What Are You Feeding Now?

[George Monnat Jr]

Last night as I was feeding my sump/refugium, I noticed that my little brittlestar and amphipod populations in there had exploded. The entire LR I've got in the refugium is now covered with waving, hungry brittlestar arms and amphipods running around grabbing pellets. I also have two BTAs on that LR, one recovering from being in my 20g and another recovering after it got sucked down through the DT overflow. Both have been getting pellets and seem to really like them.

On the other hand, feeding my DT anemones silversides hasn't been going well. It's been over a month since I did that, and the big, green BTA and my Purple Condy are still angry. I don't know if the Purple Condy is ever going to come back out of the rocks. It's hard to know the maximum size of the pieces I give them.

To me feeding is a delicate balance between my crustaceans not going cannibal and so much food that the water parameters go south and nasty stuff explodes. I was alternating days between frozen and dried, but now I'm skipping days in between. For example,

Day 1

3 cubes Piscine Energetics (PE) Mysis Shrimp

1 cube Piscine Energetics (PE) Cyclop-Eeze

Day 2

nothing

Day 3

2 pinches New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula 1mm Sinking Pellet Fish Food

2 pinches Zoo Med Aquatrol Spirulina 20 Flakes

1 scoop (~¼ tsp) New Life Spectrum Reef Micro-Feeder Formula

Day 4

nothing

back to Day 1

I also add in some DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton– Premium Reef Blend to the DT when I have it and remember, but I'm thinking about regularly adding that daily or every other day.

I tried Rod’s Food Original Blend a few times. I know lots of people had success with it, but it didn't work for me. My beautiful yellow Maxi-Mini got something from Rod’s Food Original Blend it didn't like, crawled into the rocks and died. That put me off Rod’s.

I have an oversized skimmer and a good GFO RX that appear to be working well, and I have mostly corallimorphs and softies with few LPS/SPS. The water being a little dirty is probably ok for my tank, but the cyano can start getting out-of-hand and the Valonia (bubble algae) in my DT is on the verge of being a nuisance (one little Emerald Crab isn't keeping up, especially since it prefers my Lobophora algae, which doesn't bother me).

Thoughts?

BTW, if the mods/admin want to create a new Reef Food forum and move this, I'd be ok with that.

[+brian.srock]

I give my fish a 1/2 cube of mysis ever 3 days and I usually squirt some zooplex every other day. I'm down to only 2 fish though but I'll restock soon enough

[FarmerTy]

Hi George,

Are you asking us what we are feeding to our tanks now or thoughts on your feeding regiment? Or both?

I'm feeding Reef Nutrition flakes (sometimes pellets for my nassarius snails) and nori every day, and once a week I'll give the tank a cube of the Angle/Butterfly fish frozen food mix. 2x a week I will broadcast feed coral frenzy and add 20ml of amino acids. I run a skimmer, biopellets, GFO, and carbon. I do not do water changes (almost 2 years now... I think?) other than maybe 2x a year I will suck the detritus out of my sump for a whole 3-5 gallon water removal each time. So, basically 6-10 gallons a year water change for a 150 gallon system. No mechanical filtration either.

Personally, I would just stick with the pellets if you have mainly small crustaceans and feed the anemones mysis once/week. I wouldn't even bother with the phyto. Just my 2 cents.

[ClarkiiCircus]

I feed my tank with just clowns a homemade clownfish food that has seafood, beef heart, veggies, spirulina, and vitamin supplements. My clown does an amazing job of feeding her anemone... by shoving mega pieces of her food in it almost every feeding (2X a day). BUT, when she forgets, I always feed my anemone 1/2 of a thawed cocktail shrimp, about 1X a week.

I feed my tank with clowns and a mandarin, and soft corals +anemone cyclopeeze 1X a day, and a spirulina/brine/mysis mix (about 1/2 cube equivalent) when I get to it...about every other day. For some reason, my fish will NOT eat flakes, but I am slowly getting them to eat Elos pellets.

I run canister filters on both of my tanks. (20 gal and 10 gal respectively)

I do small (<1 gal) water changes 2X a month.

[+Grog]

I feed a few pellets of New Life Spectrum to my clowns every day. They love em. Same tank I put 2-3 drops of Oyster Feast per day, or every other day to appease the filter feeders. Lots of Porcelain crabs in that tank. Nems get 1/3 of silversides every week or so.

Mantis tank gets 1/3 of a silversides a week or 5 days. He is out when he's hungry. Oyster feast about once a week in that tank as there is not much else.

[+o0zarkawater]

I feed frozen a mix of frozen rotifers and frozen clyclops mixed with some phytoplankton and some 'Coral Food' from reeflceaners in the morning about 20 minutes after actinics come on. At night I feed a cube of mysis and emerald entree.

Every day.

[+Grog]

Updated my post to accurately reflect the pellets I'm currently using. I'm not all here today. Sinuses are acting up and I'm a medicine head.

[wesreyn]

Last night as I was feeding my sump/refugium, I noticed that my little brittlestar and amphipod populations in there had exploded. The entire LR I've got in the refugium is now covered with waving, hungry brittlestar arms and amphipods running around grabbing pellets. I also have two BTAs on that LR, one recovering from being in my 20g and another recovering after it got sucked down through the DT overflow. Both have been getting pellets and seem to really like them.

On the other hand, feeding my DT anemones silversides hasn't been going well. It's been over a month since I did that, and the big, green BTA and my Purple Condy are still angry. I don't know if the Purple Condy is ever going to come back out of the rocks. It's hard to know the maximum size of the pieces I give them.

To me feeding is a delicate balance between my crustaceans not going cannibal and so much food that the water parameters go south and nasty stuff explodes. I was alternating days between frozen and dried, but now I'm skipping days in between. For example,

Day 1

3 cubes Piscine Energetics (PE) Mysis Shrimp

1 cube Piscine Energetics (PE) Cyclop-Eeze

Day 2

nothing

Day 3

2 pinches New Life Spectrum Marine Fish Formula 1mm Sinking Pellet Fish Food

2 pinches Zoo Med Aquatrol Spirulina 20 Flakes

1 scoop (~¼ tsp) New Life Spectrum Reef Micro-Feeder Formula

Day 4

nothing

back to Day 1

I also add in some DT’s Live Marine Phytoplankton– Premium Reef Blend to the DT when I have it and remember, but I'm thinking about regularly adding that daily or every other day.

I tried Rod’s Food Original Blend a few times. I know lots of people had success with it, but it didn't work for me. My beautiful yellow Maxi-Mini got something from Rod’s Food Original Blend it didn't like, crawled into the rocks and died. That put me off Rod’s.

I have an oversized skimmer and a good GFO RX that appear to be working well, and I have mostly corallimorphs and softies with few LPS/SPS. The water being a little dirty is probably ok for my tank, but the cyano can start getting out-of-hand and the Valonia (bubble algae) in my DT is on the verge of being a nuisance (one little Emerald Crab isn't keeping up, especially since it prefers my Lobophora algae, which doesn't bother me).

Thoughts?

BTW, if the mods/admin want to create a new Reef Food forum and move this, I'd be ok with that.

Holy crap. How many fish do you have to be feeding 3 cubes? I feed 1 cube a day or every other day and I have 7 fish with 2 of them being fat happy tangs.

[Timfish]

Most of my tanks have autofeeders feeding Spectrum pellets mixed with powdered krill. Most are set to feed about 1/8 teaspoon 8 times a day (2 x 4) I have BTAs and flower/rock anemonies in my tanks and none of them get any special feedings.

[Robb in Austin]

A random mix of Rods, PE Mysis, and, predominately, a mix of Formula Two pellets and (I think) NLS pellets.

[George Monnat Jr]

Thank you all for the responses. Work got hectic again (and the Longhorns ruined Thanksgiving).

Hi George,

Are you asking us what we are feeding to our tanks now or thoughts on your feeding regiment? Or both?

Both, I guess. I was wondering if what I'm doing is good or bad.

Holy crap. How many fish do you have to be feeding 3 cubes? I feed 1 cube a day or every other day and I have 7 fish with 2 of them being fat happy tangs.

I don't have many fish, the mysis are mostly eaten by my crabs and shrimp plus their host anemones, which I have a ton of. Two cubes usually isn't enough to feed all them, but 3 cubes is usually too much. Some of it is eaten by my big Brittlestar and other critters (hermit crabs and such). If I fed less, things would disappear. I'm hoping I removed the ravenous Peppermint Shrimp that was getting hungry and eating other, nicer things so I can feed less without worrying about them eating each other.

My Firefish pair are always skinny, and mysis are about all they will eat. But they have the annoying habit of hiding while the food is actually floating around. My Yellow Clown Goby will only eat Cyclop-Eeze, so it is usually skinny, too. My Bicolor Blenny, Randall's Watchman and Yellow-Tail Blue Damsel will eat pretty much anything and are closer to being overweight than starving.