How much do I feed a clownfish?

M

Meg

Reefing newb
Hi - sorry if this question is old. I tried to search for the answer but I only read x-times a day and that really varies.

I'm a beginner with a FO biube 9 gallon aquarium. The Biorb comes with instructions that says we should feed each fish 4-6 pellets a day of Hikari Marine S. Now these pellets are tiny - bite size. My clownfish is very happy to have them but he always seems to want more and he definetly can have more than 6 pellets a day. I'm currently breaking up his feeding to 2 or 3 times a day giving him 2-3 pellets at each feeding - so he usually gets 6-8 pellets a day. Is that too much? too little? like I said - he always seems to want more..

I also feed him ArciPods - just a drop - every OTHER day in the morning and then give him an addition 3-5 pellets in the afternoon/evening. Again, he really wants more. BTW - I started the ArciPods because my LFS recommended it and both my clownfish and cleaner shrimp love it. I figured a little diversity is also good.

So my question remains - how much is right? am I feeding him too much?
 
I feed my tank every other day 1/4 of a cube of frozen food. I have 2 clowns and a royal gramma.

What your feeding sounds good. First you should know that Clownfish are EVIL!!! and they ALWAYS want more. They'll get used to the feedings and as your tank matures they'll find amphipods or copepods to eat during the day. If you start seeing algae cut back on the feeding.

Good luck and I was suggest just keeping the same feeding schedule. Maybe even cut back on a couple of pellets.
 
thanks for the feedback. I just needed some confirmation that its about right. I'll cut back 1-2 pellets - but between the clownfish going crazy for it and my son saying nemo's hungry..it'll be tough.
 
I feed my tank about two - three times per week.
I use a small chunk of frozen mysis and just pop in enough until they stop feeding.

Once a week I add a small bit of Cyclopeze & dose with phytoplankton.

I have a mixed nano tank with two clowns, a purplehead wrasse and a PJ Cardinal.
Tank is also LPS, snail, hermit & starfish populated.

As a rule of thumb, just feed as little as possible. As long as your fish seem healthy, you are good to go....there is no set or specific feeding schedules.

You should try some small bits of frozen mysis in place of the pellets.

In a small nano tank like yours, you want to keep nitrates down.....less feeding, less waste.

Good luck & welcome to the site.
 
I think it comes down to how your fish look and what your system can handle. I try to stick with the smallest feedings possible. I was feeding every three days then move to ever week, because I just got lazy. Now I try to feed every other day. My fish were fine with the every week though, because they also were pod eaters and had plenty to feed on, however, some fish need more feeding and certain food. You just have to read up on the fish you have and try to find a good balance.
 
A fishes eyeball is about the size of his stomach.

They need to completely fill their stomach once a day. If thats 2 feedings at 1/2 an eyeball -- or if thats one feeding the size of a whole eyeball -- thats up to you.

My clown will continue to suck in chunks blowing around the tank even after he is full, but he just spits them out again. He's full, but his eyes are still bigger than his stomach. So I limit him to small portions of food at one time. He must chase all that around the tank (pumps off) and eat 95% of it before I will give him more. I have to stand back away from the aquarium or he will beg at the surface while the food falls to the clean-up crew on the bottom of the tank. He'll chase the food down if I back away from the tank. If he cleans it all up and comes back for more, I'll give him a bit more. The most I'll ever give him is 1.5 eyeballs if I was gone the day before and he didn't get fed at all. I don't do that more than 1 or 2 times a month though.

I think a lot of our tanks are overfed. Mine is still overfed and I'm BEYOND anal about the nutrients I put in the tank.
 
since I'm new to this, I'm not familiar with all the types of food. I don't know how big a " 1/4 cube of frozen food" or a "chunk of frozen mysis" is? the Hikari Marine S pellets are about the size of a dot . or maybe an asterisks * or probably in-between. When I put in a drop of ArciPods it's disperses to a bunch of flake like food with each flake the size of this line _ or smaller . The ArciPods directions says to put in a teaspoon to a 100 gallon tank. Well since mine is a mere 9 gallon tank - a drop seemed to be right.

since you're both feeding every other day, it sounds like I may be feeding a little too much.
 
Rcpilot - thanks, that's really helpful. I'll try to gage on that info.

I think what confused me the most was when I read "feed as much as they will consume within 2-3 minutes 2-3 times a day" - I found that type of information a lot when searching the web. If I followed that, I would certainly be feeding a lot more than the mere 4-6 Hikari marine S pellets they tell me to feed daily or in the case of the ArciPods - more than a drop.
 
Meg,

THESE are the cube style food. They are frozen cubes, we cut into pieces (quarters) to feed. They come in many different formulas & flavors.

THIS is Cyclop-eeze. It is sold dry or frozen. I buy a frozen bar from my LFS. You can use a knife and shave a bit directly into the tank....it's good for the fish & corals.

THIS is the mysis from Piscine. This is a more costly frozen food than the typical cube style, but it's a premium mysis shrimp food. They come in frozen sheets that you can break apart and defrost prior to feeding. The sheet consists of whole mysis shrimps (very small bite sized food for fish).....

Here is a pic. You can see the mysis coming apart in the water. (NOTE: this is NOT my tank....no need for the "you've got 2 tangs in a 30g nano, you idiot" replies!

mysis.jpg
 
messiah - just want to make sure I understand correctly - when you say THESE and THIS - is that the size of the food before cutting apart?
 
Thank you to everyone. You've been very helpful. I now have a better understanding of how much I'm feeding and need to feed my clownfish.
 

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