Under-feeding? Cruel?

[FraceGish]

I feed my fish once every two days. I'm so worried about mucking up my parameters that I don't want to feed them every day. Is this cruel or acceptable?

 

[Masha]

Nope. Not cruel. Having clean water is really important to their health. They don't need to eat every day. It's probably the easiest way to improve their lives.

 

[tarpon]

so you feed them every other day? lots of people do that, fish dont always have a constant supply of food in the wild.

 

[FraceGish]

so you feed them every other day? lots of people do that, fish dont always have a constant supply of food in the wild.

Thanks for your reply. I've been reading on the internet that some people feed twice a day - so I felt a bit mean. They do 'beg' for food when I'm near the tank but I guess they are just opportunists!

 

[FraceGish]

Nope. Not cruel. Having clean water is really important to their health. They don't need to eat every day. It's probably the easiest way to improve their lives.

Thanks for your reply. They appear to be very healthy fish so I will carry on feeding once every 2 days

 

[TheOscar]

I feed once a day, but I try and feed what I know they will scarf down right then.. I use pellets for my oscars , so I hand feed then one at a time.

 

[tarpon]

Thanks for your reply. I've been reading on the internet that some people feed twice a day - so I felt a bit mean. They do 'beg' for food when I'm near the tank but I guess they are just opportunists!

they associate you with food, so they swarm the surface of the water in anticipation when you come near.
it doesnt necessarily mean they "feel" hungry. and exactly, its instinct to eat food when its available because they dont know when it will be available again.

 

[Masha]

they associate you with food, so they swarm the surface of the water in anticipation when you come near.
it doesnt necessarily mean they "feel" hungry. and exactly, its instinct to eat food when its available because they dont know when it will be available again.

Exactly!

I mean, even my dogs, who are probably capable of more rational thought than my fish, act like they are starving all the time.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if I gave my dogs food every time they asked- I suspect they would eat until they were comatose.

Fish are cold blooded, which means they don't need to eat all the time like we do. A ridiculous amount of our food energy goes to simply keeping our bodies warm. Fish don't need to do that.

 

[sixtyfou]

I'm trying to strike the right balance on this too. It's hard to balance all the factors. I have a cichlid tank I'm trying to control aggression in and I've read that regular feeding can help. I have a community tank with a mix of fish I'm prepping for breeding, and other fish that don't need that much. It can be a real pain to manage these conflicting goals. I've been leaning toward small frequent feedings, and lots of water changes. If I wasn't trying to do so much, I'd feed lightly once a day, and skip a day about every 5. That's just from the hip, I'm not an authority on this subject.

 

[sixtyfou]

On the dog issue I have more experience. If you free feed dogs from the start they will almost always control themselves. I had a Beagal that never "got it", but all my other dogs did.

 

[BldrArch]

Great question. I've been feeding every other day or once a day but not twice a day like the instructions on the food says I've been wondering myself if I was starving them.

 

[sixtyfou]

I can't remember anyone saying they ever starved a fish to death. I can think of plenty of examples of the opposite problem.

 

[Toad]

I've starved a fish a few times. It was guppies, I just had so many and sometimes I'd find a male that just couldn't compete for the food, so I'd have to put him in a hanging net and feed him by himself for a week or two until he got his strength up. I've had a couple die who I didn't catch on to what was happening. But I guess that's what happens when you spend all day trying to sex the ladies up lol.

 

[The Trooper]

I only feed my once every couple of days with the occasional treat inbetween if i want to watch some tank pandemonium

 

[Luananeko]

Great question. I've been feeding every other day or once a day but not twice a day like the instructions on the food says I've been wondering myself if I was starving them.

Bear in mind, most people tend to overfeed whenever they do feed their fish. The fish food makers know this, so by recommending 2x daily feedings, they know people will tend to waste food faster and therefore have to buy more food, so the food makers are just making more money. That's why it's best to ignore the recommendations on the food containers and just go off of how fast the food gets eaten

 

[Tezhar]

Hi,

Just read this thread as I am wondering about feeding too. I have two frogs and feed a blister of frozen bloodworm but quite often most is gone before it reaches the bottom. Along with that another frozen blister of something else aimed at all the fish.. And also either a broken up algae wafer or cory pellets aimed at my bottom feeders. . I have around 40 fish in total including 2 dwarf cory bottom feeders and a hong kong pleco and a bristle nose pleco. Hence the varied diet. Oh and a shrimp.

Do you think this is over feeding?? I feed once daily?

And does it matter if I can't see my frogs eating? As I guess they are finding the odd worm somewhere??

 

[flitabout]

The easiest way to identify overfeeding is what your nitrate levels are at the end of the week before your water change I like mine down around 10 ppm. also when you are syphoning out the tank are you getting a massive bunch of stuff out of the substrate? That's all of the leftover food not just the poop. I feed mine once every other day and sometimes I will do every day but I rotate the food 1 day I will do about a 3rd of a cube of brine shrimp then pellets, then flake, and one day algae wafers. I always have a zucchini stick available. So the get fed about 4 days out of the week.

 

[Luananeko]

Hi,
And does it matter if I can't see my frogs eating? As I guess they are finding the odd worm somewhere??

As a general rule, I always recommend spot feeding your frogs if they're in a community tank. They are very poor competitors for food and can take months to eventually starve. Distract the tank with the food that's aimed for all the fish, then use either a turkey baster or tweezers to drop a chunk of the worms either right in front of the frogs, or dangle it in front of them until they grab it themselves. That's the only surefire way to know your frogs are getting the food they need.

As a side note, try to give them more than just bloodworms. Bloodworms are known to cause bloat and are rather fatty. If you can mix it up with other types of frozen food they'll get a much more balanced diet I use the freshwater variety pack that Petsmart sells and have had healthy frogs for the last 4 years running now.