how much food to feed my fish

[llama72]

I have a small/medium yellow tang, 2 medium clown fish, a diamond back goby, a mandarian, 4 peppermint shrimp, a red fire shrimp, and a sea serpent. I have been feeding a pinch of pellet food in the morning and one small frozen brine shrimp in the evening. The fish still seem hungary in the afternoon.

#1 Is this too much/too little food?
#2 What is a good rule of thumb on the amount of food vs #of fish?

Thanks,

[Blown 346]

The mandarin will eat live food, it would be best to have a refugium for this fish as they will quickly deplete the main tank of pods and slowly die.

If after 5 minutes the food is gone, you can give a little more at that time or feed twice a day.

I would also get somehting other than Brine, it has very little nutritional value as it is based up of 95% water. Unless the brine shrimp are live and newly hatched would be the only way they would benefit and be nutritional.

Maybe try some Mysis.

[tinmanny]

I go by the the methood if after 2 minuts they are not chasing the food and it starts to hit the botton then it is enough. was always told feed only what theycan eat in 2 minuts. always if food hits the bottom then it is too much I have a bunch of food mungers and I feed them when ever I feel like but no more than what they will eat before it hits the bottom.
my crew is 2 PJ's 2 Blue damsils 2 Percla Clowns 1 yellow tail damsil 1 Engineer Goby 4 yellow tail chromis 1 Mandrin Dragonet 1 Tang 1 Coral Banded shrimp 1 Cleaner Shrimp 1 Sally Lightfoot and a mess of red leggs scarlet bluelegg white legg hermits and snales.

Remember if you feed too much the cleanup crew will get used to the free food and not clean up for you
Good luck

[LarryW]

ok, you need to feed a variety of foods to those fish. here's what I would suggest and why. I would drop the flakes and do pellets in the morning. say prime reef or formula 1. some fish will not eat pellets. My Clown tang will not touch the stuff.

PE Mysis or Krill in the evening. PE mysis is fresh water, so you should soak it in selcon, and possibly garlic. Krill is usually arctic, so it is high in nutrients, you can soak in garlic to keep the tang ich free. you will need to dice it up into smaller pieces, as it is rather large. Hikari Brine shrimp is bio-encapsulated with vitamins and minerals so it would be an ok choice to off set the mysis or krill. look to see if they eat it all within about 5 min. if there are still pieces floating in the water column, then you over fed, adjust accordingly. I usually alternate between Mysis and krill every other day, but that's just me.

That tang will also need some type of green veggies, I feed my tangs veggies twice a day. usually a quarter sheet or so.

the shrimp will eat the leftovers, as should that goby.

now the mandarin. the mandarin needs live food. some may eat pellets, but thats not a given. you need to build up your pod popluation in your tank. go add a bottle of tigger pods to your tank. they are live, and will reproduce and will make your mandarin fat and happy. you could try arcti-pods too, your LPS will love them, and your fish should eat them too.

[uscharalph]

My mandarin only eats pods. Lucky for me (and him) that my tank allways has plenty.

[Kannin]

I have a similar fish count... maybe a couple more. We each have 1 tang. I feed twice daily. 3 different frozen foods for each feeding. 1/4 cube of each. Mysis, ocean plankton & Formula 2 algae cut into very small pieces. I thaw it in a little tank water in the bottom of a shot glass with a couple drops of Garlic Extreme. I drain off the excess melt to avoid putting a bunch of phosphates in the tank. I also put a little strip of dried seaweed on a feeding cube after breakfast... mostly for the tang.

[adtravels]

I feed 3/4 times a day as much as they will eat in 1 minute

alternatively I feed my clowns to saturation 1/2 times aday but they are not ina reef,
that sound on the low side I would get rid of the brine and make your own food.