Feeding

[bravehart]

How much do we feed our new fish?

We have:

3 Sunset Platys and
3 Panda Corys

the Platys are about an inch long and the Corys about 2cm.

We bought some pellets and some flakes and LFS advised to give one of each on alternate days.

Does that sound right and are we just giving a pinch of each?

Tim

 

[roadmaster]

How much do we feed our new fish?

We have:

3 Sunset Platys and
3 Panda Corys

the Platys are about an inch long and the Corys about 2cm.

We bought some pellets and some flakes and LFS advised to give one of each on alternate days.

Does that sound right and are we just giving a pinch of each?

Tim

Would help to know what size aquarium and how long the aquarium has been running with fish in it. A pinch of flake food,perhaps a dime size amount once each day would be suitable in my view. No one ever lost a fish by feeding once a day. Would offer pellets for catfish after the lights are off for the day as catfish are more active at night.
If the tank is new and has been running for less than a month,I would feed once every other day while closely monitoring the ammonia and nitrites levels with my test kit to ensure that they rose no higher than .25

 

[bravehart]

Would help to know what size aquarium and how long the aquarium has been running with fish in it. A pinch of flake food,perhaps a dime size amount once each day would be suitable in my view. No one ever lost a fish by feeding once a day. Would offer pellets for catfish after the lights are off for the day as catfish are more active at night.
If the tank is new and has been running for less than a month,I would feed once every other day while closely monitoring the ammonia and nitrites levels with my test kit to ensure that they rose no higher than .25

The tank has had fish in for 1day now and is 60L and we have been doing fishless cycle for about 1 month. We will try feeding a pinch every other day and monitoring the water, thanks for the help.

 

[waterdrop]

I agree with roadmaster, doesn't hurt to ease in with every other day at first. If you are new to feeding fish it can help to time some of your feedings in the beginning. Whatever the fish can eat in 2 to 3 minutes should be about right. Many people find when they do this that their idea of a pinch was too big and would be leaving too much excess fishfood in the tank after the 3 minutes (regardless of whether it is actually eaten or not.) (Fishfood and fish waste are basically identical from a nitrogen cycle standpoint.)

Now, once you have an idea how small the amount is, there's not really anything wrong with feeding twice or 3 times a day BUT, the total is that same small pinch, so breaking it up would require really tiny little bits (which actually more closely simulates the wild, but in practice doesn't make for measurably healthier fish I don't believe.)

Its interesting to note that fish can truly go a couple of weeks without food and even three weeks, many report. Many fishkeepers will miss a random day of feeding on purpose. In practice, it often works out that you can just not worry if you discover you've forgotten to feed your fish every now and then.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

The most common of the mistakes made by new fish keepers is to overfeed them.
With that said let me add to what WD and others have already said. If you start out feeding a minimal amount to your fish and find that the fish still are eating eagerly at less than a minute after you have fed them, you might want to try a bit more food. If the fish are not clearing out every scrap of food in less than a minute, you are probably overfeeding them. I know that my fish will continue to eat if I feed them over and over at 5 minute intervals but that does not mean that it would be a good idea to give them that food. Your new fish will not starve if you always stop feeding after he first minute. Instead you will learn just how much or how little to feed your fish. I find that I can go around feeding my 25 tanks and be all done in less than 5 minutes because I have learned how much to feed each tank by experimenting with the number and size of fish in each tank. Now feeding is just another of the many daily chores that requires a minimal part of my attention. Instead I focus on observing the behavior of my fish and making sure they are healthy and read to reproduce and increase my fish holdings. Since I sell off my surplus fish at club auctions, having a constant surplus of fish is a real plus.