rayjay said:
Although every one I know uses snails and many have hermits, I don't have either in any of my tanks, and my tanks are bare bottom.
Not having a cleanup crew is all the more reason you should limit your feedings to every other day. Most fish will loose interest in flake/frozen quickly once it’s on the bottom unless you have bottom feeders and excess food needs to be cleaned up constantly.
I agree that most people I know as well are feeding daily and if in small quantities is perfectly acceptable. Some of it has to do with the species they keep as well since certain species of SW fish need to be fed daily and sometime 2-3 time a day in small quantities.
Personally I have been feeding my fish every other day for 15+ years including FW, Brackish, & SW. Most adult fish can easily go for 3-4 days without eating and keeping them slightly underfed but not undernourished is good for them because it keeps them more active and grazing on a more natural diet of what they find in the lr.
Also fish do not know when they are “full” right away and will often exceed taking in more food if offered which can lead to lethargy and health problems over time.
As I stated before whether feeding daily or every other day if your fish are consuming all the food offered within 30 seconds the amount should be increased slightly, if not consumed within 3-5 minutes then decreased.
If you over feed your fish you can immediately see the bad results in dirty water, bad water chemistry, algae growth, etc.
A lot of flake and frozen have iodine and vitamins added for the fishes health but contribute very little in actual “trace elements” added to the tank.
Natural SW mostly contains Cl/Na/Mg/Sulphur/Ca in larger quantities and hundreds of others in smaller quantities.
The food we add mostly gets eaten by fish/mobile inverts and most elements/vitamins are absorbed by them and exported. Fish/invert waste has little elements left and mostly just fouls up the tank with excess organics/nutrients which is replaced by doing PWC.