Feeding shy fish/slow eaters

I was wondering how people "portion" food out for fish that are very shy or slow eaters. In my paludarium, I hardly ever even see my CPDs eat because they are so shy. The Corydoras habrosus, while not shy at all, are very slow eaters and it takes them a while to find the food. Often I will drop in a sinking pellet and return half an hour later to find it covered in snails and shrimp, with the cories on the outskirts trying to sneak in a nibble! One of the reasons I removed the rice fish from the paludarium is that they were very enthusiastic feeders and I was worried that the danios wouldn't get their fair share.

I have a similar problem in my newer 20 gallon aquarium which is stocked with cardinal tetras and panda cories. The pandas just don't seem to be able to detect food as quickly as the cardinals. Even if I drop some microworms into the water column and then try to drop sinking pellets in near the pandas while the cardinals are occupied, the piggy cardinals will still get to the sinking pellets before the cories do. The panda cories in particular just sort of seem oblivious to food.

Obviously the "feed as much as the fish can eat in 2-3 minutes" rule does not apply here. I am pretty sure I am grossly overfeeding my fish since I have problems with both BGA and green hydra. What sort of guidelines do people use in this type of situation?

I have a couple of shy African butterfly cichlids in with my rainbows. They don't like to go to the surface either so most of the floating food gets eaten before it ever gets low enough to entice the cichlids out of hiding. I basically do the same as you, I put some flakes or pellets at the top and then some sinking dried food or pellets. The loach and bn's get to the sinking food long before the cichlids. But the cichlids must be getting something as they are not wasting away. I am sure that I am also guilty of overfeeding to make sure they all get something.

we have no feeding issues here in our home
everyone loves to eat
interesting question
look forward to seeing comments

I have a couple of saltwater fish that are like that and I as well tend to overfeed just to make sure they get something to eat. I end up vacuuming most of it off the bottom of the tank, but at least they eat something.

Steve