hc8719 said:
people that feed their fish once a day, or skip days, are just lying to themselves, its inpropper care
Here we go again....I can see where this thread is heading. I disagree. In a perfect world all animals would be able to eat whenever they want, as much as they want, never get sick/eaten, and always have a mate. Oh wait, try feeding your fish 5 times a day, how about 10? Surprise they will ALWAYS eat, to the point of death, because they do not have a gut-reflex to say stop eating. If they, in nature, always had a food source, they wouldn't react this way, correct? Nature is not a perfect world.
Fish are coldblooded creatures, which means their metabolism's can be much slower than a warmblooded animal since they are not constantly burning energy for heat. Because of that their food requirements are not high. They can easily subsist (and quite healthy) on feedings every or every other day. This is not inappropriate care, its just different care (and probably closer to the wild where they may be eating more, but are not getting the balanced nutrition of our formulated foods). Where's those staple flake foods in the wild?
Now back to the OP. I used to feed 3 times daily, now I'm down to 2 times per day (nitrAte issues). When I first got into planted tanks I couldn't keep my nitrAte levels up so I was using 3 feedings. Now that my fish are larger (introduction of a BN pleco which really creates waste), I find that my nitrAtes will rise on their own until PWC's, so I've cut out a feeding. This also seems to have reduced some algae as the mid-day feeding was probably not the best time for ammonia to be produced to a high degree.
I feed a random mix of staple flake, FD (freeze dried) blood worms, FD shrimp, FD tubifex worms, algae wafers, shrimp pellets, peas, vegetables. Normally flake in the morning (since I'm tired), and at night either flake or one of the others. I have set feeding schedules, but do not have a set feeding product. It's random, and I feel that's better for the fish since they get a variety that cannot be "planned" for. This also allows for guranteed feedings for some of my less aggressive fish that might not get as much as they need/want with certain foods (FD bloodworms for example which mainly my tiger barbs get since they will guard the surface).