“This part of the hobby, like many others, you simply figure out with experience.†Sorry, but I really have to disagree with this. Many people never learn and just figure there fish died of old age or just grow up to look…. I can not tell you how many deformed tangs I have seen turned into LFS after years of starving and malnutrition. It’s a good idea to find out from a reliable source, what you should feed the different fish in you’re tank.
Luckily many of the fish in our tanks will eat the same sort of things and are not too fussy. A really good source for this is Scott Michael. He has written books and sharks, butterflies, angelfish and probably the most useful in this instance “A PocketExpert Guide Marine Fishesâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ. In the book he mentions a variety of foods which should be fed and recommends how often to feed them.
I could tell you what I feed my fish, but what you’re fish require could be different. I will say that I try to feed high quality dry food 2-3 times a day and enriched frozen every 2-3 days soaked in vitamins, amino acids, and tons of other good stuff.(sometimes use selcon, recently been using vitachem)
What fish do you currently have?
Ian:†have one of those ‘fish feeders’. Its a little blue thing that floats around, I usually put pellets and non frozen stuff in there and the fish can pick at it when they want. I like it because if I over feed it will just sit there and they will eventually eat it all.â€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ
Depending on you’re set up this may be a good sign that you don’t have high enough flow.(possibly, in my opinion probably) Most thriving reef tanks have a lot of wave action at the surface.
I don’t think we can really tell if bz if feeding too much based on how often he says he is feeding. Small quantities fed frequently is the healthiest for the fish.
“have u guys noticed the film on to of the water. my tanks always got something goin on. usually if i do a water change it pretty much goes away. It†Probably mostly proteins building at the surface. With larger “reef ready†tanks most of this gets pulled through the overflow and goes right through filtration. On most of my tanks I use a little cup to pull off the surface scum every other day and also pull out a small quantity of water while siphoning out a neat little pile of snail poop in the middle of the tank.(circular flow, bare bottom) Then at the end of the week I add some SW.
Tip: I’ve tried eye droppers, syringes, many types of turkey basters, and the expensive sea squirt and none of them come close to the new coral feeder I found a couple of months ago.(forget the name of the company that makes it, I’ll post when I remember) Problem with turkey basters is that the opening is too wide and the foods I feed are usually too liquidy and seep right back out. I left several carpet stains at the apartment I just moved out of. Love the “Coral feeder†though.
Tip 2: If you are feeding frozen mysis it may be a good idea to rinse the mysis thoroughly before feeding. Though some corals and other filter feeding animals may absorb some of the small particulate matter a lot of this smelly juice will just become waist in most reef tanks.