Aquarium Owner Tips: Symptoms of Over Feeding Your Fish

One of the biggest problems with over feeding your fish is that it will cause them to get constipated. With goldfish this will often times lead to death. Constipation will cause all of the other organs to not function properly. When fish get constipated this will often times put pressure on the swim bladder which will cause the fish to float upside down. Sometimes some fish will even become really lazy from eating too much. They might even have problems swimming because their swim bladder isn't functioning properly.

Another problem is that when you over feed your fish, most of the food will sit on the bottom of the tank. The food that is not eaten will start to decay. The fish will also produce more waste because they are eating more. The water will become very cloudy because there is a lot of excess food and waste in the water. You will now have to clean the tank more often because you are feeding your fish too much. Not only will you have to clean the tank more often but you will have to clean the filter box as well to remove all of the build up and fish waste.

If the fish are eating too much they will often times get stressed out. Being stressed out greatly reduces a fish's immune system and therefore the fish can get sick very easily. The fish will suddenly start to show signs of being sick and it will get all of your other fish sick as well. With a tank full of stressed out fish due to over feeding which leads to constipation, you have soft of a snowball affect on everything. Once fish get sick they are very hard to treat and keep alive. If you have invertebrates in your fish tank you will need to remove them before treating your fish.

It will also cost you a lot more money when it comes to buying fish food. Flake food is somewhat expensive but if you are feeding them and going through a can of flake food per month, this will cost you about $6 per month just to feed your fish. You will have to change the water more often and you will clog up your filter cartridges as well. You will go through twice as many cartridges costing you about another $10 per month just because you are over feeding your fish.