What You Should Know About Feeding Your Tropical Fish
No matter what type of fish you have, whether it’s an anemone, coral or crustacean…they will fall into one of three types of feeder.
Carnivores. These types of feeders eat other fish. They are all either predators or scavengers. Predators like to hunt for their food, so they may be uninterested in what you’re feeding them, if they want to hunt instead. Once a predator has eaten, it may not feel the urge to eat again for a few days. Scavengers are more opportunistic, and usually prefer to eat the leftovers left by predators.
Herbivores. These types of feeders eat many marine plants and algae. To find their food, they spend their days moving around and grazing, picking up food whenever they can find it.
Omnivores. These types of fish are a mixture of the two above. They like to eat a combination of corals, crustaceans, invertebrates and also plants and algae.
It’s important to remember that when you put food in your tank, many of your fish will ignore it for a while first. Because they aren’t “fed” when they are in the ocean, they just aren’t accustomed to being served food. Some of your fish will eventually learn that you are giving them food, but many others won’t.
Herbivores and omnivores tend to adapt to being tank-fed quicker than other types of feeders. However, some breeds, Angels comes to mind, are used to finding their food on the ocean floor rather than free floating, so it will take a little long for them to understand.
How often should you feed your fish?
It’s a good idea to stick to feeding your fish just once a day, and to feed them no more than they can eat in one minute. To some people this may seem like not enough, but if your fish aren’t hurrying to eat up the food within a minute, they simply aren’t hungry enough to need feeding.
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