How do I Keep From Overfeeding?

[tomm10]

Its a trap I heard about from day one: Overfeeding. Everyone says its one of the most common mistakes for a new fish keeper. The problem is, there seems to be a lot of time spend telling you not to over feed and not a lot of time spent telling you what is the right amount to feed.

No doubt I have been overfeeding as there is plenty of debris floating around in the tank whenever I do a water change and I've got a white cloudy substance (I'm guessing fungus) in some of my plants and on the gravel.

Here's how my tank looks:

Fish:

4 Long Fin Zebra Danios
3 Panda Corys
3 Pygmy Corys
4 Ghost Shrimps
1 Ramshorn Snail
1 Black Mystery Snail

Plants:

1 Rangeri Sword
1 Lutea
3 Wisteria
2 Micro Sword
1 Anubias (as yet definitively identified)

I have been feeding them a pinch of omega one flake food twice a day but offset that with some frozen brine shrimp a little less than half the time. I only give enough for them to finish off in about a minute (the shrimp is a little more difficult to gauge since they scatter in the water). Since I got the 6 corys I've also been dropping in 2-3 sinking shrimp pellets (Wardleys) each night.

Now that the white cloud has shown up I've cut back to one feeding a day of flake or shrimp. How often should I drop in the shrimp pellets? How many?

Is there some way to tell how much food the fish need. Clearly, they'll eat whenever food is present so I can't trust them :D
I don't want to stress them either by giving too little. A little guidance would be very much appreciated.

Thanks.

[aquatix03]

as far as i can tell, you don't seem to be overfeeding as your're only giving a pinch of flake food or shrimp pellet per day. the sinking pellets may be a little much depending on the size of the pellet(not sure about wardley's).

the problem may not be overfeeding but more of inadequate filtration if you're talking about excessive floating debris.

a contributory factor may be that you have too many plants for a 10G and some of it may dead plant matter.

an ammonia spike through water testing can tell you if you're actually overfeeding in a mature aquarium. (corrected by fast-growing / floating plants etc.)

in a 10G, normally, you would have to keep a close tab on:

water temperature fluctuations as the volume is low.
water quality due to the you stocking levels.

howver, if you do get a good filter, ensure there is not too much water current as some filters may be too large for a 10G.

hope this helps! i had some of that white stuff in my 10G before but it goes away once the aquarium is mature. still don't know what it is..

[OrionGirl]

The thing to keep in mind is that fish do not need to eat as many calories as mammals do--they don't burn them just staying warm, so need far less.

Standard amount for most fish--they will eat an amount about the same size as their eye. Not much, especially with smaller fish. I feed my community tanks every other day--enough that they are busy for about 2-3 minutes, and then spend another 5 minutes snooping around for missed bits.

As for clean-up time--For most tanks, there will always be some waste that doesn't make it into the filter. Running RUGF is about the only way to avoid this, and as long as you're diligent about cleaning it, and you're not pulling out tons of uneaten food, you should be okay. If you are getting uneaten food, you are overfeeding.

[tomm10]

aquatix03, the Wardley's pellets are about 3/8" by 1/8" at the largest.

I do have a fairly loarge filter on the tank. Its a Penguin 125. It disturbs the surface of the water a bit but I try to keep the tank level up to minimize that.

As far as water quality is concerned, it has been rock solid. much more tha I would have expected actually for such a small tank. Since it completed a Bio Spira assisted cycle a week and a half ago, the levels have been steady at:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
pH 7.2

Oriongirl, I hadn't taken into account that the fish don't need as many calories. I see them zipping around the tank and assume they need a lot of calories to keep that up. thanks for the tip on feeding them an amount the size of an eye! That's the kind of guideline I was looking for.

I don't see a lot of uneaten food when I change water but I do see a lot of dead plant leaves. Much of this was due to a failed attempt at raising anacharis. I'll do a thorough cleaning tonight to see if I can get things back under control.

Is there a way to vac the tank without removing water? It would be nice if I could hook the vac up to my filter or something. Otherwise I have to vacuum fast before the tank is at 50%. Small tanks are a pain ;)

[Dabbler II]

You can get a battery operated gravel vac you might have to look around in your area or on big al's site (not sure it is there) it has its own pump and a filter bag on it and you can vac to your hearts content with out removing water:D
I'll see if I can find it on the web for you

[Dabbler II]

PENN PLAX BATTERY VAC

http://www.bigalsonline.com/product_images/ASWO6317a.gif

BATTERY POWERED GRAVEL CLEANER. TRAPS DIRT IN A RE-USABLE FILTER BAG WITHOUT REMOVING WATER. REQUIRES 2 "C" BATTERIES. BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED. FOR 10-30 GAL AQUARIUMS.
Its around $25 CDN

[tomm10]

That seems like it would do the trick! Thanks.

Hopefully one of the local Petco/Petsmart type places will have it. Looks like I have some place to go at lunch :D

[TKOS]

I have 3 cories in my 10 gallon and they get 2 shrimp pellets or 2 tetra complete sinking tablets or 1 algae disc per day. This alternates and then there is no food on Sundays when I clean the tank. It may be a bit of an overfeed but I am very good about cleaning the tanka nd pruning the plants. When I am away I only get my friend to show up every 3 days or so to do feedings because I know I won't be able to get that cleaning done.

[tomm10]

That helps TKOS! This makes me think I'm close to the mark with giving 2-3 pellets a day since the pygmys also seem to go after them. I give 2 pellets if they are unbroken or 3 if they are broken/short.

Thanks.

[Cearbhaill]

Some of the Magnums come with gravel vac attachments that do not remove water.
And I rigged my Vortex (diatom filter) to gravel vac.

[demon_surfer]

python filters dont remove water from the tank if used flush against the base of the tank.

[kveeti]

Just a note on that battery vacuum... I had/have one of those. I'm not sure what other people's experience with it is but I haven't used it in years.

The filter bag attaches to that little thingy sticking out just below center (where it narrows) and from center down must be under water level for it to work. When the vacuum is running, it creates quite the suction/blow out, the little bag puffs up and larger debris is very efficiently collected in the bag, and water is blown through and back into the tank. I found the bag (or any other I tried to adapt) did not collect minute particles (or else the suction process and whirling around in the bag breaks it down a lot, like a mixmaster) and in a very short time the water in the tank looks horrible. It does get filtered by your other filter and settles, of course, but there is no way you could do the whole tank in one shot and still see the fish.

Dabbler II, do you actually have one? How does it work for you?

[tomm10]

I got one last night. Its made by Profile I think. It is trash. It is not worth the $3 you would pay for a small siphon type vac never mind the $21 I paid. It will be making a return trip to the Petco it came from.

I didn't expect anything amazing but it wouldn't suck with any consistency or strength. The only way to get it to pick up anything was to take the cup attachment off and to vacuum with just the straight tube. Then it worked too well and picked up every piece of gravel it found. Complete garbage.

If anyone has any good experiences with a particular battery operated vac or one of the air powered ones. I'm all ears.

[Dabbler II]

I am not sure if this is the one I have. But the one I have works good, I never had a problem with "dirty water" or it not sucking up the "stuff" I did like it when I used it. I don't use it any more because I have found better ways to clean my 120 (the vac was only 18" long and my tank is 24" high I had to modify it to get deeper). I think my wife still uses it on her 20 gal tanks every once and a while, I'll see if there is a name on it and I will pass it along.