continuous "natural" feeding

[mxett]

I read an interesting article from a UK site that increased the feeding of their fish and corals significantly, as an experiment.

http://www.acropora-house.co.uk/aca...al_Feeding.html

The way they approached it was to give small feeds, every 15 minutes, both night and day. They carefully assessed water parameters and coral health for signs of change.

Early results seemed very positive. The theory, as I read it is, the fish and invertebrates have time to digest/process the small feeds, therefore leaving less undigested food to go to waste.

Has anyone on RC tried this method? If so, what results?

There seems to be some who are fairly liberal with feeding, saying "starving corals are unhealthy corals". Others say "I don't feed much at all, just use good lighting and water motion. Better water quality that way".

Thoughts?

[harryk]

I think feeding depends on the inhabitants of any given tank. I personally feed 2x's a day enough so it's consumed within 2-3 minutes. I know people who feed every other day and all is well.

[frederickk]

It also depend on your Bioload.

[Travis L. Stevens]

The actual thoughts of the experiment are beyond me. I personally thing that well-fed animals fair better, whether they are photosynthetic or not.

As far as trying it yourself, similar topics have been discussed. I don't have a link off hand, but there is a thread in the Advanced Topics section called "Using your Refugium as a Zooplankton producer" or something along those lines. It had some really interesting information in it.

[Travis L. Stevens]

Originally posted by frederickk
It also depend on your Bioload.

What depends on your bioload?

[frederickk]

The less fish you have the less you'll feed. I'm just saying that because I saw people who were feeding more with three fish then me with 6.