ALCATRAZ style feeding? I say no!!!

[Glenner’sreef]

There are 2 things that I believe contribute to a healthy reef in a serious way; 1. one is small consistent water changes and 2. is feeding your fish well, which includes giving them as much variety as possible.

I feed my fish a big variety of frozen, (both greens and protein based), pellets, flakes and freeze dried seaweeds. I have a refugium and sump for amphipod and copepod propagation. I often stock the fuge with ghost shrimp for shrimp larvae to end up in the display tank. All my fish are plump and round bellied. I think we'll fed fish are more disease resistant and I have had quite a few fish live well past the 10 year mark.

Inspiring! Very cool. Thanks

 

[ClownSchool]

The poor criminals who had to serve time at Alcatraz were forced to eat LOBSTER!!! every day!!! Granted it was cheap, available, in abundance and not the delicacy that it is today.

1. Do you feed your fish a large variety of foods or are you feeding just shrimp or just pellets in the spirit of those cruel jail authorities?

A blend of these three, mixed with a little R/O water. Four milligrams, twice a day.

 

[Graivus]

I use a variety, frozen mysis, frozen brine, frozen rotifers, some coral gumbo and also Hikari pellets.
I have gone back and forth on the idea of making my own food, but the frozen and pellets seem to be eaasy and good quality.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

I use a variety, frozen mysis, frozen brine, frozen rotifers, some coral gumbo and also Hikari pellets.
I have gone back and forth on the idea of making my own food, but the frozen and pellets seem to be eaasy and good quality.

I went back and forth as well until I saw all of the canned sea food on the shelf at Walmart. Raw oysters, baby clams, canned baby shrimp. Bought em, took them home, blended them up. And poured it all into multiple ziplock bags and froze them. Now I snap off a chunk and add it to their regular feeding. It was cheap too!

 

[Treefer32]

I make my own food. I find blenders liquify. I use the BRS method and grate frozen sea food. Right now it's a mix of tuna, shrimp, and scallops from costco. Soaked in Selcon and amino acids, with some Fish eggs, pellets, and nori mixed in. I also include a large amount of freeze dried mysis shrimp (it's cheap) that soak up the selcon and amino acids. I grate the frozen food, mix the dry ingredients together and the wet ingredients all separately. Then combone wet with dry and the wet /dry mixture with the frozen. I've done as much as 12 lbs at once, which lasts me around 9-10 months. I go through over a pound of seafood a month. Which is crazy to me. But I have 25 large fish... So, there's that. They're all pigs. Most, if not all the food is gone within 1 minute. They love it.

I also feed a sheet of nori a day as well. My tangs are all waiting by the Nori clip in the morning when the lights start to ramp up. They are well trained. . .

 

[mattdg]

I used to try to feed a variety of frozen food. I've realized that the fish just don't care and good flake and pellet food make it so much easier to feed exactly the right amount and dial in nutrients. So... quality flakes 2x / day, PE pellets soaked in selcon 2x / week and Nori on a clip once / week. That's it.

 

[shakacuz]

I used to try to feed a variety of frozen food. I've realized that the fish just don't care and good flake and pellet food make it so much easier to feed exactly the right amount and dial in nutrients. So... quality flakes 2x / day, PE pellets soaked in selcon 2x / week and Nori on a clip once / week. That's it.

what fakes do you feed?

 

[Grimmj]

I must be the warden of hell. I have been rotation oyster feast, pellets and frozen brine. I cut back on the frozen because I was getting a oilly layer on the top of the water after feeding it. Not sure if it was a bad batch of food or over feeding though.

 

[ReefGeezer]

My Anthias and Cardinals don't like big chunks. I don't have Tangs or other herbivores. I feed gut loaded brine shrimp daily by just tossing a cube or two in the return section of the sump. Clams, mussels, squid, or shrimp (whatever is available at Whole Foods) that are very, very finely diced in a food processer then frozen are fed a few days a week. I don't mix these. I just rotate feeding them. Sometimes I add in other frozen cube foods like Angelfish Formula or Herbivore Formula. My few corals might get some cyclops or reef roids when I get the urge.

 

[wheels 45]

I just feed my fish NLS pellets. I also feed my cichlids the same thing.

 

[Blumon18]

I mix it every other day dry flakes and miosis shrimp

 

[Miami Reef]

I feed LRS fish frenzy, nori, and live white worms.

That’s it. I like to keep things simple here.

 

[polyppal]

Frozen-wise, I make my own food with grocery store raw shrimp (ground up tiny in meat grinder, but not liquified like blender) mixed with selcon and a scoop of spirulina powder. I’m gonna add a little octopus or squid or something next time I go to Asian market

supplement with TDO and Hikari seaweed extreme

 

[MBruun]

I feed different kind of frozen food, what ever I can get, but always a lot of mysis and krill. I mix it with pellets soaked in fishoil and sometimes mussels.
I use the frozen food dispenser from SmarterReef - really good way to stread the feeding in smaller amount during 7 hours. All fish love it and are fat and healthy and especially my anthias benefit from getting feed all day long

 

[rtparty]

Home made reef chili based mostly off of the BRS recipe. Made some almost 2 years ago. Still have a couple bags left.

Make sure you make it when the wife isn't home and give the house plenty of time to air out! It stinks pretty bad but my tank and fish have loved it

 

[Lasse]

In the poll 25% says that they not feed with a variety of food - but in the post it looks like most of you serve at least 3 meals of fin dinner a day. And much of it.

However - even if I can understand the analogy with the food at Alcatraz - is that analogy a good one for the health of our reef fishes? I would answer - no

A living reef is one of the most competitive ecosystems that exist. This has led to a huge specialization among the organisms that live there. This has led to a highly specialized food intake in many fish species on the reef. It can rightly be said that most fish species exert "Alcatraz" style of eating. The variation is not IMO "cross" specific - more "intra" specific - according to what they eat. Fishes specialized at zooplankton eat different species of zooplankton, Fish specialized on microalgae (and the invertebrate life in the algae cover) eat different species among the microalgae, Fish specialized in organisms in the sand eat different organism and organic detritus that you can find there. And so on.

One important fact is also that most fish species eat the whole target organism, including things that the digestive tract cant melt. Further on - the food consist mostly of more than 80 % water - the nutrient content of the prey is "diluted" in water.

IMO - the variety in reef fishes food are among the type of prey they eat - not among different prey types. Fish living on plankton may have a variation of prey that follow the year. Sometimes is some plankton species common, sometimes other and often depended on season.

If you feed with dry food - its about 5 - 7 times more concentrated than their natural prey and its processed. 1 g dry food corresponds to 5 - 7 g of their natural food.

When I started my present aquarium (around 6 years ago) I decide not to use dry food at all. Only fresh frozen food and food produced in the aquarium (pods, microalgae, algae, bacteria, organic detritus and so on) The main food I use is frozen adult artemia and freshwater cyclops. Sometimes Mysis too.

There is - IMO - a myth that frozen adult artemia is poor in nutrition. IMO - frozen adult artemia content as much nutrition as other marine invertebrates. They are normally harvest with their guts full of microalgae. The myth is - IMO - based on the fact that newly hatched artemia loose most of their nutrient content when the egg sac is consumed and need to be feed in order to rise the nutrient content. But it is a different matter compared to feeding with adult brine shrimp which has a stomach full of algae.

My present feeding regime have also lead to a rather slow, natural growth of my fishes.

However - most of the fishes I have need to have food more or less constantly - therefore have I set up a stirrer, bottle and dosing pump. My dosing pump run backwards early in the morning and fill upp the bottle with 400 ml tank water. In the morning I put in 4 cubes of freshwater cyclops and 2 cubes adult Artemia. The dose pump dose 40 ml of this solution 10 time during the day. Yest - there will be bacteria in the bottle - but i see them as food too. During late evening - the dose pump fill up the bottle and empty it 2 times. I have a lot of filtrating animals in the tank - including Clams, sponges and sea squirts.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Rkdunn1]

Geez, after reading what y'all do, I'm afraid to post in case the ASPCA is watching.

Frozen Mysis, Frozen Brine, soaked flake and pellets a couple times a week. additional Nori for my fat foxface

Me too. I now feel like my fish are neglected because they only get frozen yum yums with selcon and pellets…

 

[damsels are not mean]

I feed flake mostly, occasional mysis. I am going to try LRS soon because I am stocking my tank more densely which means less "natural" graze for the fishes to fill in whatever gaps are left by the limited foods I feed.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

In the poll 25% says that they not feed with a variety of food - but in the post it looks like most of you serve at least 3 meals of fin dinner a day. And much of it.

However - even if I can understand the analogy with the food at Alcatraz - is that analogy a good one for the health of our reef fishes? I would answer - no

A living reef is one of the most competitive ecosystems that exist. This has led to a huge specialization among the organisms that live there. This has led to a highly specialized food intake in many fish species on the reef. It can rightly be said that most fish species exert "Alcatraz" style of eating. The variation is not IMO "cross" specific - more "intra" specific - according to what they eat. Fishes specialized at zooplankton eat different species of zooplankton, Fish specialized on microalgae (and the invertebrate life in the algae cover) eat different species among the microalgae, Fish specialized in organisms in the sand eat different organism and organic detritus that you can find there. And so on.

One important fact is also that most fish species eat the whole target organism, including things that the digestive tract cant melt. Further on - the food consist mostly of more than 80 % water - the nutrient content of the prey is "diluted" in water.

IMO - the variety in reef fishes food are among the type of prey they eat - not among different prey types. Fish living on plankton may have a variation of prey that follow the year. Sometimes is some plankton species common, sometimes other and often depended on season.

If you feed with dry food - its about 5 - 7 times more concentrated than their natural prey and its processed. 1 g dry food corresponds to 5 - 7 g of their natural food.

When I started my present aquarium (around 6 years ago) I decide not to use dry food at all. Only fresh frozen food and food produced in the aquarium (pods, microalgae, algae, bacteria, organic detritus and so on) The main food I use is frozen adult artemia and freshwater cyclops. Sometimes Mysis too.

There is - IMO - a myth that frozen adult artemia is poor in nutrition. IMO - frozen adult artemia content as much nutrition as other marine invertebrates. They are normally harvest with their guts full of microalgae. The myth is - IMO - based on the fact that newly hatched artemia loose most of their nutrient content when the egg sac is consumed and need to be feed in order to rise the nutrient content. But it is a different matter compared to feeding with adult brine shrimp which has a stomach full of algae.

My present feeding regime have also lead to a rather slow, natural growth of my fishes.

However - most of the fishes I have need to have food more or less constantly - therefore have I set up a stirrer, bottle and dosing pump. My dosing pump run backwards early in the morning and fill upp the bottle with 400 ml tank water. In the morning I put in 4 cubes of freshwater cyclops and 2 cubes adult Artemia. The dose pump dose 40 ml of this solution 10 time during the day. Yest - there will be bacteria in the bottle - but i see them as food too. During late evening - the dose pump fill up the bottle and empty it 2 times. I have a lot of filtrating animals in the tank - including Clams, sponges and sea squirts.

Sincerely Lasse

Great response, thanks. Regarding nutrition IMO. Having a consistent and variety of foods helps all organisms in the tank. Consistency important because ina closed system like our tanks, if we neglect or become to busy to feed not just our fish but our tanks, our tanks become “sterile”. Our fish population and inverts will quickly deplete to tank of any and all natural and living foods. Our feeding responsibilities are important. Thanks again. Interesting stuff.

 

[Lasse]

Consistency important because ina closed system like our tanks, if we neglect or become to busy to feed not just our fish but our tanks, our tanks become “sterile”. Our fish population and inverts will quickly deplete to tank of any and all natural and living foods.

Both artemia and fresh water cyclops have the nutrients needed. My tank has an refugium too and I am do not take away any detritus or bacteria from the system. My tank has a DSB that works like a reversed under gravel filter.

Shortly - I´m not following the current main street parade at all - but the tank has work well for these nearly 6 years it has been up and running.

The development of the tank


Sincerely Lasse