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View Full Version : Am I overfeeding/underfeeding?



loans_n_fishes
Tue, 21st Feb 2006, 07:06 PM
I have a 75 gal tank with around 60 janitors (nass. snails, cerith snails, nerite snails, red legged hermits, scarlet hermits), pair of occ. clowns, pair of clark clowns, mandarin goby, coral beauty angel, 2 skunk cleaner shrimp, 1 peppermint shrimp (I assume...haven't seen him), and a mushroom colony.

I am feeding some cyclopeez every morning, a cube of mysis every evening and phytoplankton (2 capfuls) every other day. No one is thin, but they are always interested in eating when I feed.

I do have some hair algae and cyno. I am due for a water change anyway, but am I feeding too much....too little?

GaryP
Tue, 21st Feb 2006, 07:17 PM
I don't think you are necessarily overfeeding. Most people don't feed enough. I think your problem is that you may be putting in more nutrients then your tank is capable of taking out. Fish do not have very efficient digestive tracks and a lot of the nutrients pass right though to the water. The problem is more likely that you are not removing enough nutruents. Nutrient import has to equal nutrient export plus nutrient utilization. Anything left over is going to be used by something. In this case it's nuisance algaes that are using them. Chemical engineers call that mass balance.