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Feeding fish



<< Not that I want to start a long painful thread but I do have to agree
 that a hungry fish is healthy.  Many fish will eat way past what is
 healthy for them. In the wild, they regularly go days/weeks without
 food.  If excessive, granted it will kill them but eating periodically
 gives their digestive tracts a chance to clear.  >>


I'm going out on a limb here and will probably show my ignorance. I can't 
claim to have ever studied fish in their natural environment. But, like land 
animals, and using common sense, it would seem to me that it would depend on 
the fish's natural diet in the wild that would determine length of time 
between feedings. Grazers (herbivorous animals) on land eat quite frequently 
and the digestive process is different from that of carnivorous animals, 
which have a different intestinal makeup to allow for a quick passage of the 
food. Obviously, in the wild, feedings may be few and far between, at which 
time they gorge. (Still, I feed my cats daily 2 x per day, though in the wild 
they'd likely not eat so frequently. And I'm stuck cleaning the litter box.)

I just would assume that algae eaters, filter feeders, and herbivorous fish 
eat more or less constantly, and carnivorous hunting fish eat less frequently.

All the same, if I were forced to live in captivity, it might make life a 
little more bearable if I were tossed a lettuce leaf more than once or twice 
a week. Better yet, make that chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream . . .

Sylvia