Ron or anyone--feeding our tanks

[Larry M]

I know that Ron and others are big proponents of feeding the daylights out of our reef tanks. I believe he stated once as much as 10oz a day. I have a couple of questions regarding heavy feeding:

1) what kind of food are you using? Homemade brew, frozen, etc?
2) How in blazes do you keep that much food in the tank instead of going into the overflow boxes, etc.? I shut off my pumps to feed but with a lot of movement in the tank it picks the loose food up and sends it to the sump again upon startup.
TIA

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Larry M

View a list of RC Member's websites at:
http://www.reefcentral.com/membersites.html

[Reef Junkie]

Larry,
I meant to tell you, but here is what I started to feed since Friday. OSI pellets, Brine shrimp, freeze dried krill, Silversides and Mysis shrimp. I grind them all up with a Pestle and mortar then add some tank water. It smells gross and tastes even worse. Just kidding, but it does smell bad! It also makes this really gross paste. I suck it up with a small baster and I've been target feeding with it. I'm not even sure if thats a good idea, but I'll find out...
Later,
Bill


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http://www.homestead.com/reefjunkie/highenergy.html

[DougL]

Larry M;
Just to clarify, thats 10 oz wet food per 100 gallons of reef. That much dry would create a swamp. My guess dry is only 1/40 as heavy as wet. Anyone with better figures please speak up.

HTH;

DougL

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http://sites.netscape.net/douglxyzzy

[rshimek]

Hi Larry and others,

A volume of a 100 gallon aquarium on a normal reef crest will get about 10 ounces wet weight of food delivered to it in a day. However, not all of that is eaten in that volume.

This delivery is continuous and of small particulate material. A second point, is that corals, among all predators - have the largest percentage of their bodies devoted to food capture and killing. This means food is REALLY important to them.

Now, the facilities to feed a system continuously is really beyond most of our systems if we figure we are going to do it ourselves. So...

This is what a good sand bed does for you. If you have a healthy sand bed fauna of worms, bugs, etc. (particularly of fire worms), they will continuously be reproducing and putting larvae up into the water. These larvae are coral food...

Also they will be defecating into the water column which added bacterial aggegates to the water column. These aggregates are coral food....

Also they will be stirring up the sediments, which add particulate organic matter to the water column. These particulates are coral food...

So, you need to have a good bottom fauna. Then you need to feed enough to make sure that food makes it to the bottom to get processed by the "clean-up" crew such as Nassarius snails, fireworms, other bristle worms, and so on.

Additionally, you should feed some plankton substitute to the tank. I use DT's plankton cultures, and I feed this pretty heavily. Reconstituted cryogenically frozen plankton paste will also work.

On top of that, I probably feed about two ounces of wet weight of food per 100 gallons per day.

To do all of this without fouling your tanks, you will need some way to export materials. I harvest algae weekly from my system. As I have sumpless tanks, I garden and harvest out of my tank. If you are misguided and don't like algae in your tank, then grow some in your sump and harvest there. This will help moderate any nutrient levels.

Hope this helps.

Cheers, Ron

[FOX]

Ron,

When you say you grow and harvest algae, do you mean any type of algae, or just micro or just macro, other? I ask because I have, what I think is Halimeda sp. growing quickly in my tank in several areas. I have to harvest quite a bit of it at least once a month. BTW, I have, over the past few months, began to feed much more heavily, due to recomendations by you and Rob Toonen, and I have really seen a huge difference in the health of all the tank inhabitants, including the fish and corals.

FOX

FOX

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members.xoom.com/KoryFox/index.htm (http://members.xoom.com/KoryFox/index.htm)

[Kirbster]

"If you are misguided and don't like algae in your tank..."

I love that line! :)

Ron,
Do you feed the phytoplankton or other plankton supplements after the lights are out? When I detritus feed by allowing trapped detritus in my filter to spew back into the tank, I always do it after the lights have been out for a while. Do you think this makes a difference?

TIA,

KA

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"You must unlearn what you have learned."
-Yoda

[rshimek]

Fox and Kirby,

I harvest macroalgae and let the grazers take care of the microalage. I harvest Caulerpa (I have 3 spp in my lagoonal reef), occasionally another green (don't know the name), occasionally Halimeda (I don't harvest it much as I like the shapes), and also harvest a "wirey" red alga.

I feed my phytoplankton during the day or occasionally at dusk. After dark should be fine as well, but my sps corals are all out during the day, so I do it then.

Cheers, Ron

[FOX]

Hmm, that's interesting, I pretty much do the same. I don't like to harvest the halimeda, but it grows so fast it starts to dominate the scenery a little more than I like. I grow & harvest caulerpa in my refugium and feed it to my tangs. And my tangs and lawnmower blenny keep the microalgae in check.

FOX

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members.xoom.com/KoryFox/index.htm (http://members.xoom.com/KoryFox/index.htm)

[tritran]

Ever since the beginning when I have my tank setup almost two years ago (before I ever read anything about Ron's suggestion for heavy feeding), I have fed heavily. People were amazed when I told them how much I feed. For my 125G, my evening feeding sessions compose of 3 Formula-food-sized cubes (a mix among Brine Plus, Formula 1, 2, Spirulina, Prime Reef, chopped shrimps soaked in Selcon). Ron, how do you measure wet food weight anyways?

In the mornings, I give flakes, pellets, and nori.

As the result, the fish are fat, the corals thrive. What more can one want? :)

--Tri

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reality.sgi.com/tritran/reef (http://reality.sgi.com/tritran/reef)

[Larry M]

Then maybe I'm not doing too badly. I feed 3 cubes a day between my 75 and 65 gallon tanks, plus spirulina pellets, maybe some krill, and spirulina flakes. Also Vibragro occasionally.
Tritran--Maybe use one of those cheap kitchen scales?

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Larry M

View a list of RC Member's websites at:
http://www.reefcentral.com/membersites.html

[rshimek]

Hi Guys,

I feed probably about twice your volume per day, of frozen brine shrimp, frozen plankton and diced frozen fish (Gamma Foods Lancefish) spread between my 45, 60 and 42, at a ratio of 2:2:1 respectively.

I measure it crudely by breaking off chunks of the frozen product and letting them thaw in some tank water.

Also I add enriched hatched baby brine and DT's Phytoplankton to each tank every other day.

Cheers, Ron

[This message has been edited by rshimek (edited 11-17-1999).]

[sgotz]

Continueing with the topic of feeding. Tonight for the first time i feed my tank a mixture of ground up formula 1, silver-sides, and brine shrimp soaked in selcon.

About twenty minutes after i feed, i noticed an interesting reaction from my SPS. They started putting out almost what looked like very thin sweeper tentacles, the longest was about .5 inches long. They didn't look like the regular short stubby polyps i always see. Is this a normal feeding reaction?

-SteveG

[tritran]

I would be really interested to see pictures of Ron's tanks. Everything must be growing out of the water I assume? :)

You can see many pictures of my tank at my web site link below.

--Tri

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reality.sgi.com/tritran/reef (http://reality.sgi.com/tritran/reef)

[newkie]

Interesting thread. Kribster, I found that commend pretty funny too.

One item that may interest you is a feeding timer. Its a simple DIY project which cost me about $25. I have my return pump and skimmer plugged in to it and a timer switch (like in some bathrooms) you twist and it eventually goes back to 0. They are available in 1 hour timers or even 24 hour timers for around $10 at home depot. So when the switch is on, the relay is off (feeding mode). When the switch returns to 0 the pumps reactivate (normal mode). I just twist the knob to how many hours I want my skimmer and pump to be off. Then everything automatically comes back on when it reaches 0.

Works great when feeding plankton. Without it I would guess most the plankton would be removed by the skimmer within an hour.

[ReefDad]

FWIW, I made a wonderful food from a package of fresh seafood stirfry from the grocery store that I just happenend upon.

It contained shrimp, mussels, oysters, squid, and some kind of fish chunks (I couldn't imagine actually eating it) - no preservatives. I put it in the blender with some RO water and Selcon(my wife made me do it outside!). Then I put the resulting goo in a ziplock baggy and froze it. Now I chop off chunks every other day and thaw it in tank water and target feed with a big (1/8" opening) syringe. My fish go nuts over it.

On the other days, I feed several pinches of spirulina flakes. It seems like heavy feeding to me, but not like what you guys are talking about.

BTW, I looked at my sand under a 40X microscope - it's definitely alive and crawling with an abundant assortment of worms and critters. When you see how much stuff is living in there you will want to feed more just to keep them all fed and happy.

A few weeks ago I hatched a batch of nauplii brine shrimp and "clouded" the tank with them - took almost a day for them all to dissappear - any comments about the benefits? They hatch in only 24hrs in a homemade 2-liter hatching bottle. I was thinking of doing this regularly.

Regards to all,
Tom