Following up on the previous post about feeding fish while on vacation, I thought I would post again about feeding, but this time focused on overfeeding and how to avoid it.
Feeding routines and amounts vary from hobbyist to hobbyist, as well as from tank to tank and, sometimes, fish to fish. So, how do you avoid overfeeding?
As a rule, the easiest way to avoid it is to gauge the amount of uneaten food you see on the substrate or tank bottom. Ideally, you should see very little food on the bottom of your tank within several hours of feeding. Most fish aren’t like dogs, which might just eat, eat, and eat regardless of how much you give them.
I feed primarily flakes, so this post is written within that context. Pellets and sticks are denser, and thus it’s even worse if you regularly find them disintegrated and uneaten on the tank bottom.
There are exceptions, however. I have some cichlid species that will happily consume, overnight, any leftover food on the bottom. I have other species that won’t touch much food that lies on the bottom, regardless of how long it’s there. But as a rule, leftover food is a good indicator that you’ve fed too much. So, cut back until you regularly notice little or no food on the bottom.
This advice focuses on juvenile, adult, and sub-adult fish. Fry and wrigglers are a special circumstance and highly variable, which is a post for another day.
Having said all of the above, what should your feeding routine be? There are all kinds of “rules” for feeding fish. Some hobbyists advocate feeding twice a day and only what the fish consume in a couple of minutes. Some advocate once per day, but the same amount each day. Some advocate varying the days fed and the amount each day. What is the correct method? Put simply, there isn’t one. Knowing your fish, your experience, and observation will help you decide. See one of my previous posts about feeding.
The following three rules are what I use – 1) feed no more than once per day, 2) don’t feed every day, 3) less is more. These are what I have found, over two decades of fish keeping, to work best for all of my fish.