Why Turn Off Pumps During Feeding?

[sphelps]

For the most part people would agree we design our tanks and water flow to keep things suspended and be as efficient as possible at forcing debris and other crap to the overflow so it can filtered out before settling and breaking down in the display.

So with that said it's clear why one might want to consider turning off or at least reducing the flow during feeding times. If you don't you'll likely waste a good portion of food that will get filtered out and depending on what goes on from there the extra food may not be filtered out properly and break down into nutrients.

In addition some peoples livestock might benefit from not having to chase down food at light speed but this depends on what livestock you keep.

If you feel neither of these are issues with your tank then yeah it wouldn't make much sense to shut off pumps.

[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.

[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.

[Mike-fish]

i feed via the return pumps so the food gets blasted every which way. pumps left on at all times