Feeding the Fish

[Quigley]

Friends,

We have a question about how best to feed the fish in our reef tank. We currently feed the fish twice a day; flakes in the morning and shrimp or blood worms in the evening. We've been placing the food directly into the water and letting the current from the power heads distribute it throughout the tank.

The problem we are noticing is that some of the smaller and less active fish don't seem to want to go after the food. For instance, we have a couple of Clown Gobies that don't swim much anyways, and they just seem to stick to the rocks and watch the food float by. We are concerned that some of our fish may not be eating well, or eating at all.

Is this something we should be concerned about? Is there a better way to feed the fish, or a different type of food we should be using?

Thanks for your help,
Randy & Deanne

 

[balogh03]

I would try some mysris shrimp. Also, what type of flake are you feeding and do you thaw out the food before it enters the tank? If not, get a little cup of tank water, put the frozen food in and then when it is done thawing out you can just poor it in how ever much needed.

good luck

-augustus

 

[Krish]

In your case, you may need a sinking type of food for the goby's, but from what I understand, some Goby's (I think) like to eat pods which they will hunt for in the tank. I personally feed my fish Ocean Nutrition flakes (all the types they have) to give them variety and everyone seems to do well. If your goby's seem to eat the food you give them, but just have a hard time getting to it, if at all possible, you may need to slow up the flow in the tank during feeding time and resume afterwards to give them a chance to get the food. Just a thought...I'll wait to see what the others chime in with as I've never had a goby before

 

[4251cpd]

Everyone is on the money and I will give you my 2 bits:

Though I could eat thin crust pizza at every meal, my doctor would kill me. General guidlines, not to taken as gospel, frozen whole marine foods are better then processed dry foods. Not to say that flake or pellet should never be used but should be used less often then frozen whole foods. Variety is better then the same stuff at every meal. Frozen can be given in a few ways: put in a little container and let thaw for 10-15 minutes and feed. Cut the desired amount, place in the container add 5ml or so of tank water and dump it in. Get a marine vitamin supplement, do as above with the thaw method but add 3 ml's of the supplement and let soak for 10-15 mins. Sop up the excess liquid with a small piece of paper towel and dump in the tank. Just a few options to keep your guys healthy.

 

[4251cpd]

Oh yeah I forgot, get a bar of frozen cyclopeeze. You will get a good response. As Krish said you may want to turn off the circulation during feeding and gently with a turkey baster target feed the gobies, rotifers, cyclo, daphnia, arctipods, all of these are frozen are fridged "whole" foods.