I'm planning a two week vacation and don't have anyone available to feed my fish while I'm gone. Will they starve?
Unlike you and me, fish can go extended periods without food without suffering any apparent ill effects, so long as you have compatible fishes in your aquarium. Carnivores that are content to live with less aggressive species when well fed could consume their tank mates when food is withheld, so that is a consideration. There are a number of different automatic feeders available that you could use. When you are gone for a long time, you might want a feeder that can be set for delivery only every two or three days.
I went out of town for three days last week and gave my fish an extra large amount of food before I left so they wouldn't go hungry. When I came home several of them were dead and floating on the surface. What happened?
The most likely cause of the mortality was a water quality problem induced by the overfeeding. A cardinal rule associated with holding and rearing fish is "never overfeed." It is always better to withhold feed or underfeed than to give excessive amounts. The excess feed probably overwhelmed your filter and aeration capacity and there was an oxygen depletion that caused the mortality.
Where I live, tilapia will tolerate winters most years, but I have noticed that they don't eat very much when the water gets cool. What's with that?
Fish are cold-blooded animals. Their rate of metabolism is controlled by the temperature of the water. Some fishes, like trout, are called coldwater species. They perform best when the water temperature is below about 65°F. Tilapia and most aquarium fishes are native to tropical environments and are called warmwater species. They grow best when the water temperature is 80°F or higher. When the water cools in the fall, the metabolic rate of tilapia slows and they consume much less feed than when at their optimum temperature. At some point, they will quit feeding altogether if the water gets too cool. So, if your climate supports tilapia survival in the winter, don't be surprised if they eat little or nothing during the coldest weather.
How do I know when I've offered my fish enough food?
The rule of thumb is that the fish should consume all of the feed offered within 10 minutes. If there is food remaining after that amount of time, you are overfeeding. But that rule really applies to rapidly growing fish. Once they become adults, fish usually only eat about 1% of their body weight daily. For the typical aquarium, that is not much food in terms of weight. If you are only trying to maintain the fish (that is, keep them healthy once they reach their adult size), they should probably be expected to consume the offered feed within 3-5 minutes.
Can fish food affect the color of my tropical fish?
Yes. Good quality fish feeds, such as those produced by Aquadine, contain ingredients that enhance the color in your fishes. Various natural ingredients contain pigments that are utilized by the fish. That's one of the reasons tropical fish feeds often come in different colors or mixtures of colors. Those colors (usually reds, yellows and greens) are associated with the color-enhancing ingredients that are used in the manufacture of the feeds.
Why don't Aquadine flakes look like the flakes made by the other well-known companies?
Great question. Flakes can be made in a couple of ways. The thin wafers you see that are made by other manufacturers are produced in a process called double-drum drying. The feed ingredients are mixed with a lot of water to make what is called a slurry. When the slurry is passed (as a liquid) between two hot drums, it dries on those drums and then peels away in sheets that are broken up into the flakes that you buy. The Aquadine process involves making standard feed pellets with an extruder and pressing them into flakes without additional heating. We think that the water soluble vitamins are less likely to be lost when the feed is both manufactured and put in your fish tank. Also, it seems as though the attractants that Aquadine puts in the feed work better than those in the thin flakes. Those attractants are, incidentally, just a part of the natural feed ingredients used; things like fish meal and shrimp meal contain odors that fish really like.
What's the major difference between a feed for freshwater fish and that for marine fish?
Freshwater and marine fish have very similar nutritional requirements with the exception of fats and minerals. The fat situation is quite complex and varies from species to species, so most fish diets cover the bases by providing an array of fats. Vitamins are a different story, at least they are in Aquadine feeds. We know that freshwater fish live in an environment that contains very low concentrations of minerals (things like magnesium, calcium, zinc and others that are required for proper nutrition). Thus, the Aquadine freshwater feeds contain supplementary minerals. Marine fishes, on the other hand, live in water that is loaded with minerals. To top it off, marine fish drink large amounts of water that contains those minerals. They get rid of the excess minerals by producing very small amounts of highly concentrated urine. So, they don't need to have additional minerals in their feed, and Aquadine's marine formulation is not supplemented with minerals for that reason.