Auto fish feeders

[The Lumpfish Guy]

From what I read about Tiger Barbs, they basically snack on food all day. Their small stomachs cannot hold large amounts of food like oscars.

Yeah so If you look at Tilapia, which is probably one of the most widely studies warmer water freshwater fish. (also a herbivore) the perform better with more regular feedings however the level and frequency have been shown to be reduced at increasing size feeding for growing fingerlings is about 3-4% per day over 3-4 feeding periods, whereas fully grown adults require 0.5% body weight per day feeding. EDIT this is usually over 1 feeding
Ref: Tilapia Culture, Abdel-Fattah M.Sayed.
So the rate of your feeding will also depend on the age of your fish, and don't forget herbivores will be grazing on biofilms and algae in the tank as well.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

Why would any animal be happy about not eating for a few weeks, that doesn't make sense.

Because you are applying a mammalian requirement onto a fish, their requirements are not the same as how you would feel if you had to go without food for a week

 

[madmark285]

ok it gets a little intense here, why dont we all agree to disagree? im sure OP already have his decision whatever his choice is

I hope I didn't offend anyone, it is an interesting topic.

 

[FishBR]

The natural environment can be a cruel place for many animals.

The "cruel" environment is the one where the species evolved and adapted. They are programed to thrive in that environment. To define that envorinment as cruel is just anthropomorphism.

But given a choice, your discus may prefer a rainy season environment all year long.

If discus thought anything (anthropomorphism again), they would chose to keep things as they are. Moreover, they would disappear as species if they only had a rainy season. They are triggered to spawn when the first large thunderstorms come, which lead to changes in air pressure and water temperature. If they lived only in the rainy season they would not be able to spawn.

And don't forget about the air bubbling mermaids!

Do they have those in the Amazon?

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

I hope I didn't offend anyone, it is an interesting topic.

Not me, It's good to talk about this.

I come from an aquaculture background so my opinions and experience (while also in Ornamentals ) is also in the husbandry of food fish.
IME there is a lot both ornamental and aquaculture can learn from each other but rarely any crossover

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

True, cold-blooded animals require less food than warm-blooded but they still need food.

Please don't misquote or mischaracterise what I said. At no point did I say that fish don't need food.

This is an interesting debate and potentially very educational, there is no need to get heated or personal, or to paint people with an opposing view as some extreme position that they never took.

 

[madmark285]

Because you are applying a mammalian requirement onto a fish, their requirements are not the same as how you would feel if you had to go without food for a week

Fair enough and I stand corrected, I should have stay with the herbivores vs carnivores argument. After consuming a large rodent, a snake may be quite happy for many weeks.

 

[madmark285]

This is an interesting debate and potentially very educational, there is no need to get heated or personal, or to paint people with an opposing view as some extreme position that they never took.

Then please accept my apologies, that was not my intent.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

Fair enough and I stand corrected, I should have stay with the herbivores vs carnivores argument. After consuming a large rodent, a snake may be quite happy for many weeks.

See the issue is still you are comparing two different things, try and keep your comparisons to fish if possible. The species studies for aquaculture is quite large and while not directly comparable eg Cod to say a Angelfish. you can often make a sensible comparisons eg Tilapia to a barb as above. both tropical freshwater, both herbivorous

 

[madmark285]

Do they have those in the Amazon?

Yep, here you go, an Amazon Mermaid

 

[madmark285]

AdoraBelle Dearheart,

A confession from me, when it comes to fish, I am the bad guy. The last time I had an aquarium was 25+ years ago when I lived a very active lifestyle. Do to my negligent, I end up with a tank filled with dead Tiger barbs.

I made a promise back then that I would never do that again and if I every set up another tank, it will have the proper equipment to ensure its success. This is why I am building a sump system with plumbing. Water changes will be so easy. As a DIY guy, this should be a fun project for me. If I setup a second tank, it will be a DIY acrylic cubic tank.

This is why I jump on this topic of automatic fish feeders, use the equipment available today. Of course I may still feel a bit guilty about killing a tank full of Tiger Barbs....So a big thanks for everyone on this topic.

 

[squidneh]

I've found this thread very interesting. From an outside perspective of someone not having been involved up until now, I think people have been pretty civil, lol.

I'll just throw in my 2 cents and what I do with my fish. I'm in the camp of I'd rather under-feed than over-feed. If I'm gone for more than 2 weeks I would make arrangements to have the fish fed. But I would never use an automatic feeder for the multiple reasons stated above.

As someone with raw fed dogs and horses along with my fish, I am used to adapting feeding routines and programs to the animals I have. My dogs get fasted 1-2 days a week. I actually do a partial fast myself 1 day a week. My horses would never be fasted as it could cause major health problems. You can't compare the needs of different species to one another....even if their needs do happen to line up.

My fish are regularly fed once a day. I fast them 1 day a week. They get different types of foods each day they are fed. Fish in our hobby are often wild caught - not all, but those that are captive-bred are not far removed from their wild counterparts (in most cases, obviously there are exceptions...) I try to find the balance between what I consider "natural" and what I consider "kind". Notice how I say "what I consider" because there really is no wrong or right answer. You could argue endlessly either way.

But if we are talking about how long they can physically live without food - it's several weeks, at least. So really it just comes down to whether or not you trust your automatic feeder and what you think would be worse - the fish going without food or the fish experiencing an ammonia spike you may not be around to notice and correct. Most people have a pretty strong opinion one way or another as is demonstrated by this thread.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

I'll just throw in my 2 cents and what I do with my fish. I'm in the camp of I'd rather under-feed than over-feed. If I'm gone for more than 2 weeks I would make arrangements to have the fish fed. But I would never use an automatic feeder for the multiple reasons stated above.

I agree, and I think it is more widespread than most think.

In aquaculture feeding rates are about 3-4% per day of body weight to achieve massive growth rates even for a 100g fish that's only 3-4g of food. ( water exchange on this by the way is massive!)
For adult stocks feeding is reduced to 1-2% or lower 0.5% in the case of tilapia (above)
lets use guppies as an example say you have 20 at an average of 0.5g (full grown weight) that's 10 grams of fish, which need between 0.5-2% BW/day so 0.05-0.2g per day, that is not a lot of food anything more than this will be stored as energy supplies or excreted as waste.
Interestingly, fish produce more waste as a percentage of feed intake with increased ration size, so the more you feed past a certain point the greater percentage will just go to waste and not to growth or energy stores.

Now as stated above I am comparing large food fish to small tropical fish, but as we don't know the "ideal" feeding rates, and "ideal" depends on what the fish are for it is a reasonable but limited comparison of course.

 

[squidneh]

I agree, and I think it is more widespread than most think.

In aquaculture feeding rates are about 3-4% per day of body weight to achieve massive growth rates

Yeah, it's definitely important to note that most of the research done on fish feeding is done with the aim to find out what makes fish grow larger faster...which is not necassarily the average hobbyist's intention when feeding their pet fish. The findings are not representative of the amount of food a (typically much smaller) pet fish needs to maintain its condition or to stay alive.

 

[The Lumpfish Guy]

he findings are not representative of the amount of food a (typically much smaller) pet fish needs to maintain its condition or to stay alive.

It's not necessarily the size of fish, but what is it "for".
I find personally the best comparisons are with adult stocks which are planned for brood stocks, these fish are being kept for longer periods of time, not for growth but to be healthy and robust enough for breeding purposes. Hence I used the lower of the percentages (0.5-2%BW/day) in my calculations.