How Much Food?

[fotoman]

I've heard so many different thing regarding how much food to give the fish and how often. Some say only once a day, some say twice, some say feed as much as can be eaten in two minutes, others say five minutes. The directions on the containers also seem to be at variance with each other. Also, what's best, amount of food or the time it takes the fish to eat it all. Of course, the Danios tend to gobble everything first and I did get a tip that if I hold the flakes in the water for a few seconds, they will then sink and the others will get a chance whereas if I just sprinkel it on the surface, the greedy things just eat it first.

I now have the following fish in my 30 Gal tank (they are all babies, small):

2 Silver Shark
1 Spotted Pleco
5 Zebra Danios
5 Cardinal Tetras
5 Harlequin Rasbora
3 Otocinclis

The total length of fish (excluding tail fins) is around 27cm

Water readings are Ph 7, Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 5

Just how much food should they have? Please, please help! I don't want them to starve to death and I don't want them looking like they spend all their free time in MacDonalds!!

 

[tstenback]

When starting a new tank, let the fish be your guide. Within reason that is. First it is better to under feed fish than overfeed them. I use the how much can they completely finish in 3 minutes, then i take this amount and divide it into 2 servings a day. Why? cause i like to watch the fish at feeding time, it is very interesting to watch their behaviour at this time as it is often quite different than at any other time of the day. The big thing here is tha overfeeding can cause health problems for the fish and if you dont clean the tank as required then it adds to the health issues with disease due to poor water conditions.
Some feed their fish once every 2 days, some will skip a day or 2 during the week and others like me feed their fish very small amounts once or twice a day. As i said the condition of the fish will indicate if you are feeding enough, if they are colorful and active then they are getting enough food. If there are bits of food all over the bottom of the tank and the fish are getting chunky or very lazy then they are getting too much. In the beginning it is a trial and error kind of thing but always err on the side of less food, it will mean less trouble later. HTH

Man, i have got to learn to shorten things up