How many times do you need to feed cardinal tetras?

[BettaMan2000]

How many times do you need to feed a small group of 6 cardinal tetra, does 2 flakes of tetramin twice a day sound right?

 

[Byron]

I only feed my fish once a day, and I skip a day each week. I really do not know why every manufacturer of fish food uses the same line..."feed several times daily, as much as fish can consume in a few minutes." Talk about overeating. Fry are different, the more often the better; but adult fish do not need to eat every day, they can (if healthy) easily go a week and longer without feeding.

My neighbour (who is not an aquarist) once asked me how I knew how much to feed the fish? I couldn't answer her; it is something you just learn and instinctively know after a short time. I tend to under- rather than over-feed. And there will be natural live foods in established aquaria.

I don't know how large the flakes are, but dried fish foods today are generally highly nutritious, much moreso than many live and frozen foods.

 

[Demeter32]

As Byron said, this is more of a guessing game. For my more active fish I will feed them and in 15 seconds or less all the food is gone and that's their meal for the day. If it takes more than 20 seconds for your tetras to eat all the food then I'd say you are over feeding.

Note that this does not apply to bottom feeders and the slower moving species.

 

[NickAu]

"feed several times daily, as much as fish can consume in a few minutes."

These people have never seen Bettas eat LOL.

 

[BettaMan2000]

Interesting, I've got six cardinal tetras in my tank now, they do seem to scoff two flakes of tetramin (pinch) twice a day in about 20 seconds.

But three of them also seem to spend a lot of time afterwards swimming vertically, I know this is not a good sign.

One of the others refused to eat earlier but seems to be swimming OK.

 

[Demeter32]

If they are swimming oddly only after feeding then that would be a sign of over feeding. Their over expanded stomach presses on their swim bladders, causing them to swim oddly. When I feed my betta girls frozen foods it is hard to regulate how much each of them eats so every now and then one will have a giant belly and have a hard time swimming. Bettas are indeed gluttons (many fish are actually)

 

[BettaMan2000]

Thanks for that, I just didn’t want ending up poisoning them!