Most fish food cans and salespeople recommend feeding the aquarium a few times a day, and for fry, that is the right way to do it. Other than that case, too many people feed their fish on a three a day schedule because they always look hungry. That is their nature, not a starved fish. They simply have no homeostatic mechanisms that tell them they are already full. No matter how often they are fed, they will always react to food as if they haven't had anything for days. This has killed a lot of captive fish.
fish are poikilothermic, cold blooded, so the 85% of the energy you burn to heat your body is not needed, and yet most fish are fed as if they needed much more energy than that. It leads to fat fish, and the constant overfeeding often leads to dead fish.
Only feed the fish as much as they can eat with nothing hitting the bottom, in addition, ignore any catfish, they work the gravel and get their nutrition from wastes that have dropped form the fish, not the flaked or pelleted food that drops down. Those particles that hit the bottom, for the most part, simply rot and add to the ammonia and nitrite production.
If the aquarium is new, feed onlt once a day, and learn to feed sparingly to the rule above. The more wastes that are produced by the fish, the better chance that the fish will experience elevated ammonia and nitrite levels that can kill them.
Once the aquarium is older and the Nitrogen Cycle is established, I still like to only feed once a day. But many feel it is more humane to feed a couple of times a day. I much prefer lean and hungry fish than fat and lazy ones, and the concurrent benefits of reduced wastes make the entire ecosystem that much more healthy.
My final answer: For all situations other than raising fry, I feed once a day. I offer as much food as the aquarium inhabitants can consume in a two minute period with nothing hitting the bottom. I ignore any bottom fish,they are just going to ignore the food in flake form anyway.
Steve Pond
Having kept and bred many different types of tropical fish for the past forty years, I am dedicated to providing information required for the novice aquarist to become successful in this fascinating hobby. Keep tropical fish alive and thriving in your first aquarium through the critical first six week and beyond. Visit my blog website (http://www.noviceaquarist.com) for more detailed information specifically tailored for the novice aquarist on all aspects of the beginning aquarium. Besides my own personal contributions, a variety of other sources are polled and added regularly to the content warehouse available there
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