Starving Fish: Are you starving your fish because you're afraid of algae?

[Scorpius]

You're better off overfeeding and having happy coral and fish than starving dying coral and fish.

 

[StatelineReefer]

I feed enough that my fish forage, but not enough that they constantly stay hungry. A lawnmower blenny takes care of literally any algae that may peek out before it has a chance to take hold, even though I have elevated nitrates and PO4.

 

[srad750c]

I’m sure I don’t feed my fish too much or not enough, I use spirulina flakes, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp and cyclopes. All my fish and hermits seem to be very happy.

 

[srad750c]

I’m afraid I feed too little.. can you guys offer me your opinions?

Red Sea 350 v2
About 3 months since tank reset (original live stock, some original base rock, added new live rock and new live sand and new water)
Livestock: Foxface, designer clown, melanurus wrasse, blue hippo tang, yellow tang, flamehawk
CUC: 4-5 hermits, crab, sand sifting star (small) 2 skunk shrimp, 1 blood shrimp, some snails
Coral: couple of mushrooms, trumpet, two torches, 3 frags of zoas with 2-3 heads each

Nitrates: 1-3
Phosphates: 0.14 (would like to bring it down)

I feed one cube mixedwith a pinch of small pellets. Reef roids once a week.

If your fish are not getting thin, you’re doing a great job, use NoPox to control your PO4, I used previously it worked, I got away from it for a couple of years, I'm using again cause nothing seems to control my PO4 better than it.

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

I feed 5 cubes of frozen a day for 17 fish - 8 clowns, yellow coris wrasse, blue head wrasse, 2 inch clown trigger, yellow tang, hippo tang (3 inches), copperband butterfly, small swallowtail angel, vlamingi tang (4.5 inches), etc.

I run Zeovit and this helps keep my nitrates up in my SPS dominated tank. I also dose 7ml of potassium-nitrate (my own mixture) to help also as fish food is expensive.

 

[spllbnd2]

Voted "Other" because I am fishless in Seattle.

 

[Fourstars]

I feed just the right amount, three times a day and stop if any doesn’t get consumed before it hits bottom. Remember that everything you dump in your tank isn’t going anywhere it’s just being converted. Those who claim to overfeed are not setting themselves up for long term success.

 

[jaxteller007]

I'm treading the fine line of continuing to lower nitrates (down to about 25 now) while not starving our fish. I really don't think I'm that concerned with algae anymore. The addition of a few Mexican turbos, a bunch of Nerites, Ceriths, Turbans and Nassarius have laid waste to the hair algae outbreak I had.
Now I just want to keep all of those snails and the fish happy while not causing my nitrates to rise again. We have 2 yellow tangs, LT tang, Magnificent foxface, 2 clowns, Marine betta, a cardinal, a chromi, coral beauty, golden head goby, scooter blenny, pistol shimp, watchman goby, melanurus wrasse and a horeshoe crab in a 180G tank.

 

[EntitledSushi]

I have no idea if I am feeding my fish too much or too little. There's so much contradictory information out there. Feed until all the food is gone in 2 minutes. If you have nitrates, it's because you're feeding too much. If you have little nitrates, you're feeding too little. Feed once a day. Feed three times per day. Feed every other day. Feed supplements X, Y, and Z. Don't feed any supplements. Feed until your fish are fat. Keep your fish hungry so they clean the tank. How am I supposed to know if a fish is fat anyway? To me it looks like a fish.

 

[Reefrats]

My tank has been going 4 months. My nutrients are still zero. I am going to start dosing neo nitro and neo phos. I also pulled out the chemi pure and took my algae reactor offline. I was so worried about high nutrients that I ended up with dinos growing on my sand.

 

[Cmack59]

In the last few years I have seen people really warm up to the idea of heavily feeding their fish. I feed an unholy amount and have be to VERY aggressive in my nutrient export. I run a large reguium, ATS, two skimmers each rated for my system volume (long story but work much better than one larger skimmer), biopellet reactor with twice as many pellets as rated for my tank, add 50mL-100mL of vinegar/day, as well as lanthanum chloride addition daily.

With all of this my nutrients run

NO3 2.5-10ppm
PO4 .1ppm (high but working on getting it a bit lower. I am shooting for .05ppm)
Ammonia 0
dKh 8-9.5

I feed until no fish is eating, which no one recommends to do. Because of that I keep very aggressive fish housed with each other and almost never see signs of significant aggression. I see insane growth rates in fish, which is problematic. Without very aggressive nutrient export I would not be able to sustain my system.

Why do you put vinegar in your tank?

 

[Sheripie]

I feed my tank quite heavy thanks to my nephew and niece, every time they come to my room I had to feed lol
No3 = 1-2
Po4 = 0.02

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Why do you put vinegar in your tank?

Vinegar is a form is carbon dosing. The addition of carbon helps increase the number of bacteria, which breakdowns nitrates, and to a lesser degree phosphates. Biopellets work in a similar way, however based on everything I read, they do not target the same bacteria. With enough biopellets you can achieve the same goal.

 

[LiqrSicc]

My fish eat every I eat... so about 6 times a day

 

[725196]

I feed my tank 6 times a day.
1. Nori both read and green
2-5. A mix of frozen cubes. Mysis, krill, pods etc.
6. A bead of ezmasstick
I feed heavily and I export heavily. I use mesh filter socks, that I rinse daily, a bubble magus curve 5 and an Icecap ATS. My fish are fat and healthy, but that does not stop them from begging anytime I go near the tank.

 

[sabor]

I have a strict regimen. Feed nori in the morning, pellets at noon, flakes at 3-3:30, and frozen at 6:6-30. Fish are doing great and sps are happy.

 

[Ulm_nano_diybudgetreef]

I wonder how much fish typically eat in the wild?

Has there been any research articles done on this topic?

 

[Reef.]

I have no idea if I am feeding my fish too much or too little. There's so much contradictory information out there. Feed until all the food is gone in 2 minutes. If you have nitrates, it's because you're feeding too much. If you have little nitrates, you're feeding too little. Feed once a day. Feed three times per day. Feed every other day. Feed supplements X, Y, and Z. Don't feed any supplements. Feed until your fish are fat. Keep your fish hungry so they clean the tank. How am I supposed to know if a fish is fat anyway? To me it looks like a fish.

but that information is coming from hundreds of different people, if one person was saying it than it would be confusing. Most questions in this hobby have many answers, which powerhead, what media to use etc we listen to the options then choose what we feel is best.

Most fish feed all day long, every day, so that cuts out a lot of what you have heard, not sure why some only feed a couple of times a week, or as someone said in this thread, only once a week! you get to see when a fish has had enough food in one sitting, if your parameters are good, feed again later. I don’t think you can over feed, I think you can feed to the point where you have a algae issue.

 

[najer]

No I don't view it from the front, the end of my desk is against the left end!
I designed my tank to meet a couple of criteria, one to allow me to be lazy and two to try and keep everything happy.
The tank is fully divided 3/5 to 2/5 and there is a swim through hole for the fish and creatures.
The right end is a display refugium so my fish can graze / hunt all day.
I feed a good pinch of flake at 10-00 (they know this) and frozen something at 18-00 (they know this also).
They love it and I think of it as a treat.
I have a sump refugium as well so the display is a bit sparse at the moment.

My flame is a very rare fish, she is captive bred and when I got her she could swim through 1 cm egg crate, if she swam into your hand now she would leave a dent!