Newbie with a question about feeding

[mechanic27]

I wanted to get some opinions on how much to feed my fish. I give them two cubes of frozen food once a day. Should i feed them twice a day? I have a yellow stripe maroon clown fish, blue/green chromis, purple firefish, yellow watchman goby and a coral beauty. I also have two cleaner shrimp that eat also. When i say frozen food i mean a variety between mysis, brine, bloodworms, plankton and squid. I also put a couple drops of the kent extreme garlic mixed in. Any advice would be helpful. I want to have healthy beautiful fish for many years to come.

 

[Bifferwine]

I think you are overfeeding your fish. Is your water quality good? Are you having algae issues? You want your nitrates to be as low as possible, and overfeeding can contribute to high nitrates and algae.

Do your fish eat all of it, or does some of it end up going being the rocks and on the substrate?

Many people feed their fish more than once a day. This is especially important in new tanks, or when you have new fish. New tanks don't have a lot of stuff growing in them to feed the fish naturally.

I wouldn't feed your fish more. But if you want to take the two cubes that you are feeding once a day now, and instead feed one cube twice a day, that would be fine. If you are seeing nitrates or algae, I'd cut back altogether.

 

[BL1]

You're probably feeding enough now. I usually only feed 1/2-1 cube every other day

 

[mechanic27]

I do have a really bad algae problem actually. Do you have any advice to get rid of my algae problem besides cutting down on the food?

 

[Bifferwine]

You need to get a good clean up crew (snails, mainly). Also, keep up with water changes. Remove as much of the algae by hand as you can. Use RODI water, not tap water. Algae is somewhat inevitable in a new tank, but you can definitely minimize it by not overfeeding and doing those other things. Do you have a protein skimmer? Those will help greatly too.

 

[mechanic27]

I just bought a protein skimmer today. I am going to set it up tomorrow. I also just started getting the RODI water from my LFS today. I have a 46 gal tank. How much and how often do you think on water changes? Thanks for the help Biff.

 

[Bifferwine]

A good goal to shoot for is 10 to 20% of your tank's volume once a week. You can bump that up to help clear out the algae, though. Your algae is feeding on nitrates and phosphates. They may not register on a test kit, because the algae is removing it from the water so quickly. So removing the algae by hand removes those nutrients from the system, and doing bigger, more frequent water changes then helps remove the nutrients that are left.

 

[BL1]

You should do about 10-20% a week

 

[mechanic27]

Awesome thank you very much biff and brian.

 

[coolhandgoose]

Were you using tap water before?

 

[wontonflip]

+1 everyone...I feed once a day (but I skip a day here and there), and I only feed enough for them to finish within 5 minutes. If you want to feed twice a day, cut your current feeding amount in half, and split that half into 2 feedings. The overfeeding could be feeding your algae problem. Plus as goose brings up, hopefully you didn't use tap (even treated tap) because that could cause algae.

 

[mechanic27]

Yes i was until today. I went out and bought three 5 gallon pals from home depot. Then went to my LFS and filled them with RO/DI water. Other then adding salt do i need to add anything else to the water?

 

[coolhandgoose]

Unfortunately if you started with tap water you're going to have huge algae problems for awhile. My tap water has a ton of phosphates in it so I can't even come close to using it, plus the hardness of the water is off the chart. I'd personally start doing 30 - 50% water changes every few days for the next week or two to change out the water. The other problem long term is that since your rocks have been soaked in potentially higher phosphates, they'll slowly leech out and cause algae. Long story short, get some snails!!

 

[Bifferwine]

Yes i was until today. I went out and bought three 5 gallon pals from home depot. Then went to my LFS and filled them with RO/DI water. Other then adding salt do i need to add anything else to the water?

Nope, just make sure you have a refractometer or hydrometer to ensure that the salinity is correct. If you are changing a little bit at a time, you don't have to worry about matching the temperature, but in general it's important to make sure the water isn't too cold. Also, once you add the salt, it's a good idea to give it 24 hours to dissolve before you do the water change.

 

[mechanic27]

I have 4 mexican turbos, 4 astraea, 8 bumble bee, 6 cerith and 20 margarita snails. Plus a conch and 4 Nassarius snails. Should i get more?
Well i guess you live and learn. No more tap water for me. Thanks Goose.

 

[coolhandgoose]

Don't sweat it too much, I did the exact same thing as did a bunch of other people here :)

Like Biff said the best way to do a water change is to match the salinity and temperature(if lots of water) of the change water to your tank that way you won't shock any of your animals.

 

[mechanic27]

Thanks biff i added the salt earlier to the buckets and was gonna let it dissolve overnight.

 

[Bifferwine]

Thanks biff i added the salt earlier to the buckets and was gonna let it dissolve overnight.

Good plan. It can take a couple months to start seeing a different -- it takes patience and persistence.

 

[mechanic27]

Thats ok i have patience. I haven't been doing this for long but i am falling in love with this hobby. Thanks again for all your help. I greatly appreciate the advise.

 

[coolhandgoose]

That's good to hear. This hobby is super addictive, and so is this website :)