How to FEED your reef tank so that your corals will really GROW, instead of ho-hum... - Page 13

Aquarist007 · 10/11/2014, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by supervdl

I started feeding live hatch brine shrimp every day and my fish (anthias etc.) and corals love it. I also put in reef chili late in the day with good success.

Are you carbon dosing.

kenneth wolfe · 01/14/2016, 11:33 PM

is this dead?

CrayolaViolence · 01/15/2016, 08:35 AM

I hope not. I'd like to read more about the science behind feeding a reef. I know I recently almost lost my goniporia then did some reading about how it lives in nature, re-did its position in the tank and blam-o not only is it thriving but its reproducing new buds like crazy. My pipe organ is doing the same, growing new buds like mad. I have a hard time trying to find the right "place" for stuff in my tank, because I like a variety of life. I have a mushroom rock I bought that when I got it the mushrooms were spread out HUGE. I've yet to get it to spread like that for me. It was in a nano tank with low lighting but even placing it in the refugium in lower lighting hasn't had an affect on it. I also have a colt coral that while it's growing in length like mad it's never fluffed out looking like a tree, yet it gets bigger every week. I've tried various placements to no avail. Yet my live rock continues to pop up with new life, sponges, tunicates. I have two kenya trees, bothy accented with star polyps near by. Both have been growing like mad. The other day the one on the left side of the rock closed up along with the star polyps, why? I have no idea, it just pulled in and buckled down, yet the other side continues to thrive.
Yesterday I did some re-arranging on my tank to create some lower-near no flow areas and areas of higher turbulent flow. I've been reading which corals do well with what but depending on the book (even the same book) the range of needs is frustrating. The one thing I definitely have beat is the goniporia, placing it beside the output for the refugium and high on the rocks so it gets "waves" constantly, it's doubled in size since I got it and after a few days of having it I thought for sure it would die.
It seems while food is important (and I do feed at night and multiple time during the day) so is light position and water flow. Oddly enough, I actually got my nitrates to 0 (they were hanging in at .25) and my ammonia to 0 (it was low but not 0) and that's when some of the leathers like the kenya decided to curl up on me. Yet only one did, the other did not. I'm thinking of turning my very shallow tank into a mushroom haven, low flow, low light, and moving all my mushrooms in there. I have halides and actinic lighting for my main tank. My reef guy said the unpredictable nature of halide is why they moved to LEDs. Yet they still use tube lighting in the frag tanks and such with seeming success. I would like to get a Kessel for my smaller tank, as I only have a small light over 1/2 since the other half is empty I haven't bothered with getting a light for it yet. I do think food plays a big part and I think the fight for 0 nitrates kind of makes things difficult to keep a balance. Another thing I did, that when did it sent my nitrates and ammonia to 0 and raised my ph (oddly) was I added an air stone to my refugium. I also placed one of my wave makers just close enough to the surface that so often it catches a cyclone and sends a burst of air bubbles into the main tank. I decided to add the air stone after reading how it can help evaporate the ammonia (might be the wrong word for that but it's the only one I can think of at the moment.)
I admit, my favorite part of my tank is the live rock. I love watching the coralline algae grow and new things pop up that weren't there before. Sponges, etc. I can stare at my aquarium for hours just watching the life play out.
I think my biggest hurdle is leaving my tank alone. I'm constantly trying to get the right "look" on the rock, and thus I move stuff around. The new tank is still a work in progress, but being a rock junky, I love creating ledges and inclines. The only problem then is figuring out where to put some things that just don't seem to fit in. Anyhow, I hope this thread will come back to life, and more people will put in their input into growing reef tanks.

CrayolaViolence · 01/15/2016, 08:38 AM

P.s. I can't remember where I read it, but before reef tanks were sustainable (back in the early 70's I think is when people figured things out) there was a guy who met someone over in Asia (I think) who had a very elaborate reef set up using only an air stone. He swore the secret was live rock. That the rock was what balanced the closed eco system.
Not sure if that's urban legend or true, but it's an interesting thought and makes me wonder how possible it is to do.

albano · 01/27/2016, 04:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CrayolaViolence

P.s. I can't remember where I read it, but before reef tanks were sustainable (back in the early 70's I think is when people figured things out) there was a guy who met someone over in Asia (I think) who had a very elaborate reef set up using only an air stone. He swore the secret was live rock. That the rock was what balanced the closed eco system.
Not sure if that's urban legend or true, but it's an interesting thought and makes me wonder how possible it is to do.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-04/newbie/index.php...
Solutions were forthcoming from both Indonesia and Europe. Lee Chin Eng , an Indonesian, was collecting what he called "Living Stones" from the sea coast and adding these to his tanks. He found this allowed him to keep corals and other invertebrates that before then had been impossible to keep. In Europe, the protein skimmer was introduced to limit the amount of protein that was subject to biological conversion to ammonia. Latter, both methods were married up in what became known as the "Berlin Method." With the advent of this new means of reef keeping, the hobby soon took off.

HammerLover · 01/27/2016, 10:40 PM

IMHO most corals need only minimal additional feeding. Closed tanks are very different no matter how large a system is compared to the vast oceans of the world. My tank is really small just 10 gallons so water quality is what I put up the most. Its true corals will grow faster with much food, my hammers healed because I fed them once a week. What's weird is they never accept nysis or brine shrimp but they loved pellets. I feed my corals just because they need it not to make them grow faster. If I'll feed them everyday I need to constantly watch on water quality. Its true corals need food but tanks can provide them sufficient food already from left over fish food, fish poop, bacteria and detritus. Many people had grown euphyllias without feeding them directly and some corals like Xenia can take off a tank even without additional feeding.

kenneth wolfe · 01/29/2016, 02:45 AM

no offence,you said xenia.. take that with gsp...the catfish of coral...

dcom · 08/02/2017, 04:18 PM

I know the thread hasn't been active in years but it has been so interesting and helpfulp... I had to leave a comment.

Up till last week, my main focus had been on keeping a very clean, almost sterile display and my corals are in general ok and I have noticed some growth over the months.

I was scared of adding too much nutrients to my tank so I bought an additional 1500 canister filter and starting adding zooplankton, phytoplankton and tons of live copepods and live brine shrimp. I also started feeding more of the concentrated commercial foods.

So what i do is adding 1 or 2 different sources of food each day, morning and night. Of note, my parameters have not change and my water is still crystal clear; more importantly, in only 5 days I have noticed a big change in the behaviour and color of some corals.

For one, my sun coral was slowly dying and his tentacles came out (and stayed out) since last saturday when i added live brine shrimp. Please note that I was target feeding my coral as i know is needed, yet, it seems like since I started adding live food... it just came back to life and looks so happy!

Also a bottom scoly has drastically change color over a single week. Although already pretty, it was mostly yellow all around the outside tissue and during this week a red-colored ring inbetween the yellow tissue just showed up out of nowhere.

This may not work for everyone though. I know my filtering systems can take a lot, so stuff dont pollute the water. In fact, that might have been my problem, maybe my tank was "too clean" and my corals needed some more feeding. Also, this is just week one, I will try to be careful and not over do it but keep it somehow balanced.

Now I am curious about other people's experience with actively supplementing phytoplankton, zooplankton and live food to their tanks. ...or just more food. Anyone else?

karimwassef · 08/02/2017, 05:13 PM

All food is good if you have fish to digest it and make poop for pods and worms who redigesr it to make fine food for coral. I like bananas and kale...

I've also had good success with reef chilli and reef roids

Recently, I just take the algae from my scrubber and recycle it to my tangs and rabbitfish ... along with all the life in it...

I would say the biggest problem I see isn't the quality of food, it's the quantity. Without a sufficient biological filter, most can't handle the real feeding levels needed by a growing reef. The more I fed food and Alk, the longer I could keep the lights on and the faster the corals grew.

DasCamel · 08/02/2017, 11:20 PM

After reading how the Berlin method started, any good home reef history books out there?

hfa3501 · 10/04/2017, 11:06 AM

Hello All, I know this thread is very old; but I am new to Reef Central and only 6mos into the reef-keeping (from FOWLR tanks) and I just stumbled across it. Wonderful information - I have a couple questions about the information though:

Can anyone give me an opinion on the specifics of feeding of the corals?.......I am currently adding phytoplankton daily. Can I also add zooplankton daily? And if I am adding those two things regularly, do I need to feed my corals additional food (reef roids, reef chili, etc.) for health and color?

I have a 65g cube with acan, gonipora, mushrooms, zoa's, a Psammocroa and a Xenia> My fish are 6 line wrasse, percula clown, a foxface, and an arc-eyed hawk.
My tank was converted from a FOWLR tank that ran for about 6yrs. Water params are good/steady and currently everything seems to be doing well, but like most folks I want to make sure they are all doing GREAT. Doing 15% water changes weekly, running carbon and a skimmer in my sump

My tank is now fully stocked and I want to set up the growth and color piece of the puzzle. Any input would be very helpful!

SantaMonica · 12/11/2017, 09:55 PM

Zoo would be better than phyto, if you only do one. And maybe you'd want to grow some fish food too:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...php?p=25300567

01/27/2016, 10:40 PM	#306
HammerLover Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2015 Location: Philippines, Manila Posts: 437	IMHO most corals need only minimal additional feeding. Closed tanks are very different no matter how large a system is compared to the vast oceans of the world. My tank is really small just 10 gallons so water quality is what I put up the most. Its true corals will grow faster with much food, my hammers healed because I fed them once a week. What's weird is they never accept nysis or brine shrimp but they loved pellets. I feed my corals just because they need it not to make them grow faster. If I'll feed them everyday I need to constantly watch on water quality. Its true corals need food but tanks can provide them sufficient food already from left over fish food, fish poop, bacteria and detritus. Many people had grown euphyllias without feeding them directly and some corals like Xenia can take off a tank even without additional feeding. __________________ Broke college student lol Current Tank Info: 10 gallon reef tank build: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2558717

08/02/2017, 05:13 PM	#309
karimwassef Registered Member Join Date: May 2004 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 11,033	All food is good if you have fish to digest it and make poop for pods and worms who redigesr it to make fine food for coral. I like bananas and kale... I've also had good success with reef chilli and reef roids Recently, I just take the algae from my scrubber and recycle it to my tangs and rabbitfish ... along with all the life in it... I would say the biggest problem I see isn't the quality of food, it's the quantity. Without a sufficient biological filter, most can't handle the real feeding levels needed by a growing reef. The more I fed food and Alk, the longer I could keep the lights on and the faster the corals grew. __________________ Failure isn't an option It's a requirement. 660g 380inwall+280smp/surge S/L/Soft/Maxima/RBTA/Clown/Chromis/Anthias/Tang/Mandarin/Jawfish/Goby/Wrasse/D'back. DIY 12' Skimmer ActuatedSurge ConcreteScape Last edited by karimwassef; 08/03/2017 at 06:29 AM.

08/02/2017, 11:20 PM	#310
DasCamel Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Kenmore, WA Posts: 1,542	After reading how the Berlin method started, any good home reef history books out there? __________________ 375g DT 125g sump acrylic, Mixed SPS/LPS tank with anemones and fish. Current Tank Info: 375g Build thread http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2608197

12/11/2017, 09:55 PM	#312
SantaMonica Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Santa Monica, California, USA Posts: 2,511	Zoo would be better than phyto, if you only do one. And maybe you'd want to grow some fish food too: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...php?p=25300567 __________________ Inventor of the easy-to-DIY upflow scrubber, and also the waterfall scrubber that everyone loves to build: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1424843

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Feeding a Reef Tank? Help a newbie understand	saltman123	New to the Hobby	11	08/20/2010 10:05 PM
Sand Maintenance In Reef Tank	SchmittyG	New to the Hobby	30	01/18/2010 11:28 AM
Do you feed your reef tank every day?	dooleyb	Reef Discussion	5	06/18/2007 06:25 PM
Feeding You Reef Tank	oz3072	New to the Hobby	1	11/30/2006 06:01 PM

01/14/2016, 11:33 PM	#302
kenneth wolfe Moved On Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Galveston Co. Posts: 853	is this dead?

01/15/2016, 08:35 AM	#303
CrayolaViolence Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: North Carolina Posts: 1,867	I hope not. I'd like to read more about the science behind feeding a reef. I know I recently almost lost my goniporia then did some reading about how it lives in nature, re-did its position in the tank and blam-o not only is it thriving but its reproducing new buds like crazy. My pipe organ is doing the same, growing new buds like mad. I have a hard time trying to find the right "place" for stuff in my tank, because I like a variety of life. I have a mushroom rock I bought that when I got it the mushrooms were spread out HUGE. I've yet to get it to spread like that for me. It was in a nano tank with low lighting but even placing it in the refugium in lower lighting hasn't had an affect on it. I also have a colt coral that while it's growing in length like mad it's never fluffed out looking like a tree, yet it gets bigger every week. I've tried various placements to no avail. Yet my live rock continues to pop up with new life, sponges, tunicates. I have two kenya trees, bothy accented with star polyps near by. Both have been growing like mad. The other day the one on the left side of the rock closed up along with the star polyps, why? I have no idea, it just pulled in and buckled down, yet the other side continues to thrive. Yesterday I did some re-arranging on my tank to create some lower-near no flow areas and areas of higher turbulent flow. I've been reading which corals do well with what but depending on the book (even the same book) the range of needs is frustrating. The one thing I definitely have beat is the goniporia, placing it beside the output for the refugium and high on the rocks so it gets "waves" constantly, it's doubled in size since I got it and after a few days of having it I thought for sure it would die. It seems while food is important (and I do feed at night and multiple time during the day) so is light position and water flow. Oddly enough, I actually got my nitrates to 0 (they were hanging in at .25) and my ammonia to 0 (it was low but not 0) and that's when some of the leathers like the kenya decided to curl up on me. Yet only one did, the other did not. I'm thinking of turning my very shallow tank into a mushroom haven, low flow, low light, and moving all my mushrooms in there. I have halides and actinic lighting for my main tank. My reef guy said the unpredictable nature of halide is why they moved to LEDs. Yet they still use tube lighting in the frag tanks and such with seeming success. I would like to get a Kessel for my smaller tank, as I only have a small light over 1/2 since the other half is empty I haven't bothered with getting a light for it yet. I do think food plays a big part and I think the fight for 0 nitrates kind of makes things difficult to keep a balance. Another thing I did, that when did it sent my nitrates and ammonia to 0 and raised my ph (oddly) was I added an air stone to my refugium. I also placed one of my wave makers just close enough to the surface that so often it catches a cyclone and sends a burst of air bubbles into the main tank. I decided to add the air stone after reading how it can help evaporate the ammonia (might be the wrong word for that but it's the only one I can think of at the moment.) I admit, my favorite part of my tank is the live rock. I love watching the coralline algae grow and new things pop up that weren't there before. Sponges, etc. I can stare at my aquarium for hours just watching the life play out. I think my biggest hurdle is leaving my tank alone. I'm constantly trying to get the right "look" on the rock, and thus I move stuff around. The new tank is still a work in progress, but being a rock junky, I love creating ledges and inclines. The only problem then is figuring out where to put some things that just don't seem to fit in. Anyhow, I hope this thread will come back to life, and more people will put in their input into growing reef tanks.

01/15/2016, 08:38 AM	#304
CrayolaViolence Registered Member Join Date: Nov 2015 Location: North Carolina Posts: 1,867	P.s. I can't remember where I read it, but before reef tanks were sustainable (back in the early 70's I think is when people figured things out) there was a guy who met someone over in Asia (I think) who had a very elaborate reef set up using only an air stone. He swore the secret was live rock. That the rock was what balanced the closed eco system. Not sure if that's urban legend or true, but it's an interesting thought and makes me wonder how possible it is to do.

01/29/2016, 02:45 AM	#307
kenneth wolfe Moved On Join Date: Aug 2014 Location: Galveston Co. Posts: 853	no offence,you said xenia.. take that with gsp...the catfish of coral...

08/02/2017, 04:18 PM	#308
dcom Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2017 Posts: 28	I know the thread hasn't been active in years but it has been so interesting and helpfulp... I had to leave a comment. Up till last week, my main focus had been on keeping a very clean, almost sterile display and my corals are in general ok and I have noticed some growth over the months. I was scared of adding too much nutrients to my tank so I bought an additional 1500 canister filter and starting adding zooplankton, phytoplankton and tons of live copepods and live brine shrimp. I also started feeding more of the concentrated commercial foods. So what i do is adding 1 or 2 different sources of food each day, morning and night. Of note, my parameters have not change and my water is still crystal clear; more importantly, in only 5 days I have noticed a big change in the behaviour and color of some corals. For one, my sun coral was slowly dying and his tentacles came out (and stayed out) since last saturday when i added live brine shrimp. Please note that I was target feeding my coral as i know is needed, yet, it seems like since I started adding live food... it just came back to life and looks so happy! Also a bottom scoly has drastically change color over a single week. Although already pretty, it was mostly yellow all around the outside tissue and during this week a red-colored ring inbetween the yellow tissue just showed up out of nowhere. This may not work for everyone though. I know my filtering systems can take a lot, so stuff dont pollute the water. In fact, that might have been my problem, maybe my tank was "too clean" and my corals needed some more feeding. Also, this is just week one, I will try to be careful and not over do it but keep it somehow balanced. Now I am curious about other people's experience with actively supplementing phytoplankton, zooplankton and live food to their tanks. ...or just more food. Anyone else?

10/04/2017, 11:06 AM	#311
hfa3501 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2017 Location: Strongsville, Ohio Posts: 99	Hello All, I know this thread is very old; but I am new to Reef Central and only 6mos into the reef-keeping (from FOWLR tanks) and I just stumbled across it. Wonderful information - I have a couple questions about the information though: Can anyone give me an opinion on the specifics of feeding of the corals?.......I am currently adding phytoplankton daily. Can I also add zooplankton daily? And if I am adding those two things regularly, do I need to feed my corals additional food (reef roids, reef chili, etc.) for health and color? I have a 65g cube with acan, gonipora, mushrooms, zoa's, a Psammocroa and a Xenia> My fish are 6 line wrasse, percula clown, a foxface, and an arc-eyed hawk. My tank was converted from a FOWLR tank that ran for about 6yrs. Water params are good/steady and currently everything seems to be doing well, but like most folks I want to make sure they are all doing GREAT. Doing 15% water changes weekly, running carbon and a skimmer in my sump My tank is now fully stocked and I want to set up the growth and color piece of the puzzle. Any input would be very helpful!