My fish appear to be conditioned to only eat if their light is on for at least 15 minutes. It's all well & good except for the day the bulb blew & they refused to eat. Anyone else have this problem? Yes, I did try turning on the room light...NO GOOD. I guess the pros still outweigh the cons. Lights only blow when they're no good or power outtages. Luckily, not a lot of either!
Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place.

Cant say that i have ever had this problem, as i have allways kept catfish. Now some catfish will not come out when the lights are on so will only feed when the lights are off So i have more catfish that i have as yet not been able to photograph and share with you all I see them during the day in their hidey-holes but theres not enough light/or them to photo, so i actually feed these fish as the lights go out.
One of the reasons i also keep spare tubes is so when one of the tubes, does go i allways have a back up, cos most times it happens its either at night or when you cant get to the lfs
I can also believe that your fish will only expect food when the lights are on if that is the only time they get fed, as i am sure that most people will notice that their fish, also get to know what time they get fed, if they are fed at the same time every day. Pavlo proved this with his dogs !

My fish will eat in the dark - but I have noticed something similar.

It's true with my Discus, my full-grown Angelfish, and even the 300 to 400 Angelfish fry I have right now....

When the light first goes on, they are sluggish for a few minutes - just like me. So although they do eat without the light - they certainly act drowsy when it's out.

I think it depends on how long the light has been out, as well as the level of ambient light.

My tank lights switch off at 10pm, but the room lights may be on for another 2 to 3 hours. During that time, certainly the first hour or two, most of the fish can be still quite reactive, certainly to food. Without food, there is an obvious difference in the activity levels, between the Catfish and the others.

If you were to plonk something in, at say 4 in the morning, you'd get bugger all reaction from the other fishes, but the Catfish'll still be darting about as they were 6 hours earlier.

I have gone through stages, where I split the feeding, so that the Cats got theirs after lights out. I like watching them with the tank and room lights out, with just a bit of ambient light coming from another room.