Just how much food is too much?

"Commander Vimes" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I am new to tropical fishkeeping and have found this group an
invaluable source of advice whilst cycling my 10g tank.

What I have noticed in all the books and posts I have read is the
warning of not overfeeding the fish. Is this purely to do with the
nitires that are produced as the food breaks down, or are there more
sinister things I should be wary of.

Also I can find no decent advice on how much is too much. I have 3
dalmation mollies, 3 neon tailed platys, 3 red mickey mouse platys and
3 neon tetras (3 died during the cycle - should have read the
newsgroup before trying to cycle a tank with neons!). I feed them
flake food and I am sure I have a tendancy to overfeed as I keep
feeding until they seem to become dis-interested in the food. There
are no flakes left over (that I can see), althoughn this doesn't mean
that there aren't small bits in the tank or hitting the gravel.

If someone could tell me roughly how many flakes to throw in the tank
I would appreciate it. I also tend to crumble the flakes up a bit to
ensure even distribution of the food.

Another reason I think I'm overfeeding is the water tests show small
levels of nitrites (0.1mg per), but this may be beacuse I added the
platys a couple of weeks ago and the bacteria is building up to meet
the new levels.

Anyway, any advice on this would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks,

Vimes

If your tank is still cycling (or younger than 6 weeks) then feed once or
twice a day, a quantity of food which would be the size of their eye
(which is roughly the size of their stomach). After the tank is cycled,
you can feed 2 or 3 times a day, a quantity which they consume in a few
minutes.

Of the 3 inputs to your aquarium (light, heat and fishfood), it's the
food which has the greatest consequences, determining the size of filter
you need, the amount of nitrogen products in your food chain, the amount
of pollution, the amount of water changes you need to do, how often you
will need to gravel vacuum etc. Uneaten food decays to release
significant amounts of ammonia into your water. Digested food is
released by the fish as ammonia (in decaying solid waste or through their
gills), which starts your food chain (to nitrites and then nitrates). You
can (in theory) feed many many times a day (small portions), but more
food = more maintenance. A real danger comes from over-feeding (at a
single serving), because you have a greater chance of uneaten food
getting into your gravel to rot, and many processed foods expand when
wet, putting the fish under stress. hth

NetMax