What do you feed your reef?

[Prosperent]

I'm really trying to setup as close to a complete and "natural" ecosystem as I can here, and i'm running into more questions than answers lol.

I have decided to go skimmerless and rely on macro algae as well as xenia, and of course loads of rock to handle filtration and nutrient export. On the food side, i'm looking at zooplankton for my corals, phytoplankton to feed the zooplankton, and pods, pods of course for fish and anything else that eats them, and I was also looking at some feeder shrimp for my wrasses.

Before my head explodes and I overcomplicate the hell out of my life, what are you guys feeding your fish and corals? How is the Cyclop-Eeze stuff for example?

 

[SynDen]

What kind of corals you planning on keeping and what else in the tank? Generally though unless you are growing NPS coral there is no need to feed corals, all they really need is good light and flow with stable parms. Without a skimmer too you will want to keep anything that can become waste to a minimum. I have always setup any tank, fresh or salt, with the mind of making it as close to nature as I can, but currently mine runs with a skimmer on for 12 hrs and a carbon reactor. I find that without the carbon ammonia can spike and the skimmer provides a nice means of oxygenating the water some more while still removing some waste.

 

[Prosperent]

I have considered running a skimmer part time, but still on the fense. Right now I do have a bag of carbon in the sump as well. I notice a big difference in water clarity with that alone.

Right now i'm keeping a few SPS corals, some zoas, an acan, and a couple softies. I'm definitely leaning more toward SPS for the bulk of the tank though with softies and such filling in and adding diversity.

Fish wise, I have a naso tang, 4 Banggai cardinals, a cleaner wrasse, a mccoskers wrasse, and a clown. It's a decent size tank, so over time i'll add at least 4-6 more fish i'm sure. The tang loves my red macro algae, so i'm not worried about him. My wrasses both seem to like the frozen formula one. The cardinals are pretty new, so I haven't really seen them do much eating yet. Guess i'm just looking for one or two solid products that should make everyone pretty happy overall.

 

[SynDen]

If you leaning toward SPS then you are likely going to need a skimmer and good lights imo. If you go mostly soft and LPS you could potentially get away with no skimmer. thats my thought anyway. Not to say it cant be done but will certainly be a challenge to get everything in balance to compensate for no skimmer

 

[Prosperent]

I'm running 3 sets of LED's, so the lighting is no problem. I do have fish as well. I have seen people pull off some beautiful SPS tanks with no skimmer, but i'm still on the fence. I don't like the fact that they pull so much beneficial bacteria from the system which is my reason for running a fuge with mangroves, macro algae, and a separate section for nothing but pulsing xenia (which I have read are great at removing heavy metals, and general nutrient export).

 

[Balz3352]

You could always run the skimmer part of the day... There's video found by a guy from the southern colorado club that experimented this thing I'll try to find the post



Link to the link.... Worth the watch
http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?t=26233

 

[SkyShark]

I'm a big fan of Rod's Original. Seems like there is something in it for everyone. I feed that a few times a week. Otherwise I rotate through frozen mysis, cyclopeeze, pacific plankton, fish eggs, and NLS pellet.

 

[jahmic]

Skimmers are going to remove a minimal amount of beneficial bacteria from the tank...most of your beneficial bacteria is on the tank surfaces, not in the water column. If you have a lot of bacteria in the water column, it's typically from a bloom and clouds the water; removing that type of bacteria is desirable. That being said, if you are planning on dosing phytoplankton on a regular basis then skimming will remove it from the tank, so there are still drawbacks. This is easily remedied by shutting off your skimmer just before and after feeding. Granted, if you overskim you could put a dent in your bacteria population, I suppose, but that's an easier problem to fix than chasing excess nutrients. If you are going to plan on regularly dosing cyclopeeze...then I'd highly recommend a skimmer. The majority of that will turn into waste in your tank if it's not removed by the skimmer. It tends to stay in the water column, which makes skimming out the excess simple.

I don't think going skimmerless with your plans is impossible by any means, I've seen plenty successful tanks without skimmers. I just don't really see any downside to running one, other than saving on equipment costs. If I ever had a reef large enough to warrant a skimmer with a price tag in the thousands of dollars I'd go skimmerless...but that's about it.


To answer your actual question though, I'd skip the cyclopeeze and just feed live phytoplankton to support a healthy pod population. I tried cyclopeeze for a long time and wasn't a huge fan. My anthias and other finicky eaters loved it, but it seemed to just create a mess otherwise. I use phyto for my tank and feed the fish a varied diet that includes mostly mysis with a mixture of krill, brine shrimp, ova, and NLS pellets.

I occasionally buy large lots of blue leg hermits and let my wrasses go to town. 50 hermits usually lasts me about 4-5 months til their numbers are knocked down to the 10 survivors that know how to hide.

 

[Shaunv]

I have a 17 gallon that has no skimmer, refugium, or sump. I had a lot of anthelia, GSP, and pulsing Xenia to help with nutrient export but I ran it as a mixed reef tank for 2 years with no major problems. I feel that some of the SPS grew more slowly than I had seen in other tanks. This I believe was because I didn't feed much. I had 2 fish, a clown and a pajama cardinal. I would feed a fraction of a cube of frozen San Francisco Bay variety pack every other day and that's it. On occasion I would add pods and a little bit of phyto feast.

I have since upgraded tanks and transferred the coral to my 40. In this tank, I have a refugium with red dragon macro, chaetomorpha, rock rubble and sand along with a protein skimmer and filter sock. I had been feeding my fish half a cube of frozen hikari Mysis shrimp. And sometimes adding reef Chilli. I did this for a few months. Some of my corals didn't look so good, so I ran some tests and found my phosphates were 0.00 on a Hannah checker and my nitrates were 0 as well. I think my corals were starving, so, what I am doing now is adding 1 full cube of Hikari Mysis without rinsing the cube every evening. While the lights are off, I add some reef Chilli and Oysterq feast by reef nutrition and some acro power to help replenish amino acids. I try to do this daily but sometimes I don't have time. The corals are getting much fatter and seem a lot happier since I have started feeding more a couple weeks ago. I do have a couple of corals that aren't super happy but I am trying to get that figured out. I have added pods and I may try adding some Ocean Magic from algae Barn too.

 

[Prosperent]

I'm a big fan of Rod's Original. Seems like there is something in it for everyone. I feed that a few times a week. Otherwise I rotate through frozen mysis, cyclopeeze, pacific plankton, fish eggs, and NLS pellet.

I like the look of Rod's Original. Can you get it at any LFS? Shipping online is killer for that stuff.

 

[sethsolomon]

I like the look of Rod's Original. Can you get it at any LFS? Shipping online is killer for that stuff.

Great White Aquatics has it and I think Aquamart has it.

 

[SkyShark]

I believe I've gotten it at Aquatic Art before. Definitely makes sense to go local for frozen food orders.

 

[lkoechle]

I haven't seen it at Aquatic art, i thibk they only sell reef frenzy. But i could be wrong. Aquamart sells both

 

[SkyShark]

Looks like I bought the rods food at AA a year ago, so that certainly could have changed. Give 'em a call if they are the closest to you. I have heard good things about the reef frenzy

 

[Prosperent]

I couldn't find any close to me (Broomfield), but Elite Reef has this which I am going to give a shot. Looks like it has everything I want in it. I was impressed with their store when I stopped in a couple weeks back. One of the only LFS I have been in that doesn't look run down lol.

[attachment=68516:name]

 

[zombie]

That stuff is great. Thats all I feed my tank.

 

[FinsUp]

Elite's frozen food is some of the absolute best. Only way to go wrong with it is to overfeed without skimming.

 

[FishTV]

I like the Elite food as well. I have one tank on an apex auto feeder, and use their food, with no real opinion good or bad except the tank looks normal. I do dose phyto, and on occasion some Oyster feast. I'm a big fan of skimming, but honestly if dosing live phyto I've found that my skimmer is more likely to loose its bubble column instead of pulling it.

 

[SynDen]

Elite's frozen food is some of the absolute best. Only way to go wrong with it is to overfeed without skimming.

+1

 

[BryanF]

I'm running 3 sets of LED's, so the lighting is no problem. I do have fish as well. I have seen people pull off some beautiful SPS tanks with no skimmer, but i'm still on the fence. I don't like the fact that they pull so much beneficial bacteria from the system which is my reason for running a fuge with mangroves, macro algae, and a separate section for nothing but pulsing xenia (which I have read are great at removing heavy metals, and general nutrient export).

I know this is a bit off topic but I'm curious about your Xenia. Did you put some in your fuge or a different section of the sump?