Feeding Saltwater Fish

What has been learned about good feeding practices for freshwater fish, applies to salt water specimens in spades. It is extremely important not to overfeed saltwater fish, because this is one of the major causes of pollution. Many saltwater fish are fussy eaters, and they must be coaxed to except the strange foods they are offered in captivity. If one food is refused, try another and still another until they start to eat. Perhaps the trouble is not in the food itself. But the form in which it is offered. Some species preferred chunks of food, some like strips, or small cubes, and others want their food ground or mashed. When all else fails, live food should be offered. It takes a pretty strong fish constitution to ignore live adult brine shrimp. Of course, this is the ideal food, what is not available in all parts of the country. Even where it is available, shipments are quite often irregular as a result of poor hatches in the brine ponds or for other reasons.

Anyone who has spent some time watching fish with mask, snorkel, and flippers, must be impressed with the fact that many small fishes, spend a good part of time searching for food. Eating is a continual process that goes on from the time the fish comes out of its and borough are shell retreat in the morning until darkness sends it back home each night. This should give fish keepers a clue as to how to feed their fish. Small portions fed frequently may become wearing for the Aquarist, but are best for the fish. There are exceptions to this of course, but the majority of small marine fishes will respond positively to frequent feedings.

Establish a time schedule when it is convenient for you to feed, and stick to that routine. If it is possible to feed three times a day do so. A good schedule would be before or after breakfast, late afternoon or early evening, and a little before turning out the tank light for tonight, allowing enough time for the fish to consume everything before you do so, since most fish will not eat in the dark. Again it is important to remember not to feed too much. Offer your fish only what they can easily consume in five minutes. If any food remains after five minutes, you have given them too much. Needless to say, any uneaten food should be removed immediately.

Just as you attire beating the same thing day after day, so did a fish in your aquarium. You have a choice, however. Your fish have no choice. They must eat what you offer then or starve, and many do just that. Tired of the same fare, they will slow down or stop eating altogether, and eventually die of starvation. Those that continue to eat, if not getting a balanced diet, made whether away from malnutrition.

There is a surprising variety of foods that you can obtain from the butcher shop, grocery shelves, fish market, or local pet store. Many fish will relish small strips or cubes of lean beef steak or beef heart. All the fat should be trimmed from any meat fed to your fish. Pork should be avoided altogether. Several kinds of seafood can be fed, including smelt, halibut and snapper. Oily fish is such a herring and blue runner may be offered occasionally, but not regularly as the oil has a tendency to clog the tank filter and reduce its efficiency. Shrimp, crab meat, and other shellfish such as clams and scallops are excellent. Of course, you should always have a supply of frozen shrimp to offer your fish, and this can be fed continuously along with the other items. Some fish will prefer Tubifex, others blood worms, while still others will do nicely on dry or paste food.

There are species that will refuse everything except live food. Among them are Sargassum fish, Cardinal fish, and most sea horses. These should be given live brine shrimp are young Guppy,s of suitable size. The Sargassum fish is cannibal less take and she not be kept with other smaller Sargassum fish. Or, for that matter, any smaller fish that it is capable of engulfing in its mouth.

So in summary, there are three basic rules of feeding saltwater aquarium fish. Feed sparingly, but often,change both the kind and shape of food, and the patient with fussy eaters.