how much to feed corals

[jdepp]

hi i have been a very determined reefer for about 2 years now and have finally been able to keep something alive for more than 6 months:) i have 3 colonies of zoos 2 polop colonies and 2 mushrooms everything has been going great! i put in 1 capful of DT's every week and 1-2 times a week i put in a half a cube of frozen food mix of algae and misis clams etc.. i also add aragmilk and kent coral growth stimulator am i feeding enough? is this a good regimen for these corals?i also have crabs snails amphipods a starfish and a citron goby. thanks for any help.

[bookfish]

I think there are a couple of ways to look at this:
First of all you should consider what your goals are. Maintenance?, Growth? Reproduction? each of these take progressively more of the available energy budget. And therefore require more food.
Are you trying to create a natural population of plankton in the tank? How much water changing are you willing to do?
I had my best growth and reproduction when I was able to feed algae paste in the morning and evening and live rotifers in the middle of the day. I payed for it with twice weekly 15% water changes but the growth was fantastic!
If you decide to increase your feeding do it slowly to allow the tank to "grow" into the additional feeding regimen.
Sorry for the complicated "non-answer"-Jim

[jdepp]

since this is a 10 g nano and an 8g ref with plants and all kinds of sand worms clams crabs amphipods i don't worry too much about the water. i've had this set up for about 2months now which i transfered everything from my 29 which was set up for over a year. i did 1 water change in 2 months and it wasn';t because of bad water quality is was simply because it seemed weird to me that my tank could have good water after all this time with no amm,nit, my ph is just over 8 and my dkh is around 10-12? i think these refs work really well.i also have alot of current for a 10g. i have a rio1400 in the sump which i connected to 1" pvc for a big smooth fast current the corals and goby seem to luv it! thanks for the input anymore would be great!

[jdepp]

do the rotifiers live in the salt water? ive seen things about them but don't know that i want to put in the extra time setting up another science exibit in my house. my wife thinks im crazy enough as it is. also would the amphipods and their eggs floating in the water mixed with dts live phytoplankton be considered plankton? i'm pretty sure that any filter feeding animals would be able to live in my tank cause there is alot of things floating in the water ever since i added those pods and the breeding mat.

[bookfish]

Rotifers are a small salt water animal that is an absolutely great
"carrier" for coral food. The rotifers themselves don't really have much nutritional value but they can be "packed" with nutritional value by feeding the rotifers and then feeding the rotifers to the coral. Both the amphipod eggs and algae would be considered plankton (zooplankton and phytoplankton respectively) I'm not too surprised that your water quality has held for as long as it has, sounds like you have a nice set-up.
One quick comment though, the longer you go without a water change the more your tank will be shocked by a large change.
I always try to keep on a regular partial water change sched. so if something bad happens and I have to do a large water change fast I won't be shocking the animals.
If you are interested in culturing rotifers it can be as simple as (1) 5 gallon tank or bucket and 2 minutes every other day for maintenance and 10 minutes once a week.
Let me know and I'll post more details.
One last thing, if those plants you mentioned were either caulerpa or halimeda please consider working with different genus' because a bloom can take down a 10g overnight.
Cheers!-Jim

[vnzln1]

how do you start a rotifer culture and what do they require

[bookfish]

First you have to get some starter rotifers (innoculant). There are plenty of places that sell these but you may be able to find someone local who has some.
I culture mine in a 5 gallon glass tank with a bubble type sponge filter running slowly.
I use newly mixed IO at about 1.020
Don't use any water that has been in tanks and try to keep all contamination from the rest of your equip to a minimum (nets, airline, siphon hose etc...) It doesn't take long for a single copepod to reproduce enough times in a rotifer culture to crash the whole thing. They generally get fed every day with dead nannochloropsis and once /week I siphon the "crap" off the bottom.
Otherwise I use about 1/2 gallon/day and replace it with new IO.
At this rate of exchange (5%/day) I feel the culture water stays clean enough to just dump in the tank.
About once every other month I pour the whole culture in a bucket and wipe down the culture tank.
Good luck and if I didn't cover anything just ask.
Also check out rotifer.com-Jim

[birdman204]

hmmm. rotifer.com sounds good!