take (11 in my 4’ tank and 9 in my 20g max nano).
My fish feed off of the LR in the day when they don’t get fed though so it’s almost a constant feeding time.

 

[vetteguy53081]

One contributor to this thread will be factoring the size of the tank and number of fish to be fed.
I have 4 automatic portions of dry during the day and one Good frozen meal in the evening but am feeding over 30 fish

 

[Reef.]

Don’t worry your nitrates and po4 will increase over time, I wouldn’t go trying to increase them unless they are near zero, your tank looks very new.

Have to say that is some flow you have going on, 4 powerheads?

 

[Jbell370]

I give a sprinkle of Vitalis pellets around 3pm, about 8pm they get 4 cubes mysis, 2 pcs of masstick, a Vitalis grazing ring the odd time some algae flake. Tank is 240g and I have 15 fish, 5 of those are tangs that seem to have an endless belly. Most of my guys are older, some around 8yrs in my care, blue star wrasse pair, blue spot jaw fish, regal angel, couple Pygmy angels, a few others. For coral, mixed reef, sps, torches, few goni, zoas and a couple leathers that I like.

After feed mode I usually run nutrient export for 20 minutes, I use filter socks changed often.

 

[AydenLincoln]

I feed mine every day to every other day trying to cut back on feeding because I tend to overfeed. I try and mix up the food too.

 

[vtecintegra]

This question has been asked a hundred times and there's always once a day or less replies. Ask yourself this. Do you feed yourself once per day for two minutes? These reef fish are animals that eat off and on all day in the wild. WWC feeds every hour during opening hours. Mine get breakfast, lunch, and dinner feedings with nori for a tang, and live baby brine shrimp regularly three to four times a week.

 

[PatW]

Just some biology. I am going to inflict some energetics on all who read this.

OK we are Homeotherms. That means we maintain our body temperature at a constant rate. Now in many courses, they will tell you this is ALL metabolic but quite a bit of it is behavioral. Heck lizards can regulate their body heat by sitting in the sun and then running into the shade or into a hole. But the thing is with us and birds, 90% of our energy goes to our heating bill (or cooling bill). So we eat a whole bunch.

Now a poikilotherm just stays at ambient temperature (the temp of its surroundings). So it has no heating bill. Problem is if it is cold, he or she is inactive unlike a homeotherm. Or if it is too hot, it is time to hide. But a poikilotherm can get by on far less energy than we can. So they eat less.

The trade off is for hometherms is you can be active all the time (when you are not freezing to death or roasting) and poikilotherms go dormant,

Now there is a second confounding thing (or is it a third?). The smaller you are the higher your metabolic rate. You see, if you are half an inch long, everything in your body is subject to the elements or nearly so and you have to keep things constant so that takes energy ,,.. most of the time. Some critters like sponges (if you can call a sponge a critter which is not settled - if biologists got into bar room fights this would be one to start one) say the heck with this and I am just going to let things bump around and not be constant.

So most fish can do fine with eating a little each and every day. In facts, most fish can do fine going a week with no food just maybe not all the time. There are some fish that reputedly require lots of small meals through the day like mandarins and plankton feeders. But I am not a ichthyologist who studies small fish that eat small meals So I don’t know.

But bigger predacious fish like morays (big for an aquarium setting) can probably get by with a weekly meal.

I feed my fish twice a day: pellets and frozen food and well and nori and I have a 300 gallon and I don’t feed much. I have plenty of nutrient export. And all of my fish are pretty rotund. They tend to be more so than fish I see whilst scuba diving.