Why Turn Off Pumps During Feeding?

[reefgirl189]

Originally Posted by burgerchow

I'm a little curious. Just how much food does everybody feed, that they are worried about "leftover" ? I only feed small amounts a day. It's a feeding frenzy everytime I drop in some pellets. Never have any leftovers.
I think keeping my fish in competition for food is more natural, and it also leads to better water quality.

I overfeed. I know I do. To me my copperband looks like he's starving at all times although he eats at every meal. He's very healthy and at a good weight but I'm a mother hen and tend to overnurture all my babies. I'm pretty sure that I won't be satisfied until he looks like he's pregnant. I have leftovers that dissapear into the rock work and I probably should freak out about it but I figure the CUC needs the extra food. I don't turn my pumps off. With the water volume I have the odd 2 or 3 missed mysis shrimps or pellets don't give me an ammonia spike. Everything is growing and happy and with the exception of one mysterious tang death in the last month I haven't had any issues that have come up in my tank.

Having said all of that I have a fairly low bioload as I don't have much for livestock, so overfeeding 6 small fish in a 250 gallon system is not as big of a deal as overfeeding 15 similar sized fish in a 90 gallon set up.