How Do You Know When Fishes Are Hungry?

Having an aquarium and keeping fish as pets brings in a lot of benefits. It will make your house look aesthetically pleasing, gives you peace of mind, and are aquariums are known to relieve stress. But there are a lot of things that lie under the woodwork on owning an aquarium.

Routinely water changes, managing the temperature, lighting of the aquarium, feeding your fish, cleaning the tank, and many more. All things considered, it is crucial that you feed your fish at regular intervals and the amount of food that you give them.

Fish too requires food for survival and for them to be healthy nutrients are a must. Although you have to keep in mind the things that come when feeding your fish such as not to feed too much, how many times should you feed, or what kind of food to feed.

How to know if your fish is hungry?

Just like any other living creature on the earth, fish also exert some signs or actions when they are hungry. Here are some signs that your fishes will express their hunger with.

The most noticeable one is the changes in behavior that occurs. They will constantly try to grab your attention by showing peculiar movements. These movements will eventually start to become aggressive the longer you don’t give them any attention.

Another one is that they will constantly indulge themselves with the digging of the substrate. This means that they are looking for food on the substrate. So, if your fish is dwelling around the bottom of the tank showing actions of digging, it’s feeding time.

When the feeding time has approached, they will begin swimming around the top of the aquarium. This is also a common sign that they show when they are hungry.

If you are following a routine such as twice or thrice during the day the fish will likely show these signs when the time for feeding approaches. Be sure to look out for these signs as there will be times that it will slip your mind that you have to feed your fish.

How much to feed them and how many times in a day?

It is crucial that you feed your fish in the right amounts. If you overfeed them the consequences that will come will not be towards your liking. Not just the right amounts, it is also necessary to make a routine of how many times and when during the day you will feed your fish.

It is best to feed your fish twice or thrice a day. You can line it up with your routine of eating, such as with your breakfast, lunch, and dinner as it will remind you to feed your fish. Once you make a routine your fish will quickly adapt to it and become hungry as the time for feeding arrives.

So, make you don’t miss out on any feeding point of the day. The amount that you should be feeding also should be right. As you will be feeding them three or four times a day, just throw in a little swoop at one time.

You can also opt for feeding once during the day and feeding once means giving them the amount of food that will sustain them for another 24 hours. Although in this case, you will have to greatly monitor your fish to know when you have given the right amount of food. For this you can throw in a portion of food at first, then after your fish has finished eating it, again throw in another portion. Continuing this for five minutes will be enough.

Observe the behavior of the fish as it eats as if it is gobbling the food quickly means it is hungry, if it is beginning to eat at a slow pace, it is starting to get full. Your fish will eventually stop eating once its hunger is satisfied and will not eat further.

But if you have a community tank and have different species of fishes in a single tank you will have to make sure that everyone gets to eat their fair share. There are species that are shy and like to remain isolated, what you can do is to give them food directly where they are in the tank. For the bottom dwellers give them food that sink to the bottom and floating food for the ones that swim around. Make sure that you spread out the food evenly in all direction and not just focus on one area.

What will overfeeding lead to?

It is very necessary that you feed your fish the right amounts of food. If you give them more than they need this will lead to overfeeding and you wouldn’t want to deal with the consequences of overfeeding. It is never good to overfeed your fish and the thing about overfeeding is you will realize you are doing it until the consequences start to occur.

Overfeeding will mostly affect your fish as well as your tank. The food particles that your fish will not consume will fall towards the substrate and as time passes it will start to affect the aquarium water.

It will make the water dirty by making the water appear murky and adding up an unpleasant smell to it. The leftover food will also contribute to the growth of algae which is unnecessary on an aquarium. The nitrite and ammonia amounts will also increase with the rotting of the leftover food in the substrate.

The presence of these chemicals in the water will pose a threat to the health of your fish. Overfeeding will also lead your fish towards obesity and an obese fish is an unhealthy fish.

So, overfeeding your fish is not a choice that you would want to go for. It is better to check the amount of food that you are giving rather than giving them too much. Make sure to check for food particles in the substrate, if there are remove them immediately.

How to know if you’re feeding your fish not enough food?

Underfeeding is also equally harmful as overfeeding. If you are the type that tends to become paranoid about feeding too much and giving smaller amounts of food this is for you.

If your fish starts to gobble the food quickly every time you feed it, it is a sign that you are not feeding them enough. If the species of your fish is of a big size and if yours is smaller in size then it is clearly a sign of underfeeding. They also tend to become slower and inactive if you are feeding them less than the required amount.

How long can fish live without food?

Let’s say that you have to leave your house because of some unavoidable cause and you have an aquarium. You will surely have a dilemma or trouble yourself with the question of who will feed them? Don’t worry fishes can survive up to a week without food as they have fat reserves in their body. But this depends on the species and the size of your fish.

Smaller ones need to be fed more than the bigger ones. You can also use an automatic feeder if you will be absent for a longer period of time. Or you can give the responsibility to someone such as your neighbor or your friends. But you don’t need to overthink it as fishes can survive without food for a longer period of time.

What kind of food is best for fish?

There is a multitude of types of food that you can feed your fish. There are flakes, pellets, wafers, you can also feed them shrimp, veggies, and so on. The type of food that you can feed depends upon what species of fish you have. The food that you give determines a lot of things such as the vibrancy of your fish, healthiness, and so on.

Some species prefer proteins such as shrimp, worms, etc. Most of the species are omnivores and they find satisfaction in flakes, veggies, and shrimps. But with overall observation flakes and pellets are the best foods that you can feed your fish as it comes packed with nutrients that fishes require.

Feeding your fish correctly and at the right times determines a lot of things about your fish and the most important of them is the health of your fish. The more you stick to the right amounts the healthier your fish is.

The things mentioned above are the primary things that you should know and be on the lookout for when feeding your fish. You most definitely want to make the life of your fish easier and keep them at their best, like who doesn’t wish that.