Can you feed a BTA too much?

[migston]

I'm trying to nurse this bleached BTA back to health at the moment. Any time I squirt food into it, it greedily grabs on so I've got some hope. So now I'm just wondering how often and how much I can safely feed this guy. I've read anywhere from once a week to once a day and am a little confused.

Would it harm it at all to feed it more frequently? As in a tiny pinch of formula one three times a day?

[finding nemo]

First you should be feeding it silversides.
You say you are squirting it into it. What is it you are feeding?
Feed it every other day a half or quarter silverside, depending on how big the anemone is.

[migston]

Ive been feeding it a mix of Formula one and mysis shrimp enriched with zoecon and garlic (what I feed my fish). I give it a good squirt from a turkey baster and usually a big chunk or two ends up sticking to it.

I'll go pick up some silversides tomorrow. So should the frequency be a half or quarter of a silverside once a day?

[finding nemo]

How big is your anemone?
If say it is 5 inches feed it a 1/3 of the silverside once every other day. Up the size of the fish after a week or so.
They can recover from bleaching with a lot of food and good water quality.
My web site shows one that I saved from the beginning to now.
It will take a month or so to get it back to its color but it can be done,
good luck to you.

[migston]

Oh nevermind you said every other day already hehe

[migston]

I have noticed it color up rather nicely since I've been at this for about two weeks. It's more light pink now as opposed to the transparent pink that it was when I started.

Do you know if more frequent feeding will be harmful to it? As an experiment I tried feeding it three separate times today and each time it greedily took the food. But I do know that fish will often eat regardless if its good for them or not and am thinking the same might be true for anemones. Or do they know when enough is enough and refuse to eat if they're full?

[finding nemo]

If the anemone is full it will drop the food, but if your anemone keeps taking the mysis it is not getting enough.
When you swap over to silversides you will see what I am saying, it may take several small pieces to start but you can over feed it as it takes many hours for it to digest food and some can become spoiled waiting for that to happen.
So just every other day will be fine but fill it up,
give it several pieces of small chunks of silverside the first day to see if it takes it.
I bet it does.
Then wait a 2 days to feed again,
you will see the brown waste comeing out of it the day after it eats.
That will be good, it is digesting good.

[migston]

Great, thanks for your help! I'll definitely go get some silversides tomorrow.

[IslandCrow]

Let me get this right. Are you saying that silversides are the only acceptable food for anemones, or simply the best food? I'm guessing they eat more than one type of food in the wild.

[dantodd]

They eat nearly anything that falls into them. My anemones usually get quite a bit of indirect food when I feed the tank. They also get spot feedings of silversides and sand eels once or twice a week. I used to feed every other day but have cut back a little lately.

My reef food is based on Eric Borneman's recipe and has fish, seafood, algae, zooplankton, phytoplankton all in it. Plus roe and other things.

silversides are not the only acceptable foods, they are very available though. You may well be able to find good marine alternatives at your grocery store.

[tag]

formula 1 cubes is as good or better IMO. But it's good to mix it up as others have suggested.

[Craig Lambert]

I feed mine silversides or raw scallops, but only once or twice per week.

[TOURKID]

the only thing ive noticed when it comes to over feeding is if you feed it agian before it poops out the last meal, it will end up regurgitating the newest food so it can then poop

whitch drives the hermits into a franzy and makes a large mess.. :D