Tank Obesity, I am guilty, are you?

[John D Hirsch MD]

How often and how much do you feed? Overfeeding in humans is associated with diabetes, heart disease, increased risk for cancer, arthritis, and a variety of other maladies. Overfeeding your tank or "tank obesity" is also a real problem. Overfeeding stresses your waste removal system, causes fluctuations in water quality, unwanted algae growth, spikes in phosphate and nitrate levels, bacterial blooms, and pest proliferation.

I am in the process of creating a database of the feeding habits of reefs.com members to understand the long term effects of feeding routines, rather than testimonials. The more members that participate, the more valuable the information will be.

My base foods are Rod's and Larry's mixed with fish eggs, PE Mysis, and nori. I also routinely add both live phytoplankton and live copepods and finally I soak all my foods in live spirulina before feeding. I use no other additives or supplements.

The information I am looking for is when you feed, how often you feed, and how much you feed per feeding? I look forward to hearing from everyone.

 

[Paul B]

I feed live blackworms every day. Usually a few in the morning, maybe enough so that every fish gets just a few. Then at night I feed live blackworms again along with clam that I buy live and freeze. I have about 24 fish averaging about 3". They get about a tablespoon of clams and worms in the afternoon. It is hard to measure clams but I would assume it is about the equivalent of a 2 cubes of a commercial food. A few times a week I will alternate with frozen Mysis or LFS food. I also feed baby brine shrimp that I hatch every day for the pipefish and mandarins.
I do this to keep my fish spawning and all of my paired fish are spawning. I feel most of us don't feed enough. My main interest is in keeping the fish spawning and immune from disease and not the water parameters.

 

[John D Hirsch MD]

thanks Paul, It sounds like you got it. Just curious do you feed your black worms as well fed black worms are more nutritious than starving black worms? I am sure others would be interested.
Doc

 

[Paul B]

Doc I keep my live worms in a worm keeper that I designed. I feed them flaked potatoes and paper towels. They don't actually "eat" anything but live off the decomposition of the organic matter. The worms are fat and reproduce. If you keep them in a refrigerator like many people do, they gradually lose nutrition as they don't eat while they are cold. As I said Doc. All my paired fish are spawning including the 24 year old fireclowns, mandarins and bluestripe pipefish. But, to me, besides fish being in spawning mode, they also should be immune from disease as my fish are. But I don't want to screw up your very good nutrition thread. Have a great day.

 

[John D Hirsch MD]

I agree, healthy fish are much more resistant to disease. You are feeding an all natural healthy diet and the results seem obvious.
Doc