How often should I be feeding?

P

paige

I currently feed my tank once a day...about 1/4 of a frozen cube. It's a 46g with a midas blenny, royal gramma and 2 clowns.

I've started getting diatoms on the sand, and my first guess is that I'm overfeeding. The tank has be setup about 4 months.
 
that is a light diner IMHO i would feed that amount 2 times a day. do you have snails and crabs to cleanup the food that dont get eaten
 
in my 29 i have a clown, tailspot blenny and pygmy angel and I feed half a cube. Do you have a skimmer? if so i think it would be fine to bump it up to atleast half a cube. As for the diatoms, it's probably just part of the cycles. I went through diatoms and cyano on and off the first 8 months in my tank.
 
In my 12g I have two maroon clowns, 2 sexy shrimp and a watchman. I feel 1 full cube every other day. No issues.
 
Maybe I'll start feeding that twice a day. The clowns are still teeny tiny, so they don't need much...but I'll bump up the feedings.
 
Yeah, my clowns are still babies. So much so that they are maroon clowns and haven't gained their gold stripes yet, but they pig out.
 
You also might try throwing in some peppermint shrimp. They each ALL the leftovers and are still hungry.
 
I have a blood red shrimp. I'm hoping he comes out a night and does some cleaning. He definitely doesn't come out during the day and do anything.
 
The two peppermint shirmp I had literally came out during the day and ate the food as the clowns and goby were eating.
 
I feed 5 cubes of mysis, 2 or 3 of spiranlina in the mid-morning and a good pinch of prime reef flake in the late afternoon. That is split among two tanks, but most of it goes in the main system.

I also put a 2x3 sheet of nori in each tank once a day.

If you are getting diatoms, it could just be an maturation process of the tank. I wouldn't worry quite yet. Just try to add some flow over the sand and make sure your skimmer is working well. You might also try a lights out day once a week. Also your photo period may be a bit too much.. but that will depend on your corals.

Do you have a DSB or shallow bed? If its a DSB, look at getting some additional bed stirrers like nassarius snails, conchs, and tiger tail cukes. If its a shallow bed... those might not be a bad idea either and you can always increase your vaccuming at water change time.

As always.. make sure you use RO/DI and consider running GFO and Carbon.
 
One cube every two days, maybe three is def sufficient, my fish arent complaining, they're fat and happy, i've had them for over 4 years now , you all are just wasting food! :roll: :lol: :lol: :lol:

As always i strongly disagree on this subject, like DaveJ points out with over feeding, there should be a strong emhpasis on heavy skimming and proper filtration when it comes to over feeding, and i'm talking about Bubble King ($2K skimmers), huge sumps, fish rooms, DSB and proper maintanance. Not your average setups. Too many times I've seen it not done right and it eventually just turns into another "Why am I getting so much algae?" thread.
 
Haha yeah, I do once every two days and my fish don't beg for any. Fish seem to be just like any other animal, once you get them in a routine, they are perfectly happy.
 
Haha yeah, I do once every two days and my fish don't beg for any. Fish seem to be just like any other animal, once you get them in a routine, they are perfectly happy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top