How much to feed? - Picture Added

I know there are a ton of threads out there on this, but it's hard to find something that matches up to my tank.

9 fish
2 clowns
2 gobies
1 firefish
1 black/white damsel
1 blue/green chromis
1 fairy wrasse
1 long nosed hawk fish
20-30 assorted hermits, snails & starfish (one large serpent, several tiny bristle)
Oh and a pistol shrimp

45 gallon tank.

For the longest time I did a cube of mysis every other day with some flake food in between. (only about half the fish)Lately I'm up to two cubes every other day with a single cube on the off days. No parameter problems, all the food seems to be consumed in just a couple of minutes.

No bristle worm problems.

No algae problems


... guess I may have answered my own question. I think I needed to type it all out to see it ;D

How much do the rest of you feed?

 

Feeding is a debated topic left and right.

You said you have no parameter problems so you're either

A. Not over feeding
B. Keeping up with water changes

Either way as long as your fish don't appear hungry then you are fine. Some will say that's too much food, but as long as you don't see it collecting around the tank and not being consumed then you're fine.

 

Water changes, what are those? I'm due for one actually.

I have a hard time finding any evidence that I've just fed the tank within 5 minutes of feeding them.

 

Personally, I'm a huge proponent of keeping one's pets well fed. For starters, it's the first step in maintaining good health and longevity. Hungry fish get stressed, and stressed fish release chemical "signals", and we don't even know what that does to water quality. If one "needs" to cut feedings to once every 2 or 3 days to battle nutrient/algae issues, either their tank is heavily overstocked, they need a larger CuC and/or better filtration, or they need to make changes in their maintenance schedule (or a combination of any or all of the above).

I can't make a good comparison for you as I only feed Ocean Nutrition flakes, and I simply add small pinches until the fish start losing interest (roughly 2 - 3 minutes), but it looks to me like you're on the right track.

 

The one thing you shouldn't do when feeding is give more than they can handle, if they eat almost everything you give then is fine, problem is when you dump a lot of food and good portion is left uneaten.

I feed my fish 4 times a day, 3 of then are by an auto feeder and the other is a cube of frozen i put when i get home.

 

I've always found my fish and corals last longer and look better erring on the side of extra feeding (as long as your filtration can keep up). For your bioload, somewhere around a 3/4-1 cube per day, or equivalent would be food to start. I don't think you need to feed daily, could feed every other day, but the more feedings you break the amount up into, the less algae and nutrients issues IME. Having a lot of food dumped in all at once, just really strains the system more, but can be tough for some people to feed frequently. Personally I use an auto feeder 3x per day then some manual feedings in the morning before work and at nigh. All relatively small feedings though, so everything gets eaten and nothing settles to sink into the sand/rocks and cause problems latter.

 

Thanks I appreciate your feedback. A lot of my habits are based on observation of the tank. Everything looks good and tests good. Going to go with it until something pops up to make me change my tactics.

I should have clarified that it's typically one mini cube and one normal cube. Still though they clean house pretty quickly. The only thing that seems to linger is if I feed one full cube of the "marine cuisine" as it tends to cloud for a moment.

I would prefer that approach but my job typically does not give me a lot of time to dedicate to the tank each day. I have an auto feeder somewhere I should dig it out and get it hooked up.

 

Between my 9 (smaller) fish, 2 shrimp and numerous LPS corals, I typically feed 1 frozen cube per day, plus my wife feeds either a pinch of flakes or freeze dried mysis during the day, and a couple pellets for the sleeper goby. Seems to work well for me. I can usually go 2 weeks before having to clean the glass, if that is a way to judge anything

 

Pic

Decided to add a picture. Bit of sand in the water column the gold headed sleeper goby is chowing down and spitting sand all over the tank.

 

Tank looks good, Steve. Nice and clean, everything looks healthy... I'd say you've got it down to a science.

IMOPE, that's always the best.