skip feeding for one day a week ?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Joe_D

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Aug 14, 2021
Messages
339
Location
Middletown NY
I have a 10 gal community tank that has been up and ruining for about a year.
The tank is heavily planted and fish are doing great.
I have Harlequin Rasboras, Neon Tetras, and Cory Cats. .
I also have several Cherry shrimp.
Admittedly it is a bit over stocked but all are doing great as I said
Water parameters are great.

Yes I do weekly water changes.

My question is this..
I have started to skip all feeding one day a week... on Saturday;:
Is this a good thing to do ?
Water seems to have gotten a bit noticeably clearer for one thing.
 
I feed 4-5x a week on tanks that have very old fish in them. Choice of food seems to be the important thing at this point. I feed mainly frozen and freeze dried to the puffers.
 
OK thanks. ::)
I will see how it goes and maybe skip another day of feeding
I usually do my water changes on Tuesday so, that might be the second day to skip.
Yeah, I was probably overfeeding them. I should know better.

BTW, I feed a variety of foods
 
OK thanks. ::)
I will see how it goes and maybe skip another day of feeding
I usually do my water changes on Tuesday so, that might be the second day to skip.
Yeah, I was probably overfeeding them. I should know better.

BTW, I feed a variety of foods

I frankly don't see the point of skipping a day of feeding. Just like you, they are used to a certain routine and their physiology becomes accustomed to eating at a certain time. Getting them accustomed to a certain feeding time and then skipping a day seems cruel. If tank clarity is a problem, feed less each time. Why overfeed and then skip a day?
 
I feed twice a day, everyday. But I’m aware of those who advocate fasts and fewer feedings. This would result in less poop & fewer & smaller water changes. I can’t help but wonder if fish-fasters appreciate this & rationale their practices accordingly. But don’t listen to me. I googled this subject long ago & it was a hot topic online. Some interesting & entertaining reading.
 
We can not assume that fish in the wild find their food at at the same time every day and it is always plentiful.. They just tend to gorge themselves whenever food is available. .This is their survival instinct

We all know no mater how well fed our fish our are, whenever we feed them they act like they are starved. :)
 
We can not assume they don’t either, Joe. There is sure to be tremendous environmental & specie differences.

My goldfish always act like they haven’t eaten since the 4th of July. They always have their piggy little fishy faces pressed to the glass when I walk by. The others, not so much.
 
We can not assume that fish in the wild find their food at at the same time every day and it is always plentiful. They just tend to gorge themselves whenever food is available. This is their survival instinct

We all know no matter how well fed our fish our are, whenever we feed them they act like they are starved. :)

This is pretty well said :)

Fish and other animals are opportunistic feeders meaning they eat whenever food is available, and they eat as much as possible when it is available because they don't know when their next meal will be. People were the same before modern technology and modern farming practices provided some of us with a stable regular food source. However, there are plenty of people around the world that still struggle to find sufficient food on a daily basis.

In the wild most animals, birds, fish, insects and reptiles have periods with lots of food and periods with little or no food. I used to collect fish and in the dry season there would be lots of small flying insects for them to eat (great for surface dwelling species, not so good for bottom dwellers) but less water to swim in. In the wet season there would be lots of water but fewer insects. In the wet season food was more spread out and the fish's diets consisted of a lot more variety.

Humans and all animals do best when fed a varied diet that is nutritious and balanced but not consumed excessively. You have to remember that 100 years ago people didn't even have a steady food source or large amounts of food. Refrigerators didn't become readily available until the 1960s and prepackaged foods weren't common until the 1970s & 80s. Before that you bought meat from a butcher and veges from the fruit n veg shop and cooked the food that day or the following day. If you didn't have a local shop to buy these items, you hunted or grew your own. You might not eat a decent meal every day and fish are exactly the same.

Fish that are overfed will gain weight and fat fish are not as healthy and do not breed as readily as slimmer healthier fish. However, fish do need to be fed well to produce good quality gametes (eggs & sperm). Young fish should be fed well until they reach sexual maturity. Fish being used for breeding purposes should be fed well for several weeks before breeding. But adult fish just hanging out in a tank should be fed a moderate amount so they don't gain weight but aren't starving.

Fasting healthy adult fish for 1 or 2 days a week is not going to harm them and may actually help them maintain a healthier weight, as well as have a healthier body in relation to how their body breaks down food and uses the nutrients it gets.

My fish were fed well but would still beg for food any time they saw my bedroom door open or saw me entering the room. I could feed them all day every day and they would still act like they were starving. My dogs were the same, especially the bigger dog. They were fed well but always wanted more. There was only a couple of times I remember them refusing food. One time we had a power failure that lasted 5 days and I had bought a heap of meat a few days before. I had to use it up so it didn't go off. I cooked heaps and fed it to the dogs and family. After a few days of being offered all you can eat bbq meat, the dogs said enough is enough and actually refused food. They just lay there with huge bellies saying I can't eat any more :)
 
Just one point
Born in '47 In the US, my earliest memory is that we always had a refrigerator. It did have a tiny freezer.

However, our next door neighbor still had an "Ice box" .
Conversely, they got an automatic washing machine before us.
We were one of the first in our neighborhood to get a TV.

It was a time of great change for all as the economy boomed after WW II
 
We can not assume they don’t either, Joe. There is sure to be tremendous environmental & specie differences.

My goldfish always act like they haven’t eaten since the 4th of July. They always have their piggy little fishy faces pressed to the glass when I walk by. The others, not so much.

It is true that fish are opportunistic feeders in the wild, but in a tank, you likely feed them every day at the same time, so their behavior and metabolism become attuned to that routine. I just don't see the point in skipping a day.
 
In a tank, they are still opportunist feeders. It's their instinct no matter where they are
After all, they are relatively lower life forms
If you skip a day or not is just sort of what they might face in the wild.
 
In a tank, they are still opportunist feeders. It's their instinct no matter where they are
After all, they are relatively lower life forms
If you skip a day or not is just sort of what they might face in the wild.

I don't disagree but I still see no reason for skipping a day on purpose.
 
A case may be made that it is not natural in one respect or another.
However, there is nothing really natural in an aquarium to begin with.
 
Just one point
Born in '47 In the US, my earliest memory is that we always had a refrigerator. It did have a tiny freezer.

However, our next door neighbor still had an "Ice box" .
Conversely, they got an automatic washing machine before us.
We were one of the first in our neighborhood to get a TV.

It was a time of great change for all as the economy boomed after WW II

Right, in 1950 everyone in our lower middle class U.S. neighborhood had refrigerators. Women of my mother's generation flocked to prepackaged foods in the 1940s because they'd watched their mothers spend all day every day drudging in the kitchen preparing meals from scratch and washing endless piles of cookware. Not for the modern 40s women! Get done and go out dancing! Different rates of modernity in different countries/regions.

PS: I feed everyone every day, just a bit less if I see it's not being all eaten up in one go. And occasionally someone's just not that hungry - duly noted and I skip it for a day.
 
To get back on topic.....
Since I have been skipping feeding one day a week (on Saturdays) my tank has gotten noticeably cleaner.
I also have to clean my HOB filter intake sponge pre filter a bit less often.
My fish and shrimp are ding great also.
It's a win- win situation for me (and my fish) at least. :)

BTW, with a gravel substrate and many cherry shrimp etc it is difficult to determine if all has been eaten in a single day and all is well fed
Skipping a day helps my bottom feeders in keeping the tank cleaner .
 
I have a 10 gal community tank that has been up and ruining for about a year.
The tank is heavily planted and fish are doing great.
I have Harlequin Rasboras, Neon Tetras, and Cory Cats. .
I also have several Cherry shrimp.
Admittedly it is a bit over stocked but all are doing great as I said
Water parameters are great.

Yes I do weekly water changes.

My question is this..
I have started to skip all feeding one day a week... on Saturday;:
Is this a good thing to do ?
Water seems to have gotten a bit noticeably clearer for one thing.
The first question should be " What is the purpose for fasting the fish?"
In reading the other posts, the points made sound good for wild caught fish but do YOU have wild caught fish? Probably not. You probably have hatchery raised fish that are very far removed from their wild counterparts and that are used to being fed 3-5 times a day, every day. So fasting is not "normal" to them. Whether you want to call them opportunistic or habituated to being fed is up to you but to try to simulate a natural environment that their wild counterparts are subject to will be UNnatural to your fish. They have never been "wanting" for food or needed to hunt for it.

In an overstocked tank, making the fish hungry can lead to the fish eating each other or other tankmates. So the next question is " Is this something you are willing to have happen? "

As for your water being cleaner by skipping the day, that says you are either feeding too much per feeding or your filtration is undersized for the environment you are creating. No water should be dirty from feeding.

So to answer the question " Is this a good thing to do?", it's neither good or bad but I lean more towards the potentially bad side. With your stock, it probably won't make a difference but for someone reading this with say, aggressive fish, it can easily lead to lost inhabitants. In the case of larger fish that consume whole fish per meal, the more time they have to digest before the next meal is a good thing. That may involve skipping a routine feeding since their instincts would be to get the food because it's available. So, Can it be done? Sure, but why? Is there any benefit to the fish doing this? I doubt it unless we are talking about the whole fish eaters. It will just make the fish hungrier at the next feeding. If you cut back on the amount of food per feeding, you will probably get the same cleaner water result. If you increase the number of times you feed the fish while decreasing the amount fed each time, you should get the same result and also lesson the strain on the biological filter in your system. Consider the amount of food you feed as a pizza pie. At the end of the day the whole pie will be gone. If you slice up that pie into 6 pieces, you will feed 6 times per day using 1/6 of the total amount of the pie at each feeding. If you slice up that pie into 10 pieces, you will feed 10 times a day and only feed 1/10 of the total amount of the pie at each feeding. At the end of the day, no matter whether you fed them 10 times per day or 6 times or 4 times or one time, you are always feeding the same total amount. It's actually better to feed fish in an aquarium more often with less food so that they have a chance to digest and eliminate the last meal before eating the next meal. It's less stressful over all to the entire aquarium system that way.(y)
 
I fear some or missing the point I am not fasting the fish. Some days I barely eat myself.The fish in my tank ate most likely better fed than if they they were in the wild :.
Also my tank is planted with real plants and it is only 10 gal.
it's not some bare bottomed tank with a couple of plastic plants

What makes some think my fish are going hungry
 
I fear some or missing the point I am not fasting the fish. Some days I barely eat myself.The fish in my tank ate most likely better fed than if they they were in the wild :.
Also my tank is planted with real plants and it is only 10 gal.
it's not some bare bottomed tank with a couple of plastic plants

What makes some think my fish are going hungry
What makes you think that not feeding one day a week is not making them hungry? :confused:
 
Back
Top Bottom