Can I feed my fishes on alternate days?

[Addi_13]

Hello Everyone,

I have a 130 gallon tank with one 12" arowana, two 5" Oscars, one fully grown Shortbody Flowerhorn, two fully grown Yolo loach, 1 Pleco, 1 Rainbow Shark, four 6" Blood Parrots. I have two filters which filters the tank around 18 times an hour. The filter has purigen and activated carbon with other media and the water quality is good and no fish has died from past 2 years.

I feed the fishes once every day and change approx 50-60% water every week. The only things which bothers me is that syphoning the tank with every water changes as I have big river rocks as a substrate and it gets hard to move them. I feed them mixed diet which comprises of Hikari Bio gold plus with other good quality pellets, dried jumbo shrimps and bloodworms. Also have Tetra bits for the bottom feeding fishes.

I was wondering if I can feed the my fishes on alternate days and will they be fine? Please suggest as they produce lot of waste and its very hard to syphon with every water changes. Will feeding on alternate days effect their health, colour, size?

Regards,
Additya

 

[Lepisosteus]

Yes you can feed them every other day

 

[Fat Homer]

If you consider fish in the wild may go at times days if not weeks without a meal, feeding alternate days is fine...

With certain fish i used to keep i would feed only 3x a week... so definitely doable...

Btw, do you have any plans for upgrade for your fish???

 

[Racersk]

I only feed my fish every 2nd or 3rd days. They can go months without food if you left em.

 

[Hendre]

I feed my goldfish once a week to keep bioload and growth rates lower

 

[Addi_13]

If you consider fish in the wild may go at times days if not weeks without a meal, feeding alternate days is fine...

With certain fish i used to keep i would feed only 3x a week... so definitely doable...

Btw, do you have any plans for upgrade for your fish???

Yes I am planning to either give away arowana after it reaches 16 inches or will buy a bigger aquarium.

Also how much do you feed in one serving if you feed them on alternate days? I mean how much should I feed big fishes like arowana and oscars? Is syphoning the tank every week necessary? I uploaded some pics with old setup and current one. Barb is not there as I gave it away.

Thanks everyone for helping me out.

 

[duanes]

I agree with alternate feedings, especially when fish are adults.
I siphon every other day. By taking out old water and debris you remove nitrate precursors and keep water quality stable. Especially important if you are at all overstocked.

 

[xraycer]

I only feed my fish every 2nd or 3rd days. They can go months without food if you left em.

I absolutely agree with this, however just don't let them go hungry too long when you have a combination of large(particularly predatory types) and small fish in the same tank. The small fish may not fare so well

 

[Woefulrelic]

Give the aro away now. Homeboy probably doesn't enjoy doing donuts all day.

 

[philipraposo1982]

Not to side track the thread but I am curious if you folks would feed this way all the time or only once they reach adult hood. I wonder about development and overall healthy / longevity of the fish if feed lets say 3 small feeding per day vs every other day or similar. assuming the exact same parameters in both causes and both fish came from the same parents to keep things constant as much as possible. The only different in the frequency of the feeding.

Which fish would be overall healthier / live longer?