I've been wondering recently: can you actually overfeed fish?
Obviously I'm not talking here about overloading your tank with nutrients, or dumping in tons of food that the fish won't ever actually eat.
But, assuming you have the nutrient control/water change schedule to keep up with what you're adding so that the water parameters remain safe - is it possible to actually cause harm to your fish purely through them consuming too much food? If so, what actually occurs? Is it feasible that even the most heavy feeding aquarist could actually cause this?
Observing reef fish in the wild, many are much larger than those we find in tanks, and many are constantly eating. I'm sure that some would result from setting up a funnel and force feeding your tangs for hours every day - but it seems to me that as filtration advances, we can likely feed our fish many multiples more than we do now, and that they'd be better for it.
Obviously I'm not talking here about overloading your tank with nutrients, or dumping in tons of food that the fish won't ever actually eat.
But, assuming you have the nutrient control/water change schedule to keep up with what you're adding so that the water parameters remain safe - is it possible to actually cause harm to your fish purely through them consuming too much food? If so, what actually occurs? Is it feasible that even the most heavy feeding aquarist could actually cause this?
Observing reef fish in the wild, many are much larger than those we find in tanks, and many are constantly eating. I'm sure that some would result from setting up a funnel and force feeding your tangs for hours every day - but it seems to me that as filtration advances, we can likely feed our fish many multiples more than we do now, and that they'd be better for it.