When feeding fish in a captive aquarium, you have to keep in mind that when you throw food into the tank and it is floating around, most fish will ignore this at first. Many species in a short period of time will figure out that it is a food source, but many will not. For herbivores and omnivores, most species in general adapt to tank fed foods fairly well, but some Angels and Butterflies can be quite stubborn, picky eaters. In nature their food is attached to reef life on the bottom of their ocean habitat, not free floating. For specific coral eaters, of course this is where they will look for food, as well as other life that attaches to or lives on corals. As for predatory carnivores, their natural instinct is to hunt for living, moving prey.
You want to feed the marine animal by mimicking, as close as you can, the way they would eat in nature. This not only pertains to what they eat, but how they eat in nature as well. By doing this it stimulates their feeding interest much more than trying to adapt them to an unnatural feeding method that is foreign to them.
Since your aquarium probably has a variety of marine life in it with various feeding traits, and some inhabitants are pigs disguised as fish, you undoubtedly will need to use a variety of mixed foods and feeding methods to address all their nutritional requirements. Some fish are more top and middle tank dwellers, while others stick to the bottom. Use food combinations that ensure the food is getting to the bottom fish feeders, like sinking food pellets, or by securing some foods on the bottom.
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