How Long Can Marine Fish Go Without Food?

This question usually arises when a marine aquarium hobbyist is eitherpreparing to depart for vacationor trying to coax a hunger-striking new fish to eat. While it would be extremely helpful if there were a simple formula to help us solve this puzzle—e.g., “If you have fish species X, you can expect it to live exactly Y days without food before perishing”—this question actually demands a much more nuanced answer.

As far as vacation feeding is concerned, it’s generally safe to assume that mosthealthy(note the emphasis) fish will be fine for a few days to a week or so without eating depending on the species. Beyond that, you’ll definitely want to make some accommodation to have the fish fed—even if just every two or three days.

With respect topersuading a finicky new specimen to start eating，这通常需要几天的时间，直到鱼接近两周没有食物之前，我通常不会开始紧张。

Now, that doesn’t mean a fish in either situation couldn’t potentially survive for a much longer period without eating, but the idea is to avoid getting close to the point where its health is compromised—and again, we don’t know exactly where that line is drawn. That point is so indistinct because of the following factors:

The specimen’s normal diet

What and how a fish naturally eats has significant bearing on how long it can go in between meals. For example, a species that constantly grazes on algae or continuously plucks plankton from the water column will typically not be able to last as long without food as can a large, predatory carnivore, such as a grouper, that naturally consumes relatively big prey items at irregular and unpredictable intervals.

What the specimen has in reserve

具有更大质量的强大鱼类，例如上述石斑鱼，比瘦或高度压缩的物种（例如唐斯或蝴蝶鱼）具有更大的身体储量。新万博苹果

对于新标本：他们已经禁食了多长时间

如果您购买了野生捕获的海鱼，那么在到达LFS之前，很可能已经经历了长时间的禁食。如果样品很长一段时间内拒绝在您的护理中进食，那么它会有更大的风险，它将通过营养“无回报”的营养。这就是为什么如此重要的原因：

• 验证鱼目前正在为经销商提供食物。
• 避免看起来不自然地夹入或瘦弱的标本。
• 尽一切努力鼓励样品在您的护理中尽快恢复喂食。
• Buy captive-bred specimens whenever possible.

The quantity of natural food items in the tank

Finally, grazing and foraging species can survive much longer without active feeding on the aquarist’s part in a large, established system with a good crop of algae and healthy populations of microfauna (e.g., amphipods and copepods) to nibble on than they can in a small, newly established, “sterile” system.