Wondering how much and how many times a day I should feed

[oro50]

Hi all,
I'm someone who started a new 20 L gallon saltwater tank 4 months and 2 weeks ago as of today.

For the last six of those weeks or so I've had a red maroon juvenile clownfish in this tank.

I have no corals yet in this tank, and besides the fish, just a small cleaner crew.

With this said, in the last two weeks I started noticing cyano buildup, (aka red slime). I also noticed that it started to grow like crazy.

In response I've started to turn off the lights for more hours during each day than previously. For example today I will keep the lights on for five or six hours but no more than that.

With that said, I'm a bit concerned that I might be feeding my juvenile red maroon clownfish too much during feeding times.

From what Ive' noticed my fish has eaten most if not all of what I gave it at one time, so for awhile I thought that the possibility of leftover food giving off phosphates and or nitrates was at best, nothing or at worst minimal.

Now Every two weeks I do a water change. Today I did a water change, (a few days ago I did a nitrate test using the salifert ones, and I think I got a value around 30 or so? It seemed higher than 25, but nothing close to 50.

Anyway I read somewhere that even above 20 nitrates is considered kinda high risk, especially for saltwater fish.

Thus anyway I did a water change today. I think I removed about 20 to 25% of the water in my tank and replaced it with new.

My question then is here on out, how much do you feed at any one time, like how big should a pinch of flake food actually be?

What I do is I take a bit of flake food, and then crunch it up into smaller bits, to make it easier for my fish to eat, but sometimes I wonder if this bit I take is too much at one time?

Lastly, I am wondering, even if I continue to give approximately the same amount of food at one time as I've been giving my fish so far, can I get away with feeding my fish every other day instead of every day?

So far now I try to only feed my fish once a day, but once a day not once every other day.

I'm really wondering about this last question, because I read that if a fish is young it really needs to eat more and you can't get away with not feeding it pretty much every day, like you could with a more mature adult, since the adult has more body fat it can draw from?

Essentially I want my fish to be able to eat well, but I want to limit nitrate levels as much as I can between water changes?

Lastly should I be doing bigger water changes if I am only doing them every two weeks now?

I'm wondering about this last question, because I started out doing them every week, but a fish guy at a store told me I shouldn't do that as I would be stressing out the fish too much, if I did a change every week.

 

[oro50]

Lastly, the temperature of my water is approximately 81 degrees

 

[Clown guru]

You only need to feed your fish one time a day! Just enough that juvenile maroon can consume within a minute. If the food is dropping to the bottom your feeding too much. 81 degree temp is ok, these are tropical fish. Most import check your water quality, make sure your TDS of your RO water is where it should be, so test it. Are you using a skimmer?

 

[oro50]

Really I read it should be three to five minutes?

And yes maybe a few bits went to the bottom, but whenever I fed my fish it seemed to eat almost everything, and was always willing to eat.

I also read that since it is a young fish it needs more food per day than older fish?

I'll only feed it once a day though now. Furthermore I thought that my cleaner crew that I have would be sufficient to eat whatever leftovers the fish didn't eat. I had three nassarus snails, but now it seems I only have two. I don't know what happened to three. I also have right now 1 bumblebee snail; 2 turbo snails; 1 marigita snail; 2 hermit crabs.
Making a total of eight now.


Yeah I always make sure my TDS meter is at the right parameters. I've only had this tank for a total of 4 months and 2 weeks. I bought the RO/DI filter unit in November of last year, so it is only 2 and half months old, and I don't make water every day, just when I feel I need. I've maybe used the device total so far maybe seven times.

No I'm not using a skimmer. I am using a canister filter Fluval 106 and I am/was using a HOB, but it seemed to die yesterday morning.

I am trying to get my HOB filter fixed, as a fish store employee told me that the propeller head might be jammed, as the device was not meant to be used in a tank that has a sand substrate.

I haven't been able to detach the moterhead piece though, to see if and to try to unclog the propeller?

Another fish store employee told me I should just buy another HOB filter, but I just bought this device like 4 months and 2 weeks ago. I feel that is too short of a period of time to buy a new filter.

I just have one fish right now, and I might add a few frags at some point, but at this point I feel my setup is pretty basic.

For what I feel is a basic saltwater setup, it just feels like there is expense after expense.

At this point I am trying to minimize expense.

I also have about 18lbs of live rock for a 20 L gallon tank.