Feeding baby fish first time

How To Introduce Shellfish and Fish To Your Baby - First Feedings

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Shellfish and fish are two of the most common allergies in adults and children. Though they tend to affect more adults than children, for those who develop it in childhood, it is considered a lifelong allergy and most will not outgrow it.

Shrimp is considered the most common shellfish allergy, while alternatively cod, salmon and tuna are the most common allergies in finned fish.

As with other allergies, a shellfish or fish allergy can be severe, but thanks to landmark clinical studies, we now know that introducing babies to these allergens early and consistently, before they turn one, is essential.

When To Introduce Shellfish and Fish To Baby

Shellfish and fish in a safely prepared format may be introduced as soon as a baby is ready to start solids, along with most other allergenic foods, around 4-6 months of age according to the 2020 USDA Dietary Guidelines.

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that "within a few months of starting solid foods, your baby’s daily diet should include a variety of foods each day that may include...fish."

Introducing shellfish and fish early and often is essential in helping to prevent this allergy and reduce stress later in life.

How To Introduce Shellfish and Fish to Baby

When introducing any fish or shellfish meal to your little ones, it is essential to make sure it is fully cooked and always checked for bones or bits of shells. Toddlers should never eat raw or undercooked fish or shellfish. Furthermore, the rubbery texture of shellfish can be difficult for children to break down, and should be fed in a safe format.

Not only are fish and shellfish a common allergen, but they also have a unique flavor and chewy, slippery texture that your child will have to become adjusted to.

Is your baby ready for their first taste? Here are our favorite ways to introduce shellfish and fish to your baby for the first time:

Homemade Recipes

You can offer thinly sliced or minced cooked shrimp or fish to children alone or alongside other foods. For shellfish, remove the tail and shell first. As they age and become comfortable with chewing and eating other finger foods, you can serve whole shrimp or prawns to eat as finger food or on a fork.

What’s The Difference Between Fish and Shellfish

There are two types of shellfish:

Crustaceans, like crawfish, crab, lobster, and shrimp; and
Mollusks, like clams, mussels, or scallops.

Though crustacean allergies are more common, babies with any shellfish allergy are more likely to experience reactions to other shellfish.

Fish families include types such as salmon, tuna, catfish and cod. Due to high mercury levels, the FDA recommends avoiding introducing shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish to your little ones. Instead, fish types including salmon, cod, shrimp or canned light tuna are best.

Shellfish allergies have a higher prevalence in children, affecting up to 1.3% of children, while fish allergies affect .6% of the population. An allergy to shellfish does not necessarily mean your child will also develop an allergy to finned fish, as they are not closely related.

Can Babies Eat Fish? Safety, Benefits, and More

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Nutrition

By Ellen Landes, MS, RDN, CPT on August 27, 2021 — Medically reviewed by Sade Meeks, MS, RD, Nutrition

Introducing your little one to solid foods is an exciting — sometimes overwhelming — time. It can be tricky to figure out which foods are safe and which should be avoided for babies under a certain age.

Infant cereal, fruits, and vegetables are popular choices for baby’s first foods, but you may wonder whether other foods, such as fish, are safe for your baby.

This article discusses how to introduce your baby to fish, as well as the related benefits, safety considerations, and precautions.

Parents often begin introducing solid foods to their babies around 4–6 months of age. Breast milk or formula is the main source of nutrition for babies under 1 year, and any solid foods offered to babies are considered complementary (1).

Babies get almost all of the nutrition they need through breastmilk and formula. However, vitamin D and iron are two nutrients that breastfed babies may not get enough of, so it’s beneficial when the foods they eat contain them.

Vitamin D is crucial for healthy bones and brain development, and iron is an essential mineral that’s important for many bodily functions, including transporting oxygen (2, 3, 4, 5).

Formula is fortified with these nutrients, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends iron and vitamin D supplement drops for breastfed babies (6).

Many parents start solids by offering infant cereals, which are typically fortified with iron. Fish is another great food for your baby, as it’s a source of iron (7).

Some types of fish, such as salmon, are also a great source of vitamin D, which breastmilk lacks (8).

Additionally, fish is a great source of protein, an important nutrient that builds and repairs tissues in the body, allowing for healthy growth in little ones.

Fish also offers a healthy amount of zinc, another mineral that plays a crucial role in a healthy immune system and cellular growth (9, 10).

Some types of fish contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential fatty acids that provide several health benefits for both babies and adults.

In babies specifically, omega-3 fatty acids are important for healthy brain, eye, and immune system function and development (11, 12, 13, 14).

Vitamin B12 and iodine are two more nutrients found in fish that are beneficial for healthy brain development and red blood cells in babies (15, 16).

It’s considered safe for babies to eat a wide variety of foods once they begin eating solids. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends waiting until your baby is 6 months before introducing any solid foods (17).

Fish is among the most common allergens, known as the “Big 8,” which is a list of foods responsible for most allergic reactions (18).

In the past, experts recommended delaying these foods. However, more recent research has shown that there’s no need to delay introducing allergens, and introducing them early, at age 4–6 months, may help prevent an allergy (19, 20).

Most experts recommend introducing fish and other potential allergens when you introduce other solid foods, but it’s best to focus on one new food at a time.

By introducing one potential allergen every few days, you can monitor your baby for a potential reaction and identify the trigger more easily (17, 21).

Not all fish are considered safe for babies, as certain types contain high levels of mercury. Here are some safe fish choices to offer babies (22):

Best choices:

salmon
trout
herring
whitefish like cod, pollock, or halibut
canned, light tuna
sardines

Good choices:

bluefish
snapper
tuna, yellowfin
grouper
halibut

Currently, there are no recommendations regarding the amount of fish to serve babies. However, the recommendation for children ages 2–3 is 1 ounce (28 grams) of fish once or twice per week (23).

While all fish contain some mercury, certain types have higher amounts than others. Too much mercury can lead to toxicity and be a severe health concern. For babies, it’s best to avoid high mercury fish, such as (22):

bigeye and bluefin tuna
mackerel
marlin
swordfish
shark
orange roughy

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Dietary Guidelines, babies and young children should not consume raw fish, so avoid offering sushi or sashimi to your little one (24).

There are several ways you can offer fish to your baby. If you are using a baby-led weaning approach, you can simply cook the fish to a soft texture and cut it into appropriately sized pieces.

If you’ve chosen to stick with purées, you can cook the fish and purée it yourself. Alternatively, buy it premade.

In order to prepare the fish safely for your baby, remove the skin and debone the fish (lookout for small bones, too) to reduce their risk of choking.

Next, be sure to cook the fish to an internal temperature of 145°F (62.8 °C). A meat thermometer can help ensure the fish reaches a safe temperature (24).

Ideally, the fish will be soft so that your baby can chew it easily. Try cutting the fish into small pieces or flakes before offering it, or you can purée it if you prefer to offer the fish on a spoon.

Canned and frozen fish provide the same nutritional benefits and often come boneless and skinless. They can also be more affordable and easier to keep on hand.

You can prepare these for your baby similarly to how you would cook fish for yourself. Try baking, broiling, or poaching fish. Fish cakes are another popular way to serve fish to your baby.

Sodium and added sugar should be limited for babies, so avoid adding salt, as well as sugary or sweet sauces. Be sure not to add honey to the fish you prepare for your baby, as babies under 1 year should avoid honey.

While there’s no specific recommendation regarding how much fish babies should consume, the CDC recommends that adults eat 2–3 servings, or 8–12 ounces, of low mercury fish per week.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a 1-ounce (28-gram) serving for children 2–3 years of age, so your baby will likely eat a little less than that (23, 25).

When offering any type of food to babies, it’s important to make sure it has been handled, stored, and cooked safely to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

Fish should first be cooked to an internal temperature of 145 °F (62. 8 °C), and then cooled to a safe temperature for your baby (24).

Cooked fish can be stored in the refrigerator for 2–3 days, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Raw fish should only be kept in the fridge for 1 or 2 days before cooking or freezing. Fish should not be left out at room temperature for longer than 2 hours (26).

Because fish is considered a top allergen, it’s a good idea to become familiar with the signs of an allergic reaction.

Call your pediatrician if you notice a mild reaction to fish. That may include swelling around the lips and mouth, diarrhea, or vomiting.

Call 911 if you notice a more severe reaction, such as anaphylaxis, which often presents as drooling, vomiting or diarrhea, scratching, and drowsiness in babies. Other signs might include wheezing, coughing, or hives (27).

Allergic reactions can happen either immediately or over time, so it’s recommended that you introduce one potential allergen every few days so that you can identify any triggers.

Fish can provide a good source of protein, iron, zinc, omega-3, iodine, and vitamin B12 for your baby, all of which are important nutrients for healthy growth and development.

Be sure to choose a fish that is low in mercury, and prepare it safely by cooking it to an internal temperature of 145°F (62.8 °C) and either cutting it into appropriately sized pieces or puréeing it.

Before introducing any solid food, be sure to talk with your baby’s pediatrician, especially if food allergies run in your family.

Just one thing

Try this today: To get important nutrients for you and your baby, try making poached salmon or salmon cakes for the whole family to enjoy as part of dinner.

Last medically reviewed on August 27, 2021

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Parenthood
Baby

How we reviewed this article:

Our experts continually monitor the health and wellness space, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

Current Version

Aug 27, 2021

Written By

Ellen Landes, MS, RDN, CPT

Edited By

Lisa Valente, MS, RD

Medically Reviewed By

Sade Meeks, MS, RD

Copy Edited By

Christina Guzik, BA, MBA

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Evidence Based

This article is based on scientific evidence, written by experts and fact checked by experts.

Our team of licensed nutritionists and dietitians strive to be objective, unbiased, honest and to present both sides of the argument.

This article contains scientific references. The numbers in the parentheses (1, 2, 3) are clickable links to peer-reviewed scientific papers.

By Ellen Landes, MS, RDN, CPT on August 27, 2021 — Medically reviewed by Sade Meeks, MS, RD, Nutrition

Proper feeding of fish | Tail News

Contents

1 What fish food to choose 2 How to store fish food 3 How many times to feed the fish 4 How much food to feed the fish 5 How to feed your fish with dry food and supplements

5 minutes

estimated reading time

Experienced aquarist Vera Dudina explained what food to choose for different fish, how to store it properly and how many times to feed tailed pets.

We want to provide the very best for new pets. Fish are no exception. They need proper care and proper feeding. However, all fish are different, and there is so much information on food that it is very difficult to understand it - especially for a beginner. In this article I will answer the most common questions about feeding fish that beginner aquarists have. I have been asked these questions frequently in my 20 years of practice.

Which fish food to choose

Fish are carnivorous, herbivorous and omnivorous. And depending on the species, they need a different diet. If you are the owner of a species aquarium, picking up food is easy: just take into account the needs of a single species.

Another thing is if there are several fish of different species in the aquarium. Then it is necessary to take into account the needs of each of them. In this case, I recommend choosing a universal dry food as the basis of the diet - for example, TetraMin. This food is suitable for almost all tropical fish.

The main thing is to make sure that the size of the food corresponds to the size of the fish.

If you keep large and small fish at the same time in the aquarium, try flakes or chips.

Which food for aquarium fish to choose so that everyone is fed

If the size of the fish is about the same, select the appropriate pellets. For bottom fish, I recommend purchasing food in the form of tablets. Otherwise, they will not have time to eat food along with other fish and will remain hungry.

Remember that feeding the fish should be varied. Therefore, in addition to the main diet, I recommend introducing feed additives.

Predatory fish can be given live or frozen bloodworms, tubifex, coretra, daphnia.
Herbivorous fish benefit from duckweed.
Bottom dwellers love cucumbers, lettuce and zucchini.

Feeding bottom fish is easy. It is enough to put a piece of food on the bottom and fix it - for example, with a pebble. In a few minutes, catfish and snails will gather around him. The main thing is to remove the leftover food after two hours so that they do not pollute the water.

How to store fish food

A large package of feed is cheaper, so many tend to immediately take "in reserve". However, food oxidizes over time. Keep food tightly closed in a dark and dry place. But even if you do everything right, I do not recommend storing dry food for more than three months.

With live food, too, there are nuances. I recommend storing bloodworms, coretra, tubifex in the refrigerator at a temperature of 4-8 ° C. It is better to spread the food in a thin layer on a damp canvas and wrap it around. I will say right away: it is difficult to monitor its quality. It is necessary to wash it daily and remove dead individuals. Otherwise, the food will spoil and may cause poisoning in the fish.

If you feel a characteristic putrid smell from the feed, it should not be given to the fish.

Frozen food is practically not inferior in quality and nutritional value to live food, while it is much easier to store: just put it in the freezer. The main thing here is to prevent defrosting: both at home and on the way from the store. After defrosting, re-freezing is unacceptable - the food will have to be disposed of.

How many times to feed the fish

« Fasting day is useful, because a hungry fish is a healthy fish ". I think every beginner aquarist has heard about it. But this is a myth, moreover, a dangerous one, since the immunity of hungry fish suffers greatly. The unloading day was really relevant when there was no high-quality equipment for water purification and aeration. But even then it was a necessary measure.

In a modern aquarium, underfeeding is just as dangerous as overfeeding. It just does not appear immediately, but with a delayed effect. How much to feed the fish per day depends on their type and age.

It is optimal to give food 2 times a day. Minimum - 1 time per day. I recommend feeding fry and teenagers more often.

Every other day it is permissible to feed only adult predatory fish. These are, for example, Aravans, Astronotuses, Polypteruses, Calamoichts. But be careful not to confuse a predatory fish with an aggressive one. Often the aggressors just turn out to be herbivores. Among them are barbs, many African cichlids and even some piranhas.

Starvation in herbivorous fish can cause disruption of the gastrointestinal tract, as their long intestines are adapted to the constant digestion of food. If you have goldfish, loricaria catfish, mollies and methinnis, forget about “fasting days”.

The first feeding is best done an hour after the lights are turned on, and the second - a couple of hours before turning off.

I recommend alternating types of food. For example, at the first feeding, give dry food, and at the second feeding, feed supplements. Or feed a complete dry food both times.

How much to feed the fish

Deciding on the amount of food can be difficult even for experienced aquarists. There is no universal rule on how to calculate the exact amount of food for all fish. But my four recommendations will help determine how much food to feed the fishermen in your aquarium.

Watch how the fish eat. She should actively look for food, not swim past. If the fish is ignoring food, they are probably overfed.
Watch how fast the fish eats food. A serving should be eaten within a maximum of 5 minutes. If the food has been lying for a longer time, it must be collected from the bottom with a siphon and the filter sponges rinsed. Reduce the amount of food next time.
Keep your water clean. A slight, barely noticeable whitishness some time after feeding may also indicate overfeeding. But only on condition that you do not have overpopulation, and the equipment corresponds to the volume of the aquarium.
Monitor the condition of the fish. After feeding, the stomach should not strongly bulge or fall. In a healthy and well-fed fish, it is slightly rounded.

Aquarium fish often hide - what does this mean

How to properly feed your fish with dry food and supplements

All fish have different personalities. Among them there are leaders and outsiders, strong and weak, fast and slow, fearful and aggressive. It happens that strong and active fish prevent more shy ones from eating. Sometimes the fish are so shy that they constantly hide and come out to eat only after the lights are turned off. All this must be taken into account. Don't worry, there are simple but effective rules here too:

Spread food over the entire surface of the aquarium. Do not use feeders that limit the feeding area. The feeder is easy to protect, and strong fish will do just fine: just keep others from eating. But they will not be able to control the entire surface of the water. Don't worry about the food spreading out and settling on the bottom or in the filter. If you do not overfeed the fish, they will find it and collect it. The fish have a wonderful scent.
Feed the fish at the same time. They get used to the regime and are more willing to go out to eat "by the hour." If you can’t always be at home at the right time, the process can be automated using an automatic feeder.
Feed shy night catfish separately, half an hour to an hour after turning off the light. Throw pills or records at the scenery where other inhabitants can't get them. Then the catfish will also get their dinner and be full.

What to feed a bottom introvert

These are the basic rules for competent and complete feeding of aquarium fish. If you follow them, the fish will be full and healthy, and the water in the aquarium will be clear and safe.

How and how much to feed aquarium fish? Feeding rules.

Feeding the fish is fun and interesting, or just three wizard rules.

Immediately read about how and how much to feed aquarium fish >>>

If you have a beautiful aquarium shining with crystal water, and the fish in it are well-fed and cheerful, then you are the owner of a miracle and you no longer need to read this text necessary. But miracles, as you know, rarely happen, including truly living aquariums. Why? Because it is pleasant and interesting to feed the fish, healthy fish are insatiable, recklessly chasing every crumb, and you always want to give them something more and more. This is usually what they do, and very soon the water in the aquarium becomes cloudy, and the fish begin to feel sad and die a little. The biological balance in the aquarium with uncontrolled feeding of fish quickly becomes hopelessly disturbed.

In fact, feeding the fish is not difficult, you just need to know how to do it and how much to feed.

There are simple feeding rules that you need to follow and get a little "hands on" - because understanding comes with experience. But first, a few words about what to feed.
Live natural foods such as bloodworm, tubifex, coretra, daphnia, cyclops are very loved by fish. They are easily digestible and rich in vitamins. Fish, eating them, grow quickly, and from daphnia and cyclops they also become brightly colored. But the trouble is, this prosperity may not last long. Together with live food, pathogens of fish diseases will sooner or later get into the aquarium. After all, these foods are caught in natural reservoirs, most of which have their own fish population, and in nature, rare fish are free from parasites.
In an aquarium, fish usually get very sick and, as a rule, die without qualified treatment. Therefore, unless you are good at treating fish ailments, refrain from using live foods from nature.
It is safe to feed fish only with brine shrimp nauplii and grown brine shrimp, microworm (acetic eel), grindal, aulophorus. These are live foods, but they are not from nature, and they must be bred at home. Not all aquarists can cope with such a task. But, for example, in St. Petersburg and Moscow, live cultivated safe food can be bought at a pet store.
The risk of infection of fish from natural live food will be greatly reduced if the purchased live food is immediately frozen. Freezing for several days at temperatures below -18°C will kill fish ectoparasites. You won't be safe from bacterial infections this way, but they rarely occur in successful aquariums.
Quickly frozen bloodworm, if stored at -12°C or below, retains color, shape and, judging by the enthusiasm with which fish eat it, taste. Many aquarists, including members of our forum, freeze bloodworms on their own.

Photo 1. Fish feeding. The male badis chameleon (Badis badis) will find and eat all the worms that have fallen to the bottom.

Photo 2. Let's look at the process of eating up close. An arrow points to the larva of the mosquito-twitch (this is the bloodworm). Badis looks for prey at the bottom and will never swim past the bloodworm.

Photo 3. The only drawback of frozen foods is that they are "fragile": the skin of a thawed bloodworm bursts easily and some "juice" (shown by the arrow) enters the water. If you have few fish and the aquarium is large, then there will be no problems, but if you feed juveniles with such bloodworms in a nursery aquarium, then after each feeding you will have to change the water, otherwise the oxidization of the water will increase to an unacceptably high level.

What can be artificial fish food:

homemade curdled milk and even canned green peas and semolina. And also - buckwheat!

Video 1. This is how you can cook buckwheat for fish. It turns out very useful food for fish. Watch the movie until the end and put it on YouTube. This will contribute to the development of the channel and the site. In addition, you can help the Aquarium yourself .

First, let's say a few words about commercially available dry compound feeds. Even at the present time, * some novice aquarists believe that dry food is nothing more than dry daphnia or gammarus, which was used to feed aquarium fish back in the century before last. However, this is not the case. Modern dry food is a complex mixture of many dozens of components. They are made using special almost secret technologies. In comparison with them, the bags with the dried crustaceans mentioned above look like a useless anachronism.

Photo 4. Dried gammarus food is not very good by itself, but as an additive containing chitin in home-made food for aquarium fish, it is very good. It's just that it causes allergies too often

Among the imported dry foods, currently the most available are foods from Tetra, Sera, JBL. Their range is wide enough, so you can always find something suitable for your pets. There are, for example, food for discus, catfish, goldfish, as well as food of a universal composition. All of them contain biologically active substances and vitamins necessary for fish, are balanced in terms of the content of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. The formula of feeds is made taking into account the peculiarities of digestion and the specific needs of certain groups of fish. However, universal food, which can be fed to all the fish in the aquarium at once, gives very good results.
Food for aquarium fish can be flaked, granulated, and also combine the properties of both flakes and granules - the so-called crisps. In my opinion, it is most correct to use pellets of a suitable caliber, in this case the pollution of the aquarium water with uneaten food residues and organic substances extracted from the feed particles into the water is the least. In addition to imported fish feed, there are also much cheaper, but good quality domestic ones on sale. For example, a whole series of feed for aquarium fish, fry and juveniles "Aqua-Menu". All of them ensure the full existence and growth of aquarium fish. In addition, there is currently a new line of feeds on sale - GSK AQUAMENU PRO . These feeds are in no way inferior to imported ones.

When using dry compound food, one should not forget that they cannot be stored forever, so the first thing to do when buying them is to check the expiration date. At home, after opening the package, the shelf life of such food is limited to a maximum of 4 months, while the food must not be allowed to become damp or heated (for example, if the jar is placed on a warm aquarium lid). Food should be stored in a tightly closed container. And when buying, do not strive to buy a larger jar. It is better to take the minimum package, the contents of which will dry up in a month or two. In this case, the loss of nutritional value of the feed, which is inevitable during storage, will be the smallest.
If dry food is so good, then why bother with anything else? They are good, but not perfect. Just open the jar and fill the fish with food easily and simply, with a minimum of hassle. But, as a rule, in the life of every aquarist there comes a period when he switches to more complex feeding patterns. Firstly, I want to achieve ideal results, and secondly, everyone always wants variety, at least in food. Hence

FIRST RULE OF FEEDING AQUARIUM FISH:

A varied diet is undoubtedly good for you and your fish!

Beef heart, grated with small shavings on a grater (for this you need to freeze it a little), is loved by many fish. Even small neonchiki will not refuse to taste it (of course, with the appropriate caliber of chips). In terms of the content of easily digestible protein, it is a champion among feeds. Its use makes it possible to significantly reduce the cost of keeping such gluttons as, for example, discus and astronotus. Moreover, perhaps only with his help, they manage to fatten them really well. But it must be borne in mind that the uneaten remains of this food are extremely good for the development of planarian worms, which are always present in any aquarium. Normally, they do no harm, are nocturnal and therefore almost invisible. But with excessive feeding of fish with a heart, that is, when its remains are not eaten at the bottom of the aquarium, the number of these worms rapidly increases to incredible numbers. Their hordes begin to crawl along the walls of the aquarium even during the day and plan in the water column. Of course, this does not paint the aquarium, in addition, planarians can attack fish. Hence

SECOND RULE OF FEEDING AQUARIUM FISH:

everything must be eaten within 5-10 minutes after adding food to the aquarium!

No accumulation of food on the bottom. Heart is a very good food, but it has one significant drawback - it is not rich in fat-soluble vitamins, primarily vitamin A. That is why it is advisable to combine feeding fish with heart with dry or some other food, or flavor already prepared heart shavings with vitamin concentrate, e.g. trivit, fishtamin, autvitol .
The second rule is universal, it must be remembered when feeding with any food, not only with the heart. In fact, what they don’t feed aquarium fish with! A fairly complete, but naturally not exhaustive (because it is impossible to embrace the immensity) review of all kinds of feeds, we will post on our website a little later. And now let's briefly dwell on squid fillet and yogurt.
Squid fillet chips are prepared in the same way as from the heart. The squid is very helpful. However, fish should not be allowed to eat large pieces, therefore, for medium-sized fish, the chips should be small. Feed squid moderately , not to satiety: overfeeding squid meat can lead to indigestion in omnivorous fish. Squid fillet is a source of complete protein, vitamins and growth-promoting substances. The fish eat it very well. If you bought a whole squid carcass in the store, and not a finished fillet, then when cutting it, you should throw out the contents of the intestine, which usually consists of semi-digested krill. Feeding it to fish can lead to infection with the parasitic fungus ichthyophonus, the causative agent of a dangerous and incurable disease.
But when feeding fish with curdled milk, you certainly won’t infect them with anything. This food contains all the vitamins necessary for the life of fish and is rich in easily digestible protein. In water, yogurt breaks up into numerous and rather small pieces, so you can feed it only to small fish and fry. Properly prepared curdled milk, despite the fact that it is scattered almost throughout the aquarium, practically does not spoil the water. Naturally, you can not give it too much, each fish should get only a few particles. But in the fact that it is scattered throughout the aquarium, there is a certain advantage. Not all fish like to push around the feeder. With a different method of feeding, for example, if dry food is poured into a feeder floating on the surface, which limits its distribution over the entire surface of the aquarium, these pacifiers may not get anything at all. In our opinion, the use of floating feeders and, in general, any restriction on the distribution of food in the aquarium is inappropriate. Healthy, active fish always quickly find and eat all the food. If it is set only in one place, then everything can go to one or several of the most powerful and aggressive fish, the rest will remain on a starvation diet. From here

THE THIRD RULE OF FEEDING AQUARIUM FISHES:

the given food must be distributed throughout the aquarium in such a way that everyone gets it - both strong and weak, and also those who always keep to the bottom .

About what tricks you sometimes have to resort to in order to fulfill this rule is described here. But first, let's look at the movies, they will allow you to better understand how and how much to feed fish.

Video 2. Favorite question of beginner aquarists: "How much food to give the fish? And how to understand if they are full"? It is not easy to give a clear answer. It's better to see once than hear a hundred times. The first video (above) shows a general view of a fairly densely populated aquarium. At first, the fish swim calmly, but then a portion of food appears on the surface. Fish enthusiastically rush to feed. They collect it both from the surface and from the bottom - depending on the specific behavioral characteristics. All easily accessible food disappears in about a minute. What fell into the dense benthic thickets of everyday life was found and collected the largest in 5 minutes. In principle, one such feeding per day is enough if there are no timid and modest fish in the aquarium and all its inhabitants are able to snatch their crumbs recklessly pushing with their neighbors. If there are timid fish, then you need to feed at least twice a day and have enough collectors of food that has fallen into secluded corners in the aquarium - these are catfish, small fights, acanthophthalmus and shrimps.

Video 3. Now let's take a closer look at all of the above. The introduction of the first portion of food causes absolutely genuine enthusiasm - this is a normal reaction of healthy fish to food. This is exactly how they should behave. When a second, noticeably smaller portion is added, the fish no longer fuss so much, swim more slowly, and many begin to see a full tummy. In principle, it would be possible to do without this portion. Fish that have eaten to satiety swim very slowly or freeze in quiet corners of the aquarium. Nevertheless, the entire second portion was eaten. The surface of the water has again become perfectly clean, and in the bottom thickets everything will be picked up at the most in 10 minutes. A separate article has been written about the signs of overfeeding of fish and what to do if it happens.

The aquarium shown in these videos is inhabited by a motley company of various small fish. They differ greatly from each other in the horizons occupied in the aquarium, mobility, temperament. In order for everyone to eat, you have to set a relatively large amount of food. And here you need to choose the right food wisely. It must have at least three important properties:

granules should not be hard;
the granules should sink at different speeds: some quickly, others slowly, and some of them float for a while;
the diet should not contain too much protein, as it is consumed quite a bit and the nitrogen load on the aquarium in the case of a high-protein diet would be excessive.

One such food is JBL NovoGranoVert mini, which can be used without pre-soaking. Another important property of this food is that it is tasty (in the opinion of the vast majority of aquarium fish), so there will always be those in the aquarium who want to find every last crumb in dense thickets.