Feeding Regime - once a day or twice a day?

[henward]

I currently feed a staple of JBL novo pleco, and occasional hikari algae wafers (they are more meat based).

I am wondering, my current pleco stock is as follows.

1 golden BN
4 L190
1 L191
1 Cactus leopard
1 blue phantom
1 albino sailfin
1 sunshine pleco

I currently feed in the morning, and twice a week i will feed at night lights out too.

but im thinking, someone commented that in nature they are constantly eating, wood is aplenty, but should i feed twice a day? to ensure i reach the maximum size as close to nature as possible?

all plecos bellys are not inwards, good roundness when i get home in the afternoon, also i see them all come out to feed too. Royals are always rasping wood and constantly new rasp marks, i also see much royal pleco poo as well.

[Shane]

This is really dependent on several factors. The main one of course is your maintenance regime (water changes, cleaning filters, etc). If your habit is to perform frequent large water changes you can get away with feeding more frequently without impacting water quality.
"Meaty" eaters do not tend to feed as frequently as "grazers." Your

Ancistrus cf_cirrhosus

and

Pterygoplichthys pardalis

will want to graze frequently on a more vegetable based diet. Most of us accomplish this using fresh or cooked veggies. Your other fishes will prefer higher protein foods less frequently.

I'll also be the first to admit that there is an "art" to fish feeding. Jools and I are both (I would like to think) accomplished aquarists, but to my eye he feeds heavy and to his eye I starve my fishes. My normal feeding regime is once daily, except for Saturdays after water changes, when I skip feeding totally.
My meat eating plecos get on average 1 tab per 2-3 fish 4 days a week, frozen food twice weekly, and I add veggies at least once a week. My grazers, Farlowella, Hemiloricaria, Ancistrus, and Otocinclus get fresh veggies constantly, algae tabs twice a week, and frozen food once a week.
-Shane

[MatsP]

I would add to the excellent (as usual) explanation of "it depends" by Shane:
It also depends on what the combination in the tank is. All fish needs to get ENOUGH food (and we can probably discuss what is enough for a long time without reaching a complete agreement). One problem that can occur is that there are some greedy fish in the tank that basically gobble up all the food. This may require special feeding regime to ensure all fish gets what they need. That could be feeding bigger size food (JBL NovoPleco XL, or a chunk of vegetable, for example) which can't be taken by fish that have a smaller mouth. Or feeding the food at two places in the tank, after dark, etc.

Of course, it's perhaps even better to avoid keeping fish that don't feed very well with greedy fish! ;)

--
Mats

[henward]

In terms of water quality. I can feed steak to my fish and it wont matter.
My filtration is massive and my water change system is automatic and it currently does an average of 120% weekly, during extremely heavy feeds, i do 140%
this is done over a 24 hours period wtih a timer and switch in a automatic water change system.
So lets disregard any risk of water quality - thats not a worry at all in my case.

I feel algae wafers and Novopleco.
havent had luck with Veges, i fed raw (i assume that was my mistake?)
my large polka dot pleco got bloat, as well as one blue phantom after i fed sweet potato... whcih they attacked with zest, then got fat from it, and kept getting fat, bloated, died.

i tend to feed pellets as they are readily digestible i found. i keep many types of fish.
in the tank, there is a large community and ALL fish have adapted to compete for food i find. Nothing starves from what i can see.

I do observe though that my cactus plec does not feed daily, but sunshine a supposed meat eater just eats all the time and loves everything i put in there lol

when i feed, i feed enough to ensure there are a lot of food for everything.

I have found so far, that my feeding regime is good, plecos are satisfied, as well as everything else in the tank.
i dont wanna feed twice daily always, so 2 maybe 3 days a week i will feed morning and lights out. but mainly, i do a big heavy feed in the morning when everyone just 'wakes up'

is that ok? i guess there is more than 1 way to skin a cat right?

i find my sailfin cleans up everything that is left. just leisurely cleaning up after everyone when everyone has just been on a feeding frenzy.