Anenome Feeding: How often, is too often?

[survivinglove]

This question is more out of curiosity than anything else....

I have a pink tip anenome who is lovely and wonderful. I feed 'her' every 5 days ... a scallop or a small cleaned shrimp or a little ocean fish.

My father had been visiting over Xmas and loved to sit in front of our nanoreef and watch the critters do there thing, and one day he posed an interesting question that I couldnt answer:

"What would happen if I fed it every day or every other day?"

...would it just get HUGE or SICK or Mess up the water quality?

Anyone know?

Thanks..just curious

[JG]

I think your schedule is fine. They seem to digest food very slowly and excrete very slowly.

Joanne

[tee78]

I think mine eats everyday, because of my clowns. I have to target feed my clowns, because they never go to far from the anemone to eat. Whatever they don't eat, falls into the anemone. The clowns will also spit some of the food out into the anemone.

[survivinglove]

Thanks for the input..but again, I am on a good schedule of feeding and don't plan on changing it..that was not my question...my question was:

What would happen if you did?

Purely out of curiosity, not asking for feeding advice.

Thanks.

[clowninround]

My clown trys to feed our anemone everyday but if the anemone is full it won't accept the food. I must say that is is rare though that the anemone dosen't accept the food. It seems to always be hungry . To answer your question, I think that if the anemone has had enoough it simply won't eat it or spit it out.

[clowninround]

O and also, according to Dr. Mac's website bubble tips tend to split more with more vitamin enriched feedings.

[JG]

It is a good question.
It would seem to me that it would accept the food whether hungry or not since the feeding response seems to be reflexive. What I'm not sure about is whether it would then keep the food long enough to digest. They will spit the food back out at night. So is it possible to overfeed an anemone in the first place?

[daveNandi]

All of that food would add enough nutrient to your tank to give you an algae bloom, especially in a tank that small.