How often should I feed my fish

[Sea Turtle]

I have a 75 gallon reef tank with 100 lbs of live rock and a 20 gallon sump. The tank has about 10 fish in it. The largest being a yellow tang. How often should I be feeding them?

I currently am feeding mysis shrimp once per day. I am wondering if this might be too much? I have been having a bit of a problem with algae and small amounts of dinos. I recently added a refugium to help in the cleaning process.

 

[jhemdal1]

Sea Turtle,

Feeding frequency does not have as much of a bearing on bioload than feeding amount does. Tiny amounts of food, feed throughout the day would have less impact than a huge amount of food dumped in every other day. I prefer letting the fish tell me how much to feed, and feed them at least once a day, more often for plankton pickers and juvenile fish. Watch for pinched bellies on the tangs - if you're seeing that, try increases the vegetable matter in their diet (dried Nori for example). I would feed that tank twice a day, small amounts, fed slowly so that the fish all get a chance to eat it before it is pulled out by the filter, or settles to the bottom. As the fish's feeding rate slows down, you stop adding food. Too many people try to manage their bioload by witholding food - better to manage it by not trying to put too many fish in a coral tank to begin with, or by managing the issue through water changes and skimming. A refugium will have no benefit in reducing bioloading in an aquarium.

Jay

 

[Sea Turtle]

Thanks jhemdal. I will continue to feed once per day. I work all day so it is not practical for me to feed twice per day since the light don't come on until about noon. I have noticed that I am getting a large amount of hair algae growing in some areas of the tank and naturaly suspected that I was over feeding.

 

[Ummfish]

IMO, as many times as possible while still maintaining water quality.