Feeding a community tank

[gimmethatfish]

Tips on feeding a community tank? Do you just feed an appropriate amount and hope/assume everyone will get something?

I have a new tank (cycled) with a 10 harlequin rasboras and 11 neon tetras right now. I'm going to add a school of panda cories, a school of glo tetras, and a couple of dwarf gourami tomorrow when my LFS goes to select his fish for the week.

So feeding - the rasboras eat like there's no tomorrow. It's a crazy feeding frenzy. I've had them for 3 days only, and they are currently eating NLS tropical flakes. The neons don't really come above the middle of the tank, so at first I kind of just tried to shove some broken up flakes down into the water column which didn't work out. So I pipetted some blood worms down to them, which they appreciated. Yesterday, I picked up some sinking pellets, which work better for the neons, but I wasn't thinking and I got the normal size pellets which do not fit in their mouths, so I have to crush them up and try to sink them down. I'll pick up the small fish pellets today.

I guess I'm just looking for tips - is this what most people do? Is there a better way to feed the neons since they won't come to the top? I do have sinking shrimp pellets and sinking veggie sticks for the cories when they arrive, and I assume the gouramis will be happy with what I feed my bettas and will come to the top for it. I also have at my disposal frozen daphnia, frozen bloodworms, and frozen brine shrimp which I feed to the dwarf puffer (who is in his own separate tank, as are all the bettas in different, separate tanks).

p.s. I have a 55 gallon tank, so not trying to cram all these fish into a tiny space.

 

[t4runnr]

Some people here turn off their pumps but I use my return to spread the food around. I take a cup of tank water
And put all the food going to feed in it. Then I just pour the contents out in front of the return spout (which happens to be angled downward by 45 degrees). This really mixes it up nice in my tank for the 2 schools of tetra, 4 Bolivian rams, 1 angelfish, 2 Bn Plecos, 3 guppies, and some shrimp to get their share of food.

 

[Mcgolg76]

In my 75 gallon tank with supper aggresive feeding rams, tiger barbs, zebra loaches. I feed my shy brown knife fish with a turkey baister to make sure he gets some

 

[Luananeko]

I feed a mixture of different types of food. When I feed frozen, I just add it in the return flow as mentioned above to ensure it gets distributed evenly throughout the tank. The shy/timid tank members will forage in the plants and decor while the more greedy members will have a feeding frenzy over the food thats near the surface and in the open.

If I'm feeding non-frozen, I add flakes first to distract the surface & boisterous fish, and then add sinking pellets for the lower level dwellers & shy fish. I try to put the flakes on the surface by the filter return and the pellets on the sides and corners since that keeps it out of the way of the feeding frenzy plus that's where the more timid fish tend swim.

If I have really timid and/or poor food competitor inhabitants (such as my honeycomb catfish, crayfish, and frogs), I target feed them with a turkey baster after the rest of the tank is distracted by the first bit of food.

 

[gimmethatfish]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I'm used to feeding a single fish or one single school, so I will have to get used to the idea of just distributing the food and figuring it will all get eaten. I get my cories today, so that should help