How often do you feed ?

[petef]

Since getting into tropical fish I seem to get conflicting information about certain areas. One is how often to feed and how much. Some say once p/d some two and Ive even had 3 times. What do you guys do ?

Cheers

Pete

 

[gaya]

I feed no more then once per day 5 days of the week unless i picked up a special treat for them.

 

[a.i.m]

i feed my fish once or twice a day.

 

[BobK]

I feed my fry 3-4 times a day (very small amounts). I feed my breeding tank twice a day. I feed my other tank once a day.

 

[Coral platy]

I feed twice daily. Once tubifex or other meaty foods and second time plain flake food. They love the change.

 

[Apache]

I feed 2x day, once in AM, once after lights out for the catfishes and plec.

 

[Leslie]

Once every other day.

 

[JoeJoe]

Once a day Monday thru Friday, twice a day Sat/Sun.

 

[Joby]

Most of my tanks are fed morning and evening every day. Only a small pinch though that is gone within 3 mins. I give lots of variety in both meals and mix it up so they never know what they're gonna get

My fry tank gets fed 4 times a day at the moment because they are hungry little babies

 

[CFC]

Fry and very young fish 3x per day every day

Small to medium sized fish and breeding pairs once per day 5 days a week (no food Monday or Friday)

Large fish and small predators once a day every other day (Mon/Wed/Fri/Sun etc)

Large predators once every 3 days (Mon/Thurs/Sun/Wed etc)

 

[petef]

Thanks for the responses . Quite a mixed view on feeding. I currently feed once per day in the evening and usually flake. Do you think I should feed them a small amount in the morning aswell ? My stock is currently 6xdanios 3xswordtails 1xplec

 

[modernhamlet]

For those fish, as CFC says, once per day with a day or two off per week is fine. Most fishkeepers overfeed. Almost none underfeed. You'd be better to err on the side of a little less.

 

[Gourami Lover88]

A Hungery fish is a healthy fish.

 

[gale]

My regular fish I feed every other day. The cucumber slice took the fish in my 20g 2 days to finish so I skipped an extra day for them. I feed my betta twice a day.

 

[ioNightShade]

I feed ~ 3 times every 2 days.

However, I have a question for y'all. Most people say to give a "pinch" of food. Also, that you should not feed more than what they can consume in 3-5 minutes.

I give my fish (4 tiger barbs, 3 tinfoil barbs) a pinch of food and it is completely gone in 21 seconds (yes, I timed it). If I use the preceding rule, I'm going to give them ~8 pinches of food (for 3 minutes). Isn't this too much? I've given them 5 pinches at once before (all of it gone in less than 2 minutes) and did not notice any "head-down" or other unusual behavior. Each "pinch" contains about 20-30 flakes of various size (about 12 large flakes).

Am I feeding them too little? Keep on feeding for the full 3 minutes? Or keep it like I am currently doing? Am I already feeding too much?

JT

P.S. The flakes are Tetracolor tropical flakes.

JT