How often/much do you feed your fish?

[Azedenkae]

There have been some old threads discussing this, but I wanted to get your guy’s updated opinions.

I just got 2x Clownfish and am currently feeding 4 NLS pellets (each) one day and 4 mysis shrimp (each) the next day.

Do I need to feed them 2x a day? Or more?

I want these little guys to live a long, happy life, and I want them to have lots of nutrition.

I have NLS as well, small pellets. My cinnamon clownfish eats about 6-10 pellets per feeding, my ocellaris eats 1-2 pellets per feeding. I feed 1-3 times a day, usually at least twice. The ocellaris is around 3cm atm, cinnamon around 4cm.

 

[Reefbuds]

Once a day is plenty. Just make sure to feed slowly and allow all food to be eaten. Nothing should go to waste. I know sometimes its hard because they will stare at you and beg when you enter the room lol . Really tho it doesn't matter how often you feed, its how much is not eaten and how efficiently your cleaning crew/equipment takes care of the waste/nutrients that come with feeding often.

 

[James_O]

I have NLS as well, small pellets. My cinnamon clownfish eats about 6-10 pellets per feeding, my ocellaris eats 1-2 pellets per feeding. I feed 1-3 times a day, usually at least twice. The ocellaris is around 3cm atm, cinnamon around 4cm.

My clowns (ocellaris) are around 5cm long and I have only been feeding them 4 pellets per serving. Maybe I’m severely under feeding??? ;Sorry

 

[Azedenkae]

My clowns (ocellaris) are around 5cm long and I have only been feeding them 4 pellets per serving. Maybe I’m severely under feeding??? ;Sorry

Do they look lethargic? What size are your pellets? Yeah that does sound like underfeeding.

 

[James_O]

Do they look lethargic? What size are your pellets? Yeah that does sound like underfeeding.

Not lethargic at all! Very active.

Um, I’m not sure on size... they are the NLS marine pellets if that helps.

 

[Powertool-2010]

I feed 3 times a day with a pellet feeder and once with a algae clip or frozen if I have the gumption. I have a 75g display with a refugium. Fish are a powder brown Tang, a Tomini Tang, fox face, 2 tomato clownfish, a royal Gramma, a cardinalfish, and a mandarin. More worried about underfeeding than overfeeding as my refugium takes care of any extra nutrients. I try to feed enough that something will end up in the bottom for some of the scavenging inverts, but I'm not sure if I succeed.

 

[Azedenkae]

Not lethargic at all! Very active.

Um, I’m not sure on size... they are the NLS marine pellets if that helps.

I think those are regular pellet sizes, same as mine (I feed Thera-A).

 

[James_O]

I think those are regular pellet sizes, same as mine (I feed Thera-A).

I just fed 5 pellets to each, because I didn’t feed this morning.

I really need a concrete schedule for feeding these little guys...

 

[G Santana]

I feed once a day, tangs have a quarter sheet of nori to snack on all day, leftovers are taken out at lights out

 

[Trever]

This tread is making me hungry.

 

[mib86]

I also feed once a day (3 frozen cubes). The fish will eat as much as you give them because they do not feel full. They will eat until they burst. Healthy fish should be active and feeding in the tank (of course the tank is too small to rely on this that is why we add them food).

 

[Tamberav]

I would probably swap mysis for LRS nano or such. That stuff really can’t be beat for frozen prepared food!

 

[ddrueckh]

Does anyone weigh their food? I do. I read that public aquariums do it and thought it was a great idea. Being consistent really helps balance input/output. I feed brine or mysis as well as reef frenzy (18g a day total feeding a little throughout the day). I also feed 1/2 sheet nori.

 

[Azedenkae]

I just fed 5 pellets to each, because I didn’t feed this morning.

I really need a concrete schedule for feeding these little guys...

Yeh.

Rule of thumb is to watch your clowns. So long as their stomach fills out, but does not stretch, then the feeding amount is just right.

 

[Arabyps]

I feed twice per day (morning and evening), 1 cube each of my special home-made "special reserve frozen food" and half a sheet of nori every other day. First, it is important to note the bio-load in my 130 gallon DT. In my case: 2 bonded snowflake clowns (no political reference intended), 1 Yellow Belly Blue Tang, 1 Magnificent Foxface, 2 Zebra Barred Dartfish, 2 Black Mollies (early warning system for disease), 1 Blue Throat Trigger, I Marginalis Butterfly, 2 bonded Red Hawkfish, 1 Blenny, 1 Yellow Coris Wrasse, 3 Dispar Anthias. My CUC is various snails, 2 Fighting Conch, 2 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Tiger Snapping Shrimp (which I never see but hear), 2 Halloween Hermits.

My special recipe includes a bag of assorted seafood from Costco (shrimp, squid, clams, muscles, etc.) which I process in a food blender, To this I add 1 sheet of krill, 1 sheet of brine shrimp, 5 sheets of nori, 1 sheet of blood worms, scoops of spirulina, vita-chem, reef roids, garlic guard and coral amino. I toss the mixture and place into ice-cube trays (reference below). Fish go crazy for this stuff and it has the added benefit of feeding coral.

 

[jefft0826]

I have an apex AFS - feed small amounts 2 times a day for my anthias and then feed frozen at night every day

 

[zalick]

I’ll give you the vitamin, not garlic part. It helps finnicky fish eat. It’s an additive. It works! As far as the frozen food bound up with phosphates, not nitrates. You’re wrong about that. Don’t make me call Ryan and Randy to put you in check Homer. Doh!

this “rinse frozen food” myth has been busted so many times by Randy over the years. I don’t know why the myth won’t go away. Don’t rinse your food.

here you go:

I don't agree. I think folks have been misled by a "simple test" (see below).

Rinsing has a possible downside, IMO, which is to potentially rinse away potassium (from the inside of cells broken open by freezing) that folks may later need to dose because they threw it away.

Aquarium Chemistry: Phosphate And Math: Yes You Need To Understand Both

Foods are by far the most important source of phosphate in most aquariums. In considering whether sources of phosphate other than foods are important, one must carefully look to the actual amounts involved to determine whether other sources are even worth trying to minimize.

reefs.com

Rinsing Foods and the Effect on Phosphate
Now that we have some information on the phosphate in foods, we can critically examine the concern that many aquarists have about foods, and specifically their rinsing of frozen foods before use. A typical test you see is someone taking a cube of fish food, thawing it, and putting it into a half cup of water. They then test that water for phosphate and find it “off the charts”. Let’s assume that means 1 ppm phosphate, which would give a very dark blue color in many phosphate tests. Bear in mind this is a thought problem, not an actual measured value, but it is typical of what people think the answer is.

Is that a lot of phosphate? Well, there are two ways to think of the answer.

The first way is as a portion of the total phosphate in that food. A half cup of water at 1 ppm (1 mg/L) phosphate contains a total of 0.12 mg of phosphate. A cube of Formula 2 contains about 11.2 mg of phosphate. So the hypothetical rinsing step has removed about 1 percent of the phosphate in that food. Not really worthwhile, in my opinion, but that decision is one every aquarist can make for themselves.

The second way to look at this rinsing is with respect to how much it reduces the boost to the aquarium phosphate concentration. Using the same calculation as above of 0.12 mg of phosphate, and adding that to 100 gallons total water volume, we find that phosphate that was rinsed away would have boosted the “in tank” phosphate concentration by 0.12 mg/379 L = 0.0003 ppm. That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the “in tank” target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much, based on input rates from Table 4. Again, the conclusion I make is that rinsing is not really worthwhile, in my opinion.