Frequently Asked Questions

How much and how often should I feed my fish?

It is easy to overfeed your aquarium inhabitants as they will ask for food whenever they catch a glimpse of you. A good guideline is twice a day and only as much as they can eat within 5 minutes without much falling to the bottom.

This also gives you the opportunity to watch your tank, make sure everyone is eating and all accounted for and in good health.You may need to target feed some fish such as bottom feeders with pellets or wafers daily.

Also some fish species such as anthias need smaller more regular feedings. There are a wide range of quality foods available, both frozen and dry.

Mr Hobbyfish uses and recommends Hikari/Fish fuel frozen foods and Tetra or Sera dry foods(flakes/pellets). Always give your fish as varied a diet as possible, remembering if using frozen food to defrost first and add a little at a time.

Hint: Drop some garlic elixir such as Seachem Garlic Guard onto your fishes frozen food while defrosting, it is a proven disease preventative and appetite enhancer.

How many fish can I have in my aquarium?

This is a difficult question as there are many variables to take into account, such as size of your aquarium, filtration, what type of fish(fresh or salt), compatability(with other fish eg predators and inverts) and proper maintenance regimes.

A helpful way of looking at this is to realise that the larger the aquarium the less restricted with stocking you are. Although the more fish you put in the heavier the workload for your filter and/or water changes to cope with.

Every fish produces waste, and along with feeding can quickly create unliveable conditions and possible disaster.

One of the mistakes most often made is to buy juvenile fish without researching how large they will grow. One of the first purchases you should make is a guidebook for aquarium fishes, one of Mr Hobbyfishes favourite reference tools is "Marine Fishes" & "Reef Aquarium Fishes", both by Scott Michael with information on compatability, sizes and feeding.