Can you over feed your fish?

I said some small fish, but you guys are right. I had a small stonecat go a mouth without food, and he is alive and well.
 
I'd like to know what the hey-ho all those rainbowfish fry in my Boesemani tank are finding to eat. I found out today were all the new fry were hiding -- in the top corner of the tank between the side and the edge of the Emperor 400. Had to be six fry there and who knows how many behind the filter itself.

I've four of them free swimming in the top layer and getting bigger every day. They still might get eaten, but who knows?

So, what ARE they finding to eat in a planted 75g? I feed flakes, live bloodworms and occassionally some freshly hatched BBS, but that's it. Unless my water is greener than I thought.

:OT: Oops, sorta off topic, eh?

Roan
 
RA - I have constant fry survival from my Dwarf Neons without adding any food for them. There are not large numbers of survivors without target feeding them, but always a few.

As joephys said, the general category of infusoria (as we have to provide for such tiny fry when are trying to raise numbers of them) has sufficient stock in any tanks, but IME especially so in planted tanks, to provide for some fry survival.
 
Thanks RTR and joephys --

So, to relate this back on topic, not only is it dangerous for us to overfeed our fish, but they can find quite a bit of food kicking around the tank -- especially a planted one -- to sustain them as well.

I also might add that omnivorous fish, which is the majority in the hobby, will eat algae, but many do not because it's too much "work" when flakes are sprinkled down from heaven in large quantities, once or twice a day.

When they are first caught, wild rainbowfish will excret greenish colored feces from the algae they eat in the wild. They do not do as much algae eating in aquaria, because they are usually overfed.

IMO less feeding from the can. Let the fish help keep your tank a little cleaner by eating algae. If you don't see your omnivorous fish picking at the plants/gravel/substrate for stuff, then you are probably overfeeding them.

Roan
 
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