Many people, especially beginners, think that they can just keep feeding fish until the cows come home. Can you overfeed fish? Yes, while your fish do need an adequate amount of food, it is possible to overfeed your fish. This happens way more often than you might think.
Fish don't have very large stomachs, especially the smaller home aquarium fish like tetras, goldfish, Betta fish, and other such fish. For humans, overfeeding now and then might not be a big deal, but this is not the same for fish. So, what happens when you overfeed a fish?
Problems Of Overfeeding Your Fish
Many different problems can arise from overfeeding your fish. The problems take the form of health issues, water quality, and health issues resulting from bad water quality. As you are about to find out, overfeeding your fish is much worse than just making them a little fat.
The 11 Issues When You Overfeed A Fish
1. Ammonia Spikes
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One of the first and most dangerous problems that can occur due to overfeeding your fish is a rise in ammonia and nitrate levels. Both ammonia and nitrates are highly toxic and deadly to fish, even in very low amounts.
When you overfeed your fish, they produce a lot more waste than they normally would. That waste is what releases ammonia and nitrates into the water, which is of course not good.
At the same time, uneaten food that is not removed from the fish tank also begins to decay, thus creating even more ammonia and nitrates. This is bad for your fish, plus it will force the biological filtration aspect of your filtration system to work overtime to compensate.
It might not be able to keep up with the increased ammonia levels, thus posing a serious health risk to your fish. If you need help lowering Ammonia levelsthen check out this article.
2. Bad Oxygenation
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Another result that can occur due to overfeeding your fish is a lack of oxygen in the water. Of course, fish need to breathe air that is dissolved in the water, so if there is not enough dissolved oxygen, they won't be able to breathe properly and may eventually suffocate.
The reason why this happens is that decaying fish waste and decaying uneaten food uses up oxygen. The process of decaying is an aerobic process, which means that it uses up a lot of oxygen in the water.
This can be a problem for your fish, plus it is not good for plants once the lights go out. We all need to breathe oxygen, so don't overfeed your fish.
3. Declining pH Levels
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The next effect of overfeeding your fish can come in the form of low and declining pH levels. The process of fish food decaying and the decay of fish waste not only use up oxygen but also produces a lot of acids. These acids have the effect of lowering the pH level of the water by as much as several points in extreme cases.
Fish that can handle fairly acidic water should not suffer too bad because of this, but that is not the case for the fish that need the water they live in to be more basic. It is also not good for various aquarium plants.
You will be forced to use pH adjusters to fix the situation, but by then it might already be too late.
We have covered guides on how to lower pH levelwhich you can find here, and how to increase pH levelwhich you can find here.
4. Algae Blooms
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Yet another result of overfeeding your fish can come in the form of extreme algae blooms. When there are lots of dissolved organic materials in the water like ammonia, nitrates, acids, and other nutrients, algae is bound to bloom because it feeds on those things. If you overfeed your fish, there is bound to be an increased amount of all of these substances in the water.
Algae blooms are of course a nuisance because they don't look very nice, they take up valuable real estate, they take nutrients out of the water that your aquarium plants need, and it sucks oxygen out of the water too. All in all, algae blooms are not fun to deal with and can be prevented in part by not overfeeding your fish.
More on controlling and removing algaeover at this article.
5. Fin Rot
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The next result of feeding your fish too much foodis a disease known as fin rot. Fin rot eats away at the membranes on all of the fins of a fish. It can and does get worse over time, slowly eating away at the body of the fish, more or less until death occurs.
It can be treated if caught early enough, but in itself, it can be fatal, not including all of the other complications that arise because of fin rot. It is likely to occur because overfeeding stresses fish out, and stress is a big cause of fin rot.
At the same time, the excess amount of toxins and bacteria in the water have an easier time infecting your fishif they are already stressed out.
6. A Fatty liver
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Yet another effect that may arise from overfeeding your fish is that of a fatty liver. The condition of fatty liver is also known as hepatic lipidosis. The over-accumulation of food and various nutrients in the body of the fish can cause fatty buildups in the liver, which can prove to be fatal if left untreated.
This is one of the more fatal things that can occur due to feeding your fish too much food.
7. Bad Digestion
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This is not terrible, but overfeeding your fish can result in bad digestion. They could get constipated and they could get diarrhea too. The point here is that either of these situations is not good.
The result is usually a lack of proper nutrient absorption, which is of course not ideal in the least. Your fish need enough nutrients to be healthy, and not having the proper nutrient absorption rate can have some serious short and long-term health effects.
8. Mold Growth
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Yet another problem that can occur due to overfeedingis the growth and accumulation of mold. Mold also grows due to increased levels of dissolved organic matter in the water, plus things like ammonia and nitrates don't help either.
Mold is also likely to grow when algae blooms occur. The problem is that mold can be poisonous to your fish, it eats up valuable dissolved oxygen, and it can pose health risks for your fish too.
9. Cloudy Water
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Cloudy water one of the less serious issues that arise from overfeeding, but it is a problem nonetheless. The increased amount of uneaten food, fish waste, and dissolved organic matter can make the water cloudy.
This in itself is not a big health risk to your fish, but it surely does not look very nice. Thankfully, a couple of days of normal feeding should solve this issue without question, if it doesn'tthen this article should have the answers.
10. Flatworms
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Flatworms are alsoknown as planaria and they can be a little problematic. They tend to grow when there is a lot of uneaten food, fish waste, and a bunch of dissolved organic materials in the water.
While these flatworms are not necessarily dangerous to your fish, they do eat fish eggs, which is a problem if you want to breed fish.
11. Improper Filter Function
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The other effect that can occur due to overfeeding your fish is that of the improper filter function. A large amount of uneaten food and fish waste can clog the filter, especially filter tubing, thus rendering your filter virtually useless. It will cause you to have to change filter media much more often than you otherwise would because it is working overtime.
It means having to engage in more maintenance and spend money. Finally, your filter might just not be able to keep up with a large amount of waste and toxins in the water, thus leading to bad water quality and many other problems that arise from it.
Tips To Avoid Overfeeding & Associated Problems
Let's quickly go over some of the best tips so you can avoid the overfeeding of your fish and the various problems associated with it.
Tip One: Always feed your fish on a schedule. The vast majority of fish out there should be fed no more than twice per day. You should feed them at regular intervals, 12 hours being the best.
Tip Two: Fish have really small stomachs, so not feeding them too much at once is a big deal. Feed the fish as much as they can eat in 1.5 to 2 minutes each time.
Tip Three: If your fish eat all of the food and still appear hungry, you can always give them a little more. If you notice that fish food is going uneaten, you should start feeding them a little less.
Tip Four: Always feed your fish the right amount, based on the number of fish in the tank. A lot of people make the mistake of feeding fish according to the size of the tank, as opposed to the population in the tank.
Tip Five: Always remove uneaten fish food from the fish tank. If there is still a bunch of food floating around in the tank several minutes or even hours after feeding, remove it from the tank.
Tip Six: Add some scavengers into the tank which will eat algae and uneaten food. Catfish, suckerfish, snails, and other such creatures are always good to have because they act as a cleanup crew for your fish tank.
Conclusion
As you can see, many different problems arise from overfeeding fish, a lot of which can be fatal, both in the short and long run. However, thankfully, there are many good preventative measures that you can take namely just feeding them the right amount of food. While the results of overfeeding can be disastrous, stopping it from happening in the first place is fairly straightforward.
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