Feeding Your Saltwater Aquarium Fish The Right Way

by Andrej
(Sydney, Australia)

One of the most common questions I am asked through www.SaltwaterAquariumAdvice.com is what is the best way to feed my fish and ensure they have a healthy balanced diet. This is a damn good question, because one of the easiest ways to ensure your marine life is optimally healthy is to ensure a balanced, varied diet. So, how do we do this?

The first step is to find out whether your fish are herbivores (plants only), omnivores (plants and meat) or carnivores (meat only). This will teach you what sorts of foods they will eat. The second step is to find where in the water column your fish typically feed (i.e. top, middle or bottom feeders), this will ensure you can cater to your individual fishes requirements. So you need to familiarize yourself with your fishes natural diet and feeding habits. Fish that are top feeders will need food that floats on the surface, such as flakes. Middle feeders will need slowly sinking food like sticks and pellets, where they can catch the food as it falls through the water, these foods tend to sink and spread in middle waters. Bottom feeders need more dense food options that sink all the way down such as tablets and wafers. Finally filter feeders like coral and some invertebrates can get all their nutrition from liquid diets, squirted toward them.

It is also important to feed your fish the same time everyday, this gives them consistency in their lives and can make for some quite interesting antics when they see you coming! It is also vitally important NOT to overfeed your fish, a general rule of thumb is feed only what they can eat in 2-5 minutes. Uneaten food will rot increasing the ammonium levels in the water which is toxic to the rest of your marine life and puts additional stress on your filters and protein skimmers, it is advised to remove this uneaten food yourself with a net or siphon. Overfeeding is much more harmful than underfeeding, if fish are eating less than you feed then provide less, and if they are still looking hungry provide a little bit more, be flexible and adjust your feeding quantities over time and in sync with your fishes requirements.

I recommend feeding your fish twice a day, once in the morning and once at night, as I mentioned previously it is better if you stick to a schedule, your fish will be happier this way. Herbivores graze and eat little bits continuously and carnivores usually consume bigger quantities less often, so twice a day is a good middle ground for all fish types.

The final diet related tip for a happy healthy fish is a varied diet, like us fish have basic nutritional requirements that need to be met for optimal condition, such as protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. So try to mix up food types: frozen, dried, fresh, live to give your marine life a balanced diet. For example feed herbivores occasional lettuce leaves and peas along with spirulina and seaweed flakes. Carnivores enjoy live, fresh and dried foods, such as blood worms, brine shrimp and even store bought marinara mix! In general a diverse diet results in healthy, lively and stress and disease resistant fish.

For additional information on how to provide an optimally healthy, balanced diet for your marine life; check out my ebook “Ultimate Secrets To Saltwater Fish and Invertebrates”

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