Feeding Regime - What, When, How Often.

[HappyGeorge]

The discussion on another thread got round to feeding regimes in the tank. I know we all have very different tanks but just wondering if we can all post details of tank size, pump operation at feeding time, stocking level, CUC, type of food, time and number of feeds with a rough quantity. Thought it may be useful and stop people over feeding in the early days and creating algae/nitrate level problems?

So here goes.

Tank size - 360l 37x24x24 + 80l sump.
Pump - Vortech MP40 put into feeding mode for feeding i.e no flow.
Stocking - 2 Clowns, Chalk Goby, Algae Blenny (still being added), fire coral, xenia, zoas, gorgonia.
CUC - 6-8 red leg hermits, 2 blue legs, fromia star, 5 turbos, cleaner shrimp.
Food - New Era marine flake and frozen mysis (with and without garlic).
Time - 1800 and 2130.
Quantity - One inch sqaure piece of flake, aprox 1/6-1/8th of mysis.

and

Tank size - MT50 - 80l.
Pump - Newave 1 left on but return pump turned off for 30 mins.
Stocking - 2 firefish, button polyps, xenia.
CUC - 5 blue legs, 1 turbo.
Food - New Era marine flake and frozen mysis (with and without garlic).
Time - 1800 and 2130.
Quantity - half inch sqaure piece of flake, a shaving off of the frozen cube.

 

[ALW]

I feed mine twice a day, 20-30 mins after lights are turned on in the morning (New Era flake) and then they get fed 5.30-6.00 after i get in from work. Usally again they get flake 4 times a week and frozen the other 3 days. Tangs aslo get nori 3 times a week.

EDIT: Corals are fed gamma NutraPlus Complete Feed or Reef Feed twice a week

 

[sorgan]

i suppose i better do mine lol

main tank

size 175 lt with 30ish lt refugium
pumps siecco 2000lph, return pump 2000lph, voyager one, never turned off lol

stocking (here goes) 2x clown, 1 coral bueaty, 1 chalk goby, 1 zebra dartfish, 1 magnifacent fairy wrasse, 1 yellow wrasse, 1 red sea cleaner wrasse, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 false gramma (i think thats it)

cuc - hermits of various numbers and species, snails same drill, abalone, some flavor of cowry, 3ish peppermint shrimp, 1 cleaner shrimp, pistol shrimp.

feeding - 200ml of a mix of various powdered and frozen particulate foods, artemia, rotifers, phyto, mysis etc

when, once an hour on the hour


NANO -
27 lt tank
koralia 300
feeding is much the same as above but in smaller doses.

issues - highish nitrate levels that are sucked up by my purpose made refugium.
WARNING DO NOT FEED YOUR TANK LIKE THIS UNLESS YOU ARE 100% SURE WHAT YOU ARE DOING

 

[woody88]

Tank -Boyu TL550 [28G]

pump -standard boyu 720lph pump powering adjustable spraybar. 2 x powerheads [900lph & 3000lph] 2 x stock boyu 120lph protein skimmers [one acting as a non liquidised phosphate reactor....sort of!]

media -lr rubble , rowaphos [in converted skimmer], nitrate remover, act carbon

stock -2 x clowns , 3 x...er.........damsels! [yes, i know!][yellow tailed blue damsel, white spotted damsel, yellow streaked damsel]

Cuc -7 red/blue hermit crabs , cleaner shrimp , 5 turbo snails , sand sifting starfish , emerald crab

feeding - 3 tiny pieces of tetra marine xs flake & 1/4 cube frozen brine shrimp once a day, every day at around 8:00 am
I also feed the tank with 3 ml of TMC neutrafin reef feed [copepods & rotifers] twice a week.
1/4 brine shrimp meant to be for starfish as my sand bed is small.

Pump turned off for 20min during feeding. 3000lph powerhead also turned off with just 900lph running.

Lights are off when feeding.

 

[spadge]

right time to show how much i over feed lol

approx 200ltr tank with 30ltr sump, 1200lph return pump, 1400lph external filter and 3000lph powerhead,

Stock - 2x clowm, 2x blue tail damsels, 1 yellow tang (soon to be removed) 2x anthias (soon to be removed)
cuc 30-40 snails ceriths, turbos, astreas? 3 x red legged hermits, 2x cleaner shrimp, sandsifting starfish and red legged sea star.... OH and short spined urchin!

I turn off return pump, external filter and skimmer for abount 30/ 40 mins during feeding over flow is shut off and all overflow pipes covered with filter media.

FFED 1 x brine shrimp cube 8.00am ish 1 x mysis 6 pm ish
Rotifers 1/2 cube mon, wed and sun
TRIED nori sheets for tang but not interested, use pelleted algae mon,wed and sun tiny amount only

powerhead remains on for circulatin food during feeding, also mon,wed and sun i target feed saun coral, hammer coral and malu

i await the abuse on quantity fed lol although i agree with sorgan OVERFEEDINGS FOR PRO'S KIDS - DONT TRY THIS AT HOME!!

 

[seffieuk]

Ok, my turn:

Tank size: 400 litres
Pump: Magnum 8 12500 Litres an hour flow + a koralia 1 for surface agitation
Stocking: pair of common clowns, watchman goby, scarlet hawk, regal tang (still a baby)
CUC: astrina, brisle worms, small britlestars, sand shifting starfish, 3 x halloween hermits, three large mexican turbos, two conch, 2 x cleaner shrimp, some peppermints (but rarely see them)
Food - New Era marine flake and frozen mysis (without garlic, my clowns HATE garlic).
Time - when I get in from work
Quantity - half an inch of flake every other day, small mysis cube on the other days, except for Nem feeding day, when I finely chop whatever nems are having for the rest of the gang - one day starve!
Bubbletip anemones x 3 - silversides, prawns, mussels etc once a week

Seffie x

 

[HappyGeorge]

Thanks Seffie that makes me feel better, thought I was starving mine, good to see you don't like buying fish food either.

 

[-Nemo-]

I wasn't going to post here if this is for newbies. But I suppose I will anyways.
I purposely overfeed my tank...


Tank size - 75G + 29G sump.
Pump - 900GPH sump with 3 powerheads equaling around 1250GPH, so 2150GPH in total.

Stocking - 2 Ocellaris Clowns, 1 Vermiculate Leopard Wrasse, 1 Exquisite Fairy Wrasse, 1 McCosker's Flasher Wrasse, 1 Blotchy Anthias, 2 Fire Shrimp, 1 Large Yellow Brittle, verious hermits and snails, 2 emerald crabs, 2 feather dusters, 2 clams many corals.

CUC - 2 Fire Shrimp, 1 Large Yellow Brittle, verious hermits and snails, 2 emerald crabs, 2 feather dusters

Food - Dainichi Pellets enriched with astaxanthin powder, frozen PE Mysis, frozen Formula 2, frozen Brine Shrimp (or sometimes live on occasion), frozen Brine Shrimp PLUS, frozen Formula 1
Time - Fed three times a day, 1pm - Pellets
5pm - One type of frozen food
9pm - One Type of Frozen food
I alternate between all of the frozen foods or sometimes I mix them together. All are enriched with Zoecon vitamins, sometimes I will add in fresh garlic (which they love!)

Quantity - However much they eat in 2 minutes (Usually about a cube)
I also have many non-photosynthetic corals so I feed them (and some other corals) mysis every other day, they use a little over a cube.

 

[sorgan]

Hmmm it just goes to show how much azoox gorgonians need feeding when look at my feeding list.
I've forgotten what it's like to sling a bit of flake in lol.

 

[HappyGeorge]

I wasn't going to post here if this is for newbies. But I suppose I will anyways.

Sorry Nemo maybe I didn't make it clear. I mean't it may be of use as a resource to see what more experienced people with similar stock levels/size tanks are feeding.

Cab someone explain why you overfeed a tank or point me to some extra reading on the subject, I am intrigued as coming from Malawi keeping, the idea is to keep them hungryish, hungry algae eating fish don't fight they graze and excessive feeding causes bloat in Malawis very easily.
I appreciate that some corals need feeding but the different feeding regimes seem to differ immensely.

 

[-Nemo-]

Personally, I was feeding heavily at first to encourage healthy babies from my clowns, they stopped laying a few months ago but I keep up the high feeding in hopes they will start again. Plus... Fat fish = Happy fish IMO . I wouldnt' call my fish fat per se.... But they look a healthy size to me.

 

[HappyGeorge]

In Malawi keeping fat fish = floating upside down on the surface fish

 

[spadge]

lol im sure my overfeeding is purely, well my lack of experience, its my first ever experience with fish so im aware i overfeed but i am getting to a point where i am cutting down feeding to every other day, more to avoid high nitrates though, not that they are anyway, plus i feel guilty when i walk past the tank or put my hand near the lid and they all swim too me with their puppy dog eyes

 

[woody88]

lol im sure my overfeeding is purely, well my lack of experience, its my first ever experience with fish so im aware i overfeed but i am getting to a point where i am cutting down feeding to every other day, more to avoid high nitrates though, not that they are anyway, plus i feel guilty when i walk past the tank or put my hand near the lid and they all swim too me with their puppy dog eyes

Lol I get that with my red spotted severums in my trop tank. I feel guilty when I walk past at night and turn the light off as I van feel their big eyes burning in the back of my head.