Death By Overfeeding?

[JohnDyer]

Is it possible to kill a fish by overfeeding? I'm not talking about letting the food sink and rot, I mean the fish eat so much it damages their insides.
My fish can easily clean up everything I feed in under 5 minutes, but it's a big tank, and some more fish stuff themselves until their stomachs are distended. Will they naturally stop eating when they are "full," or should I feed less and let the slow fish go hungry?

 

[TheJ0kerrr]

You'd be better off feeding less food more often than a lot of food at once... Fish will eat everything you throw at them, they never know when the next meal will be!

 

[fluttermoth]

Agree with TheJ0ker.

Fish lack the mechanism that mammals have for recognising when they're full, and will just carry on eating.

If it's really a problem getting the slower fish to eat enough (which it isn't normally; if they're really hungry they'll dash in and grab their share) then you can slightly overfeed one day and fast them the next.

It's very easy to overestimate how much fish actually need; it's very little compared to a warm blooded animal, most of who's food goes to generating body heat, which fish obviously don't need to do. It would be very, very unusual to have an aquarium fish not getting enough food, even if it doesn't seem enough to you!

 

[CichlidLover1995]

Yes they will. I had a male guppy that ate so much he literally exploded. It was super gross!

 

[JohnDyer]

That's honestly... rather unintelligent. I'll not feed so much in the future I suppose they can always eat plants if they are that hungry.

 

[FishBlast]

Mine seem to know how much to eat, as they will no longer follow me around once they got their share. They will just ignore the food once they've had enough (but only once has happened, I don't usually feed to the point that the food is ignored, I just wait for them to turn their tail at me and that means they had enough).
Can't say the same about feeding salad to the hoplo though, he'd eat a ton of it if he could. It's probably better than bloodworms to him.