Beginning aquarium owners often have many questions about fish food, feeding regularity, whether they should be given live food or whether they can limit themselves to dry food.
How much food should I give the fish?
Proper feeding of fish is the most important condition for success in aquarium keeping. Since there is usually no time to feed the fish more than 1-2 times a day, the norm is the amount of food that the fish eat in 5-10 minutes.
Uneaten food (especially dry and cooked food) must be removed from the aquarium immediately, otherwise the water will spoil and the fish will die. The reason for this is the avalanche-like development of a huge number of bacteria, for which uneaten food is a good nutrient medium.
The main rule of an aquarist is that it is better to underfeed your fish than to overfeed them. It is advisable to feed them little by little, but often enough.
Bacteria, in turn, consume huge amounts of oxygen, without which, as is known, most fish quickly die. In addition, these myriads of bacteria, during their life processes, release toxic substances into the water, in particular ammonia.
How much feed to give the very first time?
It is necessary to give food in small portions until the fish are no longer interested in it. Remove any remaining food. If there are scavengers in the aquarium, the owner himself decides how much food to leave.
How often should you feed your fish?
Large predatory fish are fed less frequently, but in larger portions. Fish that feed regularly should be fed small portions several times a day. The more often you feed the fry, the faster they will grow.
Fish that spawn seasonally also need more food in preparation for spawning. But there are also cold-loving fish species that do not need food at all during the cold months, since they are not active at this time.
A mistake many aquarists make is overfeeding their fish. The food makes them more active. However, an overly swollen, as well as sunken, belly is a sign of unhealthy fish (with the exception of females with caviar).
What types of food are used for aquarium fish?
Dry, live, frozen food and human food are used to feed aquarium fish.
Plants that are bred directly in the aquarium or brought from natural reservoirs are used as additional food.
Dry food is prepared for future use or purchased at pet stores. It is sold in the form of flakes, granules, tablets, etc. This food contains all the necessary substances: proteins, vitamins, microelements, etc. Unlike live food, dry food does not contain coarse particles, so fish that feed exclusively on this food, often suffer from indigestion and constipation. This can even cause the death of the fish.
In addition, dry food swells when it enters the stomach. For fish that are too voracious, this can lead to trouble. In this case, it is very important to choose the right portion of dry food.
DRY FOOD:KOI TABLETS;
FLOATING RINGS;
WHEAT GERM STRAWS;
SPIRULINA FLAKES;
FLOATING RED GRANULES;
CEREAL FOR PREDATORS;
PLANT DIET;
FLOATING GREEN GRANULES;
FLAKES FOR TROPICAL FISH;
GOLDFISH FOOD
Live foods are those that are obtained in natural ecosystems - water bodies, soil, and among terrestrial vegetation. They can be bred at home in jars, boxes and other containers.
Almost all small organisms swimming or crawling in a pond are of interest to most fish. The most common types of pond food are daphnia and bloodworms. They are available for sale. Other types of insects have to be caught ourselves. For example, bosmin, cyclops, mosquito larvae, as well as paddlefish for larger fish.
You should not catch larvae of predatory insects for your fish - such as dragonflies or large swimming beetles - which can eat small fish and injure large ones.
Pond food is very useful in the process of fish reproduction. In addition, it contains a sufficient amount of coarse components. Many types of pond food are sold frozen or dried.
In addition to pond insects, you can offer fish earthworms as a treat, which they love very much and eat whole or in parts. Woodlice and crickets are only suitable for those with large mouths.
Live food also includes enitreus - small worms that are bred in boxes with soil, and tubifex - small red worms that live in silt. Both can be purchased at pet stores. Worms should be given to fish in small portions to prevent them from becoming obese or constipated.
Tubifex worms are often carriers of infection, so they should be washed thoroughly before feeding them to your fish.
Human foods that can be fed to fish include the following:
For carnivorous species: minced meat, beef heart, liver, shrimp, mussels and other shellfish, boiled chicken, raw and cooked fish, cod roe;
For herbivorous species: cucumbers, peas, lettuce, spinach, etc.
In addition, the fish can be given egg yolk, bread, yeast, dry milk powder, mixed feed, etc. as additional food.
You should not give your fish too much meat food. Such a diet will lead to indigestion and obesity.
During feeding, it is convenient to observe the fish, determining their health status.
Is it possible to make your own fish food?
In the absence of industrially produced food, they can be replaced with homemade dry and prepared food, for example, a mixture of dried plankton, bloodworms, with the addition of plant components - bread crumbs, oatmeal, etc.
Recently, hobbyists often use food prepared using edible gelatin. At the same time, oatmeal, flour from dried daphnia, gammarus are brewed in the form of jelly, and vitamins and medicines are also added if necessary.
The use of jelly-like feed when feeding fish protects the water from immediate contamination by suspended particles. Jelly foods are stored in the refrigerator for 1–2 weeks.
Before feeding, the food is crushed to the desired size with a sharp knife or razor blade.
An omelet can serve as a good fish food. To prepare it you need milk, eggs and vegetable or butter. The recipe for making an omelet is very simple. Mix 3/4 cup of milk thoroughly with 1 egg and pour into a preheated frying pan, greased with oil. Fry over low heat until the consistency of a regular omelette. The cooled omelette can be given to the fish, chopping it to the required size. To feed the fry, it can be passed through a nylon net with a suitable mesh.
Sometimes fish that are not accustomed to omelette refuse to eat it. You can accustom them to this diet by adding shrimp juice, finely grated fish or a little dry food to the milk. A pinch of salt or sugar can also have the desired effect.
The omelette can be stored in the refrigerator on the bottom shelf for 1 week. You can place the omelette in the freezer, and then its shelf life will increase to 2-3 months.
Using the previous recipe, you can prepare food for almost all types of fish using an omelet. For example, for herbivorous catfish, we can recommend adding grated carrots, soy flour or cabbage.
In this case, the carrots are placed in a frying pan along with oil, simmered for 5-8 minutes over low heat and only then poured with a mixture of the remaining ingredients.
It should be borne in mind that omelette greatly spoils the water, and uneaten particles should be immediately removed from the aquarium.
Gammarus ground into flour or chopped shrimp will improve the color and appearance of the fish. For the same purposes, you can add sea buckthorn oil to the omelette at the rate of 1 teaspoon per 1 liter of the finished mixture.
There is no doubt that, based on the proposed methods, everyone will be able to make the best food for their pets according to their own recipe.
It is very easy to prepare even medicinal food at home using an omelet. In this case, the necessary medicine (for example, metronidazole, furadonin, sulfadimezin, etc.) must be added to the omelette cooled to room temperature in powder form. After good mixing, food can be given to sick fish after 10–15 minutes.
Which food is better to use – live, frozen or dry! How and where to store them?
The best food for fish in terms of meeting their natural needs are small planktonic organisms - daphnia, cyclops, which are easy to catch in the summer with a net in any pond or puddle that does not dry out for a long time. Large fish are fed with coretra or mosquito larvae (bloodworms).
These foods are more difficult to obtain, so they are usually purchased at a pet store.
It is best to store bloodworms and coretra in a home refrigerator on the bottom shelf, that is, at a temperature of about 0 ° C, spread out in a thin layer and wrapped in slightly damp (but not wet) newspaper. It is very good to freeze prepared live food in the form of small cubes in the freezer at a temperature of – 18–20 °C. This is the easiest way to solve the problem of feeding fish in winter. However, these live frozen foods have their drawbacks, sometimes serious ones. Firstly, there is a constant risk of infection, which cannot be destroyed by simple freezing. Secondly, there is a very real danger of fish poisoning from food caught in heavily polluted water bodies and which has absorbed some of this pollution. Thus, when using the feeds mentioned above, it should be borne in mind that feeding safety cannot be guaranteed, especially if you do not have the proper experience.
At the amateur level, the problem of safe and at the same time adequate nutrition for fish is solved with the help of specially developed balanced dry food in the form of flakes, granules and tablets.
Modern feeds contain a full range of amino acids, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and microelements necessary for nutrition, taking into account the needs of certain hydrobionts.
Currently, more than 20 manufacturing companies from different countries offer their food on the market, but reliable information about their qualities and application features can be obtained by contacting specialized literature and professional consultants in local clubs or aquarium societies.
Does the diet of fish change depending on their age?
Products for feeding fish are divided into 3 groups based on age:
Food for fry;
Food for growing fish;
Food for adult fish.
The most difficult thing to feed is the fry, which require live food.
The most suitable food for them is the ciliate slipper. These single-celled organisms can be caught in any standing body of water. Starting from the end of spring, the water in such reservoirs becomes cloudy, which is caused by numerous microscopic organisms. A large number of ciliates, rotifers and similar organisms gather around them. They move like dust in a slight wind. Among aquarists, these organisms are called “living dust”. In addition to ciliates, this includes juveniles of cladocerans and selopods.
These microscopic animals can be collected with a fine-meshed water net. Then they are washed off the canvas of the net into a specially prepared jar. Having filled the jar full, you must check whether small crustaceans have got into it along with the “dust”. They must be removed, as they destroy ciliates, rotifers and their own larvae. The collected small organisms must be placed in a larger vessel in which they will reproduce, in this way it will be possible to replenish food supplies for the fry.
The fry should be fed not with portions of water with “dust”, but with “dust” alone, strained onto blotting paper, which is inserted into a funnel. 1-2 glasses of water with “dust” are passed through this funnel. Then the blotter with the sediment that has settled on it is rinsed in the aquarium in the place where the fry gather, which immediately pounce on the food offered to them.
If it is not possible to obtain “dust”, the fry can be fed with yeast or dry egg and milk powder for some time.
To provide the fry with “dust”, two 2-3 liter jars of water at room temperature are enough. In order to breed ciliates, place a bunch of hay or dry lettuce, as well as banana peels, in a jar, after which cooled boiled water or old water from the aquarium is added.
Place the vessel with water in a warm place, for example near a heating radiator. After 1 week, the water will become cloudy from multiplied ciliates. In addition to ciliates, you can breed rotifers and efvglen.
Food for growing fish is small crustaceans - daphnia and cyclops. They can be obtained from overgrown reservoirs using a net or bred as separate crops. You can also give them "water dust".
EACH SPECIES OF FISH NEEDS SPECIAL FOOD
Adult fish are fed with bloodworms - the larvae of some types of mosquitoes. Large fish should be given it whole, and small fish should be given it cut into pieces.
A lack of iron in the diet of fish leads to anemia, lordosis, scoliosis, skull deformities and convulsions.
Do fish need vitamins and minerals?
Daily requirement of fish for vitamins (per 1 kg of fish weight):
Retinol (A) – 100,500 and. e.;
Thiamine (B1) – 0.15 mg;
Riboflavin (B2) – 0.11-0.33 mg;
Pantothenic acid (B3) – 0.1–1.4 mg;
Nicotinamide – 0.55 mg.
Aquarium fish receive vitamins and minerals through their food. They absorb calcium and phosphorus through their skin and gills directly from the water.
You can improve the growth and strengthen the immunity of fish by introducing cobalt chloride (0.02-0.09 mg/kg or 12 mg/l) and zinc sulfate (0.05-0.5 mg/l) into the food or water. This is especially effective during the development of embryos and larvae. In addition, iron salts (0.1 mg/l), phosphorus (5 mg/l), ground red pepper (paprika) (15 mg/g), soybean or bean oil (8 mg/g) and mycelium of the fungus Cartinellus shiitake (8 mg/l), irradiated with an ultraviolet lamp.
Per 100 g of fish nutritional mixture there are usually 0.5–1.5 mg of vitamins B1, C and K; 1–3 mg of vitamins B2, B6, B9 and E; 5-15 mg vitamin B3; 80-200 mg vitamin B4; 4–5 mg vitamin B5; 30–40 mg vitamin B8; 0.002 mg vitamin B12; 0.1–0.2 mg vitamin H.
Vitamin A (fish oil) can be added to the feed in an amount of 2% of the weight of the fish, 3% hydrolytic yeast, up to 15% lake sludge (protein-mineral supplement), 5-10% lecithin (sediment) of sunflower oil.
For many years now, in various literature, there has been an opinion that it is better not to feed the fish, but to let them starve, rather than overfeed them. In fact, this is not entirely correct and an inexperienced aquarist can destroy beautiful exotic fish through long hunger strikes. You will learn in this article how to feed fish correctly and how many times a day so as not to harm them.
All aquarium fish can be roughly divided into 2 types by age:
- Fry (not yet fully strengthened, immature fish);
- Adult fish (mature fish).
How many times a day should you feed adult fish?
Underfeeding will not harm an adult and mature fish at all, the water in the aquarium will always be clean, the biobalance will be ideal, the fish will be healthy, while regular feeding or overfeeding (when the fish does not finish all the food thrown into the aquarium within 15 minutes) can disrupt the biobalance of the water, turbidity will occur and, as a result of poor water quality, one or another disease may break out. But underfeeding does not mean that you can feed the fish only once a week, even though the adult fish, from too infrequent and small feeding, the bulls will begin to lose weight, the bellies will become sunken, and the back will dry out, larger fish will begin to attack small ones, eating them .
How much and how often to feed the fry
The fry, unlike adult fish, are not fully formed. They have not reached sexual maturity and are in a period of intensive growth, so regular and high-quality feeding is very important for them. The rule of underfeeding for fry and young fish will bring more negative consequences than for adults, so they must be fed regularly, 2 times a day, preferably with live food. The only condition is that you need to ensure that the abandoned food is eaten within 15 minutes, and that the remaining food is removed from the aquarium, because regular feeding and overfeeding are still different things. Under conditions of regular feeding, the water will need to be changed much more often than in the case of underfeeding (once a week), but in return you will have a beautiful fish that will quickly increase in size and reach sexual maturity.
But how much food to give if there are both adult and young fish in the aquarium, here preference is given to juveniles, so forget about underfeeding and hunger strikes.
The following conclusions can be drawn from all of the above:
- On the one hand, underfeeding is good because it allows you to maintain biobalance in the aquarium, make the water cleaner and the fish remain healthy while spending a minimum of effort and time on caring for them.
- Regular feeding 1-2 times a day allows you to grow beautiful, mature fish in a fairly short time, but the aquarium will require much more care (water changes and soil siphoning) than in the case of underfeeding.
- Especially frequent feeding and overfeeding are harmful in all cases and are not subject to discussion.
Fish, like cats, dogs and other pets, need a varied and sufficient diet. When getting aquatic inhabitants, it’s a good idea to ask how many times you need to feed the fish in the aquarium, what time is best to do this and what portions to pour the food into.
How many times a day should you feed your fish?
Feeding can be once, but it is preferable to feed them twice. In this case, morning feeding should be carried out at least 15 minutes after switching on, and evening feeding - 2-3 hours before bedtime. For nocturnal inhabitants (catfish, agamyx, etc.), feeding is carried out at dusk, when the lights are off and the rest of the inhabitants of the aquarium are sleeping.
The duration of each feeding should not exceed 3-5 minutes. This is more than enough for the fish to eat, but not overeat, and the food does not sink to the bottom. In general, the rule that works with fish is that it is better to underfeed than to overfeed.
The daily feed intake is calculated as approximately 5% of the fish’s weight. If, after saturation, the food continues to float and settle to the bottom of the aquarium, it must be caught with a net to prevent it from rotting.
Once a week you can arrange a fasting day for the fish. Obesity in fish leads to their death much more often than malnutrition. Therefore, you should never give fish food in excess of the norm. In addition, hunger has a positive effect on sexual activity and the recovery abilities of fish.
Aquarium fish, although small creatures, are very voracious. In their natural environment, they find their own food. Another thing is the aquarium. Many of you are interested in the question: how many times should you feed your fish a day? Let's talk about this.
There is no universal rule on this matter. Although some are of the following opinion: give the fish as much food as they can eat in 5-15 minutes. But you won’t be able to apply it to all types of fish. After all, aquarium fish are divided into predatory, herbivorous and omnivorous. For example, adult predators can today have a hearty “snack” of food fish and not need food for two days in a row. And you will need to constantly feed young predators either with pieces of meat or with live worms. Well, constantly - not constantly, but once a day necessarily.
Herbivorous fish, due to the structure of the intestines and the small capacity of the stomach, cannot get enough at one time. Adult herbivores need to be fed with specialized food 1-3 times a day, young animals more often, and fry up to 4-5 times. You can throw chopped cabbage or lettuce leaves into the water. If there is a lot of greenery in an artificial reservoir, then one feeding per day will be enough for herbivores. If the flora is poor, then two feedings a day cannot be avoided.
I would like to remind you of the basic principle of feeding fish: It is better to underfeed than to overfeed. Any healthy fish can go without food for up to several weeks. What I mean is that a small amount of food will cause less harm to it, and not that the fish need to be starved. Uneaten food sinks to the bottom of the aquarium and clogs it. If there are no bottom inhabitants in the aquarium who love to rummage in the soil in search of tasty treats, then rotting food residues can cause various infectious diseases. Your pets will die, and you still won’t understand what’s going on.
The activity of the fish can be an indicator of proper feeding. Go to the aquarium. What do you see there? If its inhabitants are frolicking, look healthy, and there are no suspicious spots or growths on them, this may mean that you are feeding your pets correctly. And vice versa. Poor health of the fish can serve as a signal to take urgent measures - cleaning the aquarium and replacing the water in it. Diet in this case will also not hurt. No, not for you... For the fish, of course.
When wondering how many times to feed your fish, you may come across this advice: give a certain amount of food, depending on the weight of the fish. I personally have never had to do this. This is too troublesome, and perhaps not entirely correct. As well as the fact that you need exactly as much food as the size of the fish’s pupil. In the latter case, you risk starving the hefty frontosa sooner or later.
One of the first questions people ask aquarium fish sellers is how to feed them properly? You may think this is a simple question, but it is far from it.
Of course, if you don’t want to bother yourself, you can just throw a few flakes into the aquarium, but if you want your fish to be healthy, play with all the colors of the rainbow and make you happy, then we will tell you how to feed your aquarium fish correctly.
How much to feed the fish?
I would say that the majority of aquarists feed their fish correctly, but too often we see how over-feeding turns the jar into a stinking swamp or the fish become so fat that they forget how to swim.
And it's easy to understand why this happens. There is no set standard and feeding fish can be a challenging task for a beginner. The fact is that we interact with fish most of all during feeding. And I really want to feed them a little more.
And the novice aquarist feeds the fish, every time he sees them lonelyly asking for food at the front glass. And most fish will ask for food even when they are about to burst (this especially applies to cichlids), and it is not easy to understand when enough is enough.
And yet - how often and how many times should you feed aquarium fish?
Fish need to be fed 1-2 times a day (for adult fish, fry and adolescents need to be fed much more often), and with the amount of food that they eat in 2-3 minutes.
Ideally, no food gets to the bottom (but don’t forget to feed the catfish separately). Let's agree right away that we are not talking about herbivores - for example, or brocade catfish. These feed almost around the clock, scraping. And don’t worry, you don’t have to carefully monitor whether they are full every time, just take a closer look a couple of times a week.
Why is it so important not to overfeed fish?
The fact is that overfeeding negatively affects the condition of the aquarium. The food falls to the bottom, gets into the ground, rots and begins to spoil the water, while serving as a nutritional basis for harmful algae.
At the same time, nitrates and ammonia accumulate in the water, which poison fish and plants.
Dirty, aquariums with sick fish are often the result of overfeeding and dirty water.
What to feed?
So, we figured out how to feed correctly... And what to feed aquarium fish?
All food for aquarium fish can be divided into four groups - branded, frozen, live food and plant food.
If you want to keep healthy fish with beautiful colors, it is better to feed all types of these foods. Of course, some fish can only eat live food, others only plant food. But for ordinary fish, the ideal diet consists of branded food, regular feeding with live food, and irregular feeding with plant food.
Artificial feed- provided that you buy the real thing and not a fake, can be the basis of the diet for most fish. Modern branded fish food contains all the necessary substances, vitamins and minerals to keep the fish healthy. Buying such food is no longer a problem, and the choice is huge.
Branded feed - flakes, granules, pellets
I would especially like to note the so-called dry food - dried gammarus, cyclops and daphnia. An extremely bad option for feeding any fish. Does not contain nutrients, is poorly digestible, allergenic for humans.
But do not use dry food - dried daphnia, it contains almost no nutrients, it causes fish to suffer from stomach diseases and grow poorly!
Live food is one of the best fish foods that you need to feed your fish regularly. It is not necessary to feed the same type all the time; alternate, because fish love variety. The most common live foods are bloodworms, tubifex, and coretra. But it also has serious disadvantages - you can introduce diseases, poison the fish with low-quality food, and feeding with bloodworms should not be done too often, it is poorly digested by fish. The simplest disinfection of live food is freezing, which kills some of the nastiness in it.
- for some, live food can be unpleasant, and women do not welcome worms swarming in the refrigerator... Therefore, there is an excellent alternative - frozen live fish food.
I choose them for feeding because they are easy to dose, they are easily stored, do not spoil, and contain all the same substances as living ones. And often you can buy a mix of live food, which will contain several species - bloodworms, brine shrimp and coretra together.
Plant food- It’s rare to find a fish that doesn’t occasionally eat plants in the wild. And for most fish species, plant foods are desirable. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and predators will not eat grass. Be sure to read what type of food the fish living in your aquarium prefers.
Plant foods can be purchased either branded, in tablets or flakes, or added to the aquarium yourself. For example, .
Conclusion
If you follow these tips, you will not overfeed your fish, you will give it a nutritious diet, and you will end up with beautiful, healthy fish that will live a long time. Feeding your fish is the foundation of keeping them, and you won't regret your time if you do it right from the start.
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