Feeding fish in a high current SPS tank

[ice9]

Hi Anthony!

I've got a pretty high-flow tank (for the several SPS residents), and am having a tough time feeding the fish residents (mainly two false percs) because of the current. When I put flakes in, the fish go like mad trying to get them all, but the current mainly blows the flakes all over & unless I overfeed, the fish just don't seem to get enough.

This has been going on for about 2-3 weeks, and I'm probably starting to starve the fish because I don't want to overfeed. The next step is to turn the pumps off, but I know that will (drastically, I've heard) shorten their (the pumps) lives. Do you have any other reccommendations?

My specs are:
50Gallon w/20Gal sump feeding back via two Rio 2100s (700gph each).

[Anthony Calfo]

do look in to installing a delay switch on the pump(s) that when tagged will interrupt power for x minutes then turn itself back on.

Radio Shack may be able to help here... some wizards elsewhere on this board can maybe explain too. Its simple wiring... any friends that you might know that are savvy with building computers can likely help you here

[MiddletonMark]

Heck, I even have a very simple solution I implemented for a `feed timer' a while back on a tank.

I took one standard dial light timers.
Removed every `notch' setting except for a single one ... the `on' green one.

Plugged my pumps into that.

When feeding, I turn the `manual switch' on the timer to off.
I then turn the dial so that it's set to turn on [where the green notch thing is] in 15 minutes.

Feed.
15 minutes later [more or less] it turns back on.

Given I don't have a single `off' switch on the timer [the red ones in my case] ... the timer never turns off, except by my manual flipping the switch on it. And then, I've set the timer to turn back on shortly thereafter.

Now, this isn't the most elegant solution, but for the price of a timer and manually triggering/setting it every feeding - problem solved.

I've seen and heard of far, far more `cool' methods ... but this was simple, used stuff I had around at home, and seemed like it couldn't `go wrong'.

I can take a pic if you need [recreate actually, my fish seem to do well in my outrageous flow sps tank, but they're not percs either].

[captbunzo]

I would be interested in some remarks from folks on these "cooler" methods.

[ice9]

is the only solution?

I've heard from others (even on wetwebmedia) that doing this on a daily basis will significantly shorten the lives of the pumps.

So I guess it's either shorten the lives of my pumps or shorten the lives of the fishies?

I'll take the former if that's all there is, but was hoping there were other alternatives.

[indianafishkeeper]

Plumb in a valve that when turned will direct the water from the pumps back into the sump. (possibly another valve to make sure water doesn't get into the tank, to disturb the fishies feast) This will keep the power turned on, but also allow you to feed the fish. Of course this isn't 'automagic' but it is a simple solution.

[bergzy]

i dont my flow off at all while feeding my fish. let the little buggers do 'some' work at least!