# Feeding & hunger _When a fish needs food, and what looking after it earns._ ## Food is free Choose Feed and click the water to drop some food. Basic food is free and never runs out, so feeding never costs you a coin. A newly hatched fish needs its first meal. After that, a growing fish gets hungry again 4 hours after each feeding, or a third of its growth time after it if that is longer. A grown fish gets hungry far more slowly: a meal it eats once it is grown keeps it fed for 2 days. Select a fish and choose Feed on its card or in its menu to drop food just for that fish: it swims to it, and no other fish takes it. ## Seven foods Flake is free and always will be; every other food is an upgrade you choose, never a gate. If you pick one with an empty jar, the meal is bought as you feed at its usual price, and if you cannot afford it the fish is fed flake instead of being left hungry. - Flake · free, from a tin that never runs out. - Pellets · keep a fish fed twice as long, and move its whole care clock out with it. - Brine shrimp (frozen) · three times as long, put health back, and always count as a perfect meal for quality. - Mysis shrimp (frozen) · two and a half times as long, a little health, quality a touch faster. - Nori sheet · twice as long, quality faster. Grazers love it. - Krill · two and a half times as long, a little health, quality faster. - Red worms (live) · from your worm bin: twice as long, health, quality faster and a little faster growth. Fresh for 48 hours, then stale: still a meal, without the extras. Worms are never lost. ## Food in grams Food lives in jars in your [Storeroom](https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/stash), in grams. Every fish has an appetite: its egg price divided by 20, in grams, and half that once it is grown. A Clownfish eats 2 g a meal, a Grouper over 200 g. So a meal from a jar costs what a meal has always cost. Buy food in packs from the shop's Food tab or from a jar's card: 100 g at the list price, 500 g at 10% off, 2 kg at 20% off. A jar holds one food; bigger jars and more shelves are upgrades in the Storeroom. ## Loved and disliked foods Every fish eats one of five ways: grazers, hunters, plankton eaters, sand sifters and everyday eaters. A food it loves does half as much again beyond the fed time, and a little heart rises from the fish. A food it dislikes still feeds it, but only the fed time counts, and it gives a little shrug. Grazers love nori and dislike krill and worms. Hunters love krill and worms and dislike nori. Plankton eaters love brine shrimp, mysis and krill. Sand sifters love worms and mysis and dislike nori. Everyday eaters take everything the same. Flake and pellets suit every fish. Nori and krill leave a faint sheen in their colour around a fish for 12 hours after the meal, green-blue for nori and orange for krill. Visitors see it too. It is only a glow: it changes nothing else. ## What feeding earns Feeding a hungry fish earns 5 XP. Feeding it again straight away doesn't repeat the reward: it has to get hungry again first. ## While you're away An [auto-feeder](https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/filters-and-feeders) feeds each fish from its hopper the moment it gets hungry, for as long as the hopper lasts. It loads its food from your Storeroom's jars. Grown fish get hungry far less often, so the hopper lasts much longer for them. Feeder meals count toward quality just like the same meal by hand, but they earn no XP and no coins, so feeding by hand still pays more, and it still works with a feeder installed. ## Too long without food Hunger matters. A growing fish is lost if it goes unfed for 1 day or twice its species' growth time, whichever is longer, counted from its last meal or from hatching. A grown fish lasts far longer: it falls ill after about 5 days without food and is lost after 1 week 3 days, or about 1 week 1 day behind glass gone green, so a week away does not cost you a finished aquarium. Its card warns you when it's starving. A lost fish can be collected with the [Net](https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/net), but it pays nothing. Your tutorial fish and [legendary fish](https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/legendary) can never be lost this way. --- In the game: https://fishies.lol/wiki/mechanics/feeding · Fishies 0.8.9 This page is generated. Its text lives in [`locales/en-GB.json`](../../../locales/en-GB.json) under `wiki.topics.feeding`; correct it there.