Why we do a “no feed” day of the week

[Fish Folk]

With the exception of young fry, we fast all of our fish on Sundays.

Here are a few reasons our fish like this... and so do we:

(1) Overfeeding is a common problem. Giving a day off of food does some balancing of the scales.

(2) Food isn’t free. How many times we’ve traded in bags of hone-bred-and-raised fish to our LFS that took half a year to raise, only to come out with a few bottles of flake food... i cannot count. This shaves off that expense by 1/7th of a week.

(3) Fasting days allow biological filtration some time to catch up. Fish are not the only living organisms in an aquatic eco-space. Bio works harder than anything with little or no thanks. A day off isn’t much, but it helps balance.

(4) Fish care takes time, and can quickly grow tedious. A day off _for the fish keeper_ makes the joy of seeing tanks the next day all the better.

(5) Just watching fish feed the morning after a fast day makes you fall in love with the hobby all over again...

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Fish Folk

[Tyler LaZerte]

I know plenty of people who do this and I agree in the practice. I will be doing the no feed day on water change day. 

[FrozenFins]

All though my fish dont enjoy the practice I fast my fish on Thursdays and then spoil them with frozen blood worms on Friday. Often I forget to not feed them or to feed them blood worms so its really just a random day of the week.

Sometimes if I see big bellys on my fish after feeding I will skip the next feeding to ensure that they are able to digest all that waste.

[laritheloud]

I leave Sundays as a fast day. I do have a question regarding overfeeding/underfeeding/feeding just enough.

I have 3 mystery snails and 6 corydoras in my display tank. I tend to feed my diamond tetras first to keep them busy, a pinch of flakes that they can eat in about 60 seconds or less. Then I drop in a pinch (and I mean a pinch) of repashy soilent green or community plus and one tab/one half a tab (depending on the size of the tablet) of sinking wafer for the corydoras. My mystery snails look pretty good... I do supplement them with fresh veggies once a week or so. But they also seem to munch on the fresh new shoots on my water sprite.

How do I balance 'not overfeeding' with making sure my bottom feeders get fed? And inevitably the tetras swoop down and try to steal tablets and repashy once the flakes are done because they're little piggies.

[HH Morant]

That is a great point. I have lots of bottom feeders - more than I need because I like catfish. I put all the food in at once so that a lot of it gets to the bottom. Also, I can put some things in for the plecos - like zucchini and cauliflower - that the other fish won't eat. My concern for the bottom feeders probably does cause over-feeding, so fasting days are good.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I started doing this because it was good for my Betta fish I had a while ago. I try to do this every Sunday (my aquarium app reminds me, tho I remember) but sometimes I feed anyway. I'm definitely not an over feeder though,  I might border on not enough.

[outspoken]

Another reason to have a food-free day is to keep algae at bay. In my tanks the inhabitants eat way more algae on fasting days.

[CalmedByFish]

I instead let the snails, detritus worms, and microscopic crustaceans clean up the slight extra - then the worms and crustaceans can also be fish food. I simply keep an eye on water parameters. 

Really just posting this in case somebody else feeds every day, sees the thread, and is afraid they're doing it wrong. Whether to fast the fish for a day is circumstance-dependent. So don't worry if you are feeding every day. Simply pause to consider what's best for your specific tank(s). There *are* good points in this thread.

[laritheloud]

1 hour ago, HH Morant said:

That is a great point. I have lots of bottom feeders - more than I need because I like catfish. I put all the food in at once so that a lot of it gets to the bottom. Also, I can put some things in for the plecos - like zucchini and cauliflower - that the other fish won't eat. My concern for the bottom feeders probably does cause over-feeding, so fasting days are good.

I looooove catfish, snails, shrimp. I'm not worried about the shrimp, there's plenty of biofilm and algae for them to feast on. BUT I know that Mystery Snails are big eaters, and I'm never quite sure what the corydoras are subsisting on. They are growing and active, though, I'm just worried about whether I'm feeding too much.

[Goosedub]

I just don’t worry if I miss a day of feeding. I don’t feed 7 days a week, probably 5-6. My endler tanks with fry get fed multiple times per day, the other tanks once per day.

[H.K.Luterman]

I've started doing this as well! I've even scheduled it to be Sunday too. Heck, with the bunch of fatties I have, I could even do twice a week.