Snails...and Fish Feeding

[jcali10]

If overfeeding causes snail populations to explode, then I obviously overfeed my fish, because I have a helava ugly snail colony in 2 of my tanks. I'm tired of trying to pick them out with tweezers. To my understanding, the general guidelines for feeding fish is whatever they can consume in 2-3 minutes. Fine for flakes, or live or frozen foods, but what about algae wafers? I am probably going overboard there too.

I'm okay not feeding my shrimp every day, especially after I killed off a bunch of them by overfeeding, (this was a while ago) but I don't feel comfortable not feeding my fish every day. Would it be bad or stressful on them to not feed them 2 or 3 days a week?

I'm also considering getting some potassium permanganate to treat all new plants from now on. Especially for the next new tank I set up.
Alternately, I'm thinking it wouldn't hurt to have a small shoal of dwarf chain loaches, as long as there was no shrimp in the tank, or maybe some assassin snails. Do they really work? I'm probably the only one here with a infestation of these small, nondescript, pale little buggers.

[halak]

Not feeding fish one day a week routinely does not cause any problems, especially if the temperatures are low.
I always crush the snails I don't want, and they become fish/shrimp food.

[jcali10]

I'm definitely gonna start crushing those bad boys.

[ddavila06]

yes crush them! my fish love the threat!!

[Cristy Keister]

Would it be bad or stressful on them to not feed them 2 or 3 days a week?

For tropical fish, skipping a day per week is fine, but skipping 3 days every week will eventually result in thin, weak fish.

[jcali10]

Thanks for the helpful advice.

[chris_todd]

Yeah, I only feed my fish about 5 days a week.

And I've learned to just live with snails. I've tried puffers, assassin snails, etc., but I just gave up and accepted that all my fish tanks are just going to have snails in them.

[jcali10]

I could live with a few snails, but I have mass quantities. I'm gonna cut back on the feeding a bit and crush all the ones that get anywhere near the top of the tank. Muhahaha.

[ingg]

Would it be bad or stressful on them to not feed them 2 or 3 days a week?

For tropical fish, skipping a day per week is fine, but skipping 3 days every week will eventually result in thin, weak fish.

Must take a LONG time, as I feed 4-5 times a week routinely and mine seem fine...