Feeding Habits?

[davidrupe]

How do you all feed your fish?
Do some turn pumps off? Yes/no/Why?
How much do you feed? What sort of foods? How often?

Can people fill me in with some detail here. I have been feeding once a day, at night, a chunk that looks good of the frozen stuff and mixing a few flakes in with it.

Telll me what you do and why...
Thanks!

 

[TheUltimateNoob]

i feed once a day but usually a hefty portion. i feed whenever i feel like it. sometimes morning sometimes night. i usually just feed spirulina or other flake foods just because it's easy. sometimes brine shrimp. i keep the pumps on so that the food blows around the tank until it's all gone. also when feeding flakes, i stick my hand in there and let go of the flakes in front of a powerhead so it's not floating on the surface.

 

[starrfish]

I feed frozen mysis, brine or marine formula. I mix a little zooplankton in with it. 3x/week I mix Selcon in with it, on the off days I drop some garlic juice in. I leave my pumps on so the food gets blown around. I used to mix flakes in with it, but my nitrates started to go up so I haven't been feeding any flakes in the past month or so.

 

[Deafasa]

I feed my false percula clowns flake food in the morning. In the evening I thaw some mysis shrimp with a little tank water. I dump the mysis into the tank in one shot so it sinks towards the bottom to my cardinals. The clowns also eat the mysis shrimp, but the cardinals do not eat flake.
My peppermint shrimp scavenge both the flake and the mysis.

As to how much, a pinch of flake. I don't know how much mysis, but not a huge amount. My mysis is in sheet form, not cubes, so I can't just tell you half a cube. If I had to guess it would be between 1\4 and 1\3 of a cube of mysis shrimp.

Unfortunatly my algae blennie has more then enough to eat without me feeding him.

I do not shut my pumps off. It is not that it isn't convient to do it, with an aquacontroller I hit a button and the main pump goes off for a couple of minutes, I just don't see the reason to do it. I guess I have more faith that a running pump will continue to pump, then a stopped pump will restart.

Jeff

 

[Mr. Slippery]

I feed once a day also, mostly b/c that's just what my schedule permits. I feed them at 3pm before I go to work. I used to feed a cube of mysis but now I just break off a small chunk of the fish goo, dissolve it in a cup of tank water and pour. I also feed my corals with it via syringe maybe once a week.

Oh yea I shut my return pump down but the powerheads are still going.

 

[~Flighty~]

I feed about one cube of mysis, one of prime reef, and some pellets every day. I have a little feeder cage that the cube fits in and the food drips out as it thaws over 30 min or so. Gives the fish a chance to eat and get full so that the quieter ones have a shot at it. It also lets the CBB get first dibs as he is the only one who can stick his nose inside. Since I started this method they seem more leisurly at eating knowing that the food won't come all at once and be gone right away.

 

[Piscevore]

Flighty, can you post a picture of your feeder cage? I'm really curious to see what you mean. I like the idea

 

[~Flighty~]

Here you go. I can make one for a frag if anyone wants one. This one fits two small cubes of mysis on top of each other. Thats a half disolved cube of prime reef in the pic.

 

[~Flighty~]

It is nice to have the cage because you can drop in the frozen food and run out the door and know that the fish will still get a nice slow breakfast and occupy themselves for an hour trying to get that last bite to drop.

 

[Mr. Slippery]

That's a pretty ingenioius idea. Those are those plastic things used for "knitting" right. I'm sure any craft store would carry them.

 

[Armando]

i bought a cage like this at inland reef. it is attached to a suction cup.

 

[~Flighty~]

Don't give away my secrets. I was going to market them for $17.95 as an automatic reef fish food defroster and dispenser.
Thats the craft knitting stuff with some of the +s cut out and threaded together with that plastic thread.

 

[~Flighty~]

Next I'm going to make a teeny tiny lobster trap for catching mantis shrimp.

God, I have to get out of this house more.

 

[Armando]

ooops

 

[starrfish]

Cindy - that is very clever!! I could use a mantis/pistol shrimp trap (not sure which one I have yet!). I think I'm going to make me one of those...thanks for the idea.

Daire