how cool would it be to have a fish tank, that didn't require you to feed the fish...

[Magnum Man]

well, maybe in reality, it wouldn't be very cool, because likely there could only be 1 or 2 fish in the tank, and I like my tanks pretty heavily stocked... but if the tank could produce enough food to sustain the fish...

the closest tanks I have right now, is my Hillstream tank, and the tank my Bitterlings are in, both are completely different, the Bitterlings are tiny, their tank is big, over planted ( my most over planted tank ), that's the kind of stuff they eat, so that tank gets fed a tiny amount of food once per week...that will increase as the stocking level goes up...

in the Hillstream tank, everyone is bio film eaters, that's also highly planted, and has extra lights, and surfaces to grow algae... it's heavily stocked, so it would be unlikely there would ever be enough micro fauna to enrich my tank algae, to ever equal real wild awfwucks... so that tank gets supplemented twice a week with Bug Bites, and a good algae tab...

I'm getting to the point, that I'd like to start growing my own micro fauna... I've tried adding a few cultures here and there, but most tanks are too crowded for micro fauna to get a foot hold...

but these 2 tanks are rich in available foods for their inhabitants, to where I don't / shouldn't feed too much... how about you guys???

 

[GaryE]

I wouldn't like that. I like feeding my fish.

I spend too much time on live foods, which is a problem when I get busy in life. But when you breed fish, there's a pleasure in feeding them well and watching the young grow into healthy adults. I like having tanks where some food for the fish lives as well, but that's just a supplement.

 

[Magnum Man]

I get it... but in doing so, there would be micro fauna, and other food sources to hunt, so the fish would be highly active ( naturally ), all day, not just the 10 minutes after being fed... but then we do lose our connection with the fish... in most of my tanks, the fish see me and know they are getting fed... in the bitterling tank, we haven't made that connection yet, they are more active when I'm not around, and hide or stop moving, when I get close to the tank, or if they see me because the room lights are on... so, you are probably right, that having wild fish, while more natural, probably isn't as interesting as fish that have learned we provide the food???

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I have had 20 tanks running year round for some time (though not ay longer). In the summer this number would go up by 6-8 tanks. That number was split between planted communities and pleco breeding and grow tanks. For many of the years the balance in terms of numbers wast tilted in favor of the pleco tanks.

Close to daily feeding was the one time I would actually get to spend time, as short as it sometimes was, observing every tank, It was actually what what insured I would check each tank every day or close to it. So, the idea of not having to feed tanks regularly would make me a less of of decent fish keeper. So, I would never even consider having tanks which did not need to be fed close to daily.

As to how well the fish recognized me as a provider of food I can report the following. Many of my fish were wild caught. This would apply to my clown loaches. These have been with me for many years and the biggest and longest standing in my tanks is over 20 years. These fish know when the food is coming in and act accordingly. On the other hand none of the fish in the pleco tanks reacted this way. Their job was mostly to stay out of sight. I had both wild caught and tank raised plecos.

In the wild fish have to work to eat or to take risks in doing so. In tanks, at least in mine. this was far from the case. Animals are not stupid, when they find a source of free food being delivered, most are smart enough to learn this and to behave accordingly/ But the plecos are hard wired to hide and to bolt when something big is come into view. Small fish cannot wait around to ID something potentially threatening as they may wind up doing so inside the stomach of something.

While live foods are generally the nest option for fish, this is not always easy or even possible to provide. In my case I messed with some live foods but very quickly determine that these were not practical for me to do. So my fall back was a search for the better quality proper foods for my fish. I am a big fan of frozen and Repashy foods. In addition I have some commercial dry foods. I have changed brands over the years and these days I am big in Ebo Aquaristik from Germany and Sera dried foods. I also still use some of kensfish.com foods. I make my own blend of flakes from kens and the same for sinking sticks. I also make my own blend of Repashy. I can say that my fish get a very varied diet.

I messed around hatching BBS and gave it up. I also had some time where I was feeding live red wiggler worms. I neve4 got Black worms but when my club had a speaker who was a "pro" at breeding them come and teach us how to do this properly, I realized most folks have been dealing with this food in the wrong way. I did not end up deciding to try breeding them but at least I learned what is needed to do this.

Here is how I see it using an analogy. There is a saying that goes like this. "You can take the boy our of the country but you cannot take the country out of the boy." When it comes to our hobby it would go like this, "You can take the fish out of the wild, but you cannot take the wild out of the fish." Some things are just hard wired into them. About the "best" we might do is to line breed for physical characteristics to which the fish must adapt. Long fins are a perfect example. While they may look interesting in a fish in a tank, the same gins in the wild would inhibit their ability to swim in the same was as they would with normal size fins. It may work in a tank but in the wild would likely be a death sentence in most cases.

So, I all-in-all, am very happy to have been feeding my fish almost daily or the last 25 years. However, I do miss/skip a few days a month. As always this, is my way of approaching and doing things and it doesn't mean it is the only or even the best way to do things.

(edited to fix way too many typos- I swear I was not drinking this morn.)ing

 

[GaryE]

I approach my tanks like a ninja. I feed them quickly, trying not to be overly noticed. I make a point of approaching tanks and not feeding the tanks, several times a day. I try to be just a little raincloud in their world. This pays off, because a lot of my fish couldn't care less if an arapaima slithered into the room and ate me. They aren't trained to beg, and the arrival of food tends to look like a surprise to them.

I really don't like trained fish that beg.

But again, I like watching them try to behave regularly, as regularly as a tank will allow. If I feed live food, and I try to do that, feeding can take hours, and as they would in nature, they have to catch their food. The food though is trapped in the same glass box they are, so it is easier. I have had Daphnia cultures develop in killifish tanks, with a few picked off daily, but enough making it to adulthood that they keep breeding. With the luxury of having my tanks in an outbuilding, I allow flying bugs and mosquitoes to sneak in there at night through the fan vents, with the fans off. Sometimes in the morning, I see a few dozen up by the ceiling. By afternoon, there are none. The pitcher plants get a few, but the surface insect eating fish hunt effectively. I risk jumpers to give them that, and jumpers are extremely rare.

 

[Aquaria Pro Aquatics]

well, maybe in reality, it wouldn't be very cool, because likely there could only be 1 or 2 fish in the tank, and I like my tanks pretty heavily stocked... but if the tank could produce enough food to sustain the fish...

the closest tanks I have right now, is my Hillstream tank, and the tank my Bitterlings are in, both are completely different, the Bitterlings are tiny, their tank is big, over planted ( my most over planted tank ), that's the kind of stuff they eat, so that tank gets fed a tiny amount of food once per week...that will increase as the stocking level goes up...

in the Hillstream tank, everyone is bio film eaters, that's also highly planted, and has extra lights, and surfaces to grow algae... it's heavily stocked, so it would be unlikely there would ever be enough micro fauna to enrich my tank algae, to ever equal real wild awfwucks... so that tank gets supplemented twice a week with Bug Bites, and a good algae tab...

I'm getting to the point, that I'd like to start growing my own micro fauna... I've tried adding a few cultures here and there, but most tanks are too crowded for micro fauna to get a foot hold...

but these 2 tanks are rich in available foods for their inhabitants, to where I don't / shouldn't feed too much... how about you guys???

I had a loach tank with a snail infestation and lots of places to hide for the snails that was pretty close. I like to feed my tanks but im guilty of extending periods of light on my shrimp tanks and leaving them green basically ending in the same result.


Dominick

 

[anewbie]

You can solve both problems by keeping an oscar with cardinals; just buy 100 new cardinals once a month and you are set. No need to feed the fishes and the oscar gets lots of live food.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

One of the reasons I like to feed is that it allows me to watch the fish for a while when doing so, This means I am a lot more likely to spot a fish in distress. I would have to miss a virulent disease in a tank until it killed many of the fish. I would ht to miss an injured fish that should be segregated to recover because I did not see it.

Unlike many of us in the hobby with a number of tanks, I do not have a central fish room. My home has two building and no basement, So my tanks are spread out between the two buildings and across 4 rooms, and 6 during the last almost 20 summers. So, if it were not for feeding, I might not visit one or more of those rooms for days. The exception would be the tanks in my bathroom and my bedroom.

The nice thing about feeding daily is the fish often come out at that time and I can see if any are missing, injured or sick.

@GaryE
If you try not to disturb you fish as you describe I am wondering how you manage to spot any of the issues like illness, injury etc? How do you know if a fish is not getting their share of the food unless you watch them at feeding time? I rarely have such issues, but when I do, I am usually on top of them pretty quickly.

 

[Uberhoust]

If I can't interact with my fish why have them. Feeding is one of the most fun things to do with your fish.

 

[GaryE]

@GaryE
If you try not to disturb you fish as you describe I am wondering how you manage to spot any of the issues like illness, injury etc? How do you know if a fish is not getting their share of the food unless you watch them at feeding time? I rarely have such issues, but when I do, I am usually on top of them pretty quickly.

Ah, but I'm retired. I feed the fish and then loop around and take a long look at what is up. That's when I see any problems. They're already eating and don't seem to connect me to the food.

I'm sure it's the same for you, but outbreaks are rare unless I get new fish. We both do pretty organized preventative maintenance, and it's good for preventing. I watch my QT tanks extra closely.

In general, my fishroom time is limited to mornings. Most days I manage to spend maybe 90 minutes to 2 hours out back. Today I did a bank of water changes, fed everyone, made some egg traps for tetras by drilling a lot of holes in some ideal looking IKEA boxes (we'll see), checked every tank's health, transplanted a handful of Valls into a livebearer tank I moved yesterday (a 20 gallon of X milleri), and fed the live food cultures. I'm experimenting with fruit fly media, and I started a new culture. I love that pottering around time - always busy, always inconsequential for anyone else but great fun for me.

My wife just shakes her head, but it's my escape from the concerns of the world time.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I too an retired, But O love it when I see my fish assuming their positions when they think food is coming. My big clown loach will position itself near the surface because it know I usually put in he flakes for the redline barbs first. The clown is a pig and will eat almost anything it can including other fish's lunch.

Barbie F. wo got me set up with my breeding zebra group in 07 jad a had picture. She had clowns in a tank with no lid and some of the flakes would get stuck on top the little ledge where a top normally sits. There were two clowns partly out of the water eating the flakes off of that ledge.

I had a bunch of sterbai cory in a 20 long with a bunch of floating plants in it. Some of the food got stuck on top of the plants. One enterprising cory got itself onto the floater to grab the food. I happened to be watching it all and was amazed when it rotated an eye up and stared at me. You have to love stuff like that.

(edited because I am apparently trying to break my single day record for typos, misspellings and bad grammar)