How do I know if my fish are fed enough?

Question

I have a 10 gallon fish tank with 6 Zebra Danios and a male betta...

I vary their diet by having flakes and/or bloodworms every few days. I usually wake up and turn on the light and feed them a pinch of bloodworms or flakes. And if they eat all that up I add another pinch of food. I do the same at night...

How do I know if I am over feeding or under feeding my fish?

Answer 1

Just give them what they will eat in a couple of minutes...If the food dissapears in a few seconds give them a little more, If they aren't eating it all give them less...pluss if the tank is getting cloudy and nasty really fast then you are probably feeding them too much.

I feed mine twice a day, just a pinch morning and night

Answer 2

Feed them once a day with flake food, and do a treat of bloodworms every other day or so. Give them one small pinch of food and if it is all gone in less the 3 minutes, add a little more. If there is some extra food that is not getting eaten, you should think of adding 3 or 4 ghost shrimp...they will eat extra food on the bottom, some algae and they can live for a long time and look really neat (I have a few shrimp over 9 months old). Do that and keep up on water changes and you will be fine.

Answer 3

To begin with, you are somewhat overstocked. 6 danios and a betta is a little much for a 10, 1" of slim bodied under 4" fish per gallon. Also, zebra danios may get a little nippy with something as tempting as the long fins of a betta. Finally, zebra danios really should be in something larger than a 10, maybe 30 gals, because of their activeness. I would recoomend getting a larger tank and keeping your betta in the 10 with a few pygmy cories and shrimp.

As for you question, as long as you have good water quality ( get an aquarium pharm master test kit if you dont have one) you are not feeding too much. As for underfeeding. Unless you have a super delicate, shy, special diatary requirement fish, as long as the fish get food, they have enough. Though not recommended, a fish can go for weeks without food, based on my experience. Your diet sounds good, but try less food. As I said, you tank is slightly overstocked (though fine) and more food means more waste, even if the fish eats it all. A general rule is 2 flakes per small fish (your fish are) once or twice a day. A fish's eye is the size of its stomach. Another rule is to feed no more than you fish can eat in 2 minutes. This is good, though some shyer fish may not get (none of your fish should be like that).

Try more variety. Though zebras and bettas are fine off with just flakes and bloodworms, try out different staples, I like omega one , though ocean nuetrician is good. These brands both have a high quality base, fish. Other brands have fish meal. What this means is that they take the worse parts of meat, and grind it up with bones, not high quality. Also, try adding some vegetables. Frozen peas, carrots, and spinage are very common, boiled to make digestion easier. Apart from many foods, try out a weekly fast. No food for one day. This cleans up the fish's digestive track.

Do not overfeed. Though an efficient bio-filter will deal with ammonia and nitrite, the first two stages of fish waste, nitrate is left over. This is removed by plants, a very complex anarobic area( don't try), a very expensive denitrater, or water changes. Though common water changes are good, it is still best to be able to keep nitrates at under 40ppm, and ammonia and nitrite at 0, without daily changes. A weekly 25-50% is good, though the more frequent the better.

A fun fact is that fish, who in the wild may go weeks without food, eat until they die. Seriously, if you dump in food in the tank, the fish will attempt to eat it all.

Answer 4

YOU DON'T NEED A GDANG ALGAE EATER!!! Freaking people and their algae eater answers.. augh! And it's a tiny tank. You're already to your limit in fish.

Fish only (in general) require the same amount of food equal to the size of their eye. I feed maybe two to three times that amount.. but most people feed 10 to 100 times that. That's why they have such problems all the time with algae and fish deaths and other crud.

They only need to be fed once a day. You can even go several days without food now and then. Mine go without food every weekend at work here.. no problemos what soever.

Happy fish keeping! :)

Answer 5

I think the general rule of thumb is to feed as much as the fish will eat in a few minutes and remove any remaining food after that. Overfeeding can be dangerous since leftovers can break down and lower e quality of the water over time.

Answer 6

Most fish will eat until they burst. Fed them only what they can eat in under 2-3 minutes. My bettas beg for food when they are full all the time. My community tank doesn't tend to beg, but will eat everything that comes their way like they are starving.

PS- For the betta you can check his belly size to see if you are over feeding. See link for pictures.

Answer 7

Remember this....... A hingry fish is a happy fish. Also a fish has a stomach the size of its eye, so on flake and its full. I feed mine every other day. Saves on tank maintenance.

Answer 8

i bought automatic fish feeders for my aquariums, best thing i ever did feeds them perfectly everyday. the fish tank is always clean and the fish are happy. you can even leave for up to 4 wks. and they're fed right on time. still have to clean the fish tank at least once a month of course. look at petco. i found mine jjust looking on the web because we were moving and i had to bring my fish to my house first. good luck try it out you'll be glad you did.

Answer 9

Hockey Angel has it about right. I my self have a very sociable goldfish who tells me whe he's hungry by coming over to the side of the tank and wiggleing(so cute). Unfortunately most people have fish as ornaments rather than pets, so they don't get that benefit.

Answer 10

After keeping and breeding fish for many years, I'd go with BWFan726's answer.. It looks like the best anyone has written here.