feeding and filters

[Scuba Guy]

Poll Question:

Do you turn off your filters when you feed your fish or leave on?

[Severus]

I leave mine on. My barbs do a great job of getting all the pieces the filter sends under. I never really thought about turning it off, i just make sure not to overfeed and everything has been fine.

[Sasquatch]

I leave it on and have never had problems. The fish eat it up long before the filter can.

[jweintraub]

In my community tank my water stream is aimed right at the top of the water so I turn that one off when feeding or else the food goes everywhere and the platties and tetras have a hard time chasing it around... 5min MAX.

[genitor]

i turn down the flow rate

[nikipate]

I think that's a really interesting question.... I never even considered turning it off.... why would you need to turn it off?

[Scuba Guy]

The filters will almost certainly suck up some uneaten food. This food will decompose in the filter and put an extra load (no pun intended) in the tank - mostly in the form of organic acids and by-products. The bacteria in the filter will take care of the NH3/4 etc. but it will be a higher load.

By turning off the filter for a few minutes while the fish eat, the biomass of the food is converted into biomass and energy of the fish - albeit with some waste.

Filters will have to be cleaned more often if food collects in order to remove the un-oxidized biomass.

Now....do I turn off my filters? NOPE....laziness, but I feel I should....so I was curious how many of you do it. Once in a while I'll turn them off when I feed live food...I'd hate to spend good money and have the live food swept up into the filter, where they first have to die...and then decay....horrible thought....might as well get eaten by a fish I like to look at.

[freshwaterfishlover]

Never have turned it off and never had a problem. Now all my Filters are set to the low setting.

[jeffs99dime]

i leave them on. i put the food in a feeding ring

[blue fin]

I use it to my advantage, my tank is 24 inches deep so when I put the food on top if the filter is on full some food will get to the bottom for my bottom dwelling fish, others will go to the top for food