Fat fish

[Pansy-Paws]

I'm also in the mega-feeding camp ... and agree that much of the aggression in our tanks is hunger driven. In the wild, the amount of territory that a fish controls defines how much food it will have ... and whether it can also support a mate . So, if the fish is "more" hungry, and sees a fish in near proximity that eats the same food items, it's game on.

The downside, of course, is water parameters. My nitrates usually run between 5 and 20 ppm, even with 10% weekly water changes. This nitrate level precludes a reef tank, and I happily maintain the tank as fish only.

For comparison purpose, my daily feeding regime consists of 1 1/3 sheets of nori (8" x 9" sheets) and 12-14 frozen Hikari cubes (included in this volume count is PE mysis as well). I'll occasionally add a piece of scallop or a clam for more variety.

Our widest fish are a 7" foxface and a 5" huma huma, each with a 2" girth.

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Going to play devil's advocate here. How can we emphatically believe that a wide fish is unhealthily obese? AFAIK I haven't seen a BMI chart posted for fish.

All I can say is that when I've seen the same fish that we keep in aquaria in the wild, they were fatter and wider than the fattest fish I ever saw in captivity. As in no comparison whatsoever. So I tend to believe that in general even if we think we're overfeeding, we're not, not really anyhow. Yes it is true that as long as they see food they will eat food, so we can't use a "they'll stop eating when they're full" sort of thing to figure out how to throttle back the amounts, but the flip side is although they'll never really be "less" hungry, they can be "more" hungry and that can sometimes lead to aggression. So it's a fine line or a balancing act, maybe with some experimentation and observation you'll find the balance that works for you..