Can you help me dial down my feedings?

[chopdrop]

Hello everyone! I have a 28g AIO cube, it has been running for approximately 8 months mostly successfully.
Stock list is largely soft corals: ricordeas, zoas, leathers, GSP, clove polyps, leathers. I've also got a tiny acan frag and a small hunk of pavona which may or may not be alive I guess (it still flouresces bright orange but has never done much else besides.) For fish, I have a single ocellaris and a 6 line. Notable inverts include your usual CUC, hitchhikers, brittle star, cleaner shrimp, porcelain crab.
I had gotten another BTA (see post history for first BTA ordeal) and it slowly sort of withered away and died. I also noted my urchin was looking kind of lethargic and stupidly I didn't test parameters immediately.
The other day my urchin had perished so I finally checked params and nitrate and phosphate were both very high (I don't recall numbers but they were pretty bad!). I didn't have a lot of algal growth but more than usual, I suppose. I did an immediate 25% water change and added some chemipure elite to my basket. Parameters have improved, corals have perked up again and everyone is wiggling around again like crazy.
My media basket has filter floss in the top, the chemipure in the second, and a hunk of chaeto at the bottom. I do not have a skimmer but have been toying with the idea of getting one.
I had been broadcast feeding with a mix of, aw gosh, basically everything. I would melt some frozen mysis in a shot glass with some reef roids, some Reef nutrition ROE and/or arctic pods, some of that pink stuff I cannot recall the name of at the moment, some bottled phyto, and then just dump it in with filters off for a while. I wish I could tell you how often I had been doing it but multiple times a week would be an easy estimate. I also periodically buy some live pods from my LFS and dump them in there, half in the DT and half in my little mini-fuge. I had also been dosing some Red Sea 2 Part but have suspended that for the time being.

Anyway, my question now is how often I should be feeding in order to prevent further chemical disasters? My main concern is my understanding is the 6 line needs to be eating basically all the time. She is certainly always on the hunt and has been showing a worrying interest in my cleaner shrimp of late.

This was a very long winded way of asking a very simple question I guess, lol: How much, how often, and what would you feed this tank?
Thanks a ton!

 

[W1ngz]

Here's what I would do:
First, stop mixing it all up. Not that there's anything wrong with it being mixed, but it's a lot of 'stuff' in the water all at once.

Mysis - for two fish, I'd take a chunk the size of my pinky finger or about 1/4in cube and feed half that morning, and the other half in the evening.
Once every 2 or three days, feed the ROE instead of the mysis
Do the phyto and reef roids once a week after lights out.
The six-line can get by fine on prepped foods, and just snack on whatever pods it can find. If you really want to bump up the pod population, then restock them with a fresh bottle once every month or two after lights out so they have time to hide and can start repopulating in the rock and sand.
Whatever the 'pink stuff' is, I can't say until I know what it is. Zooplankton maybe?

If you have chaeto in the bottom of a media basket, how is it being lit?

 

[chopdrop]

Here's what I would do:
First, stop mixing it all up. Not that there's anything wrong with it being mixed, but it's a lot of 'stuff' in the water all at once.

Mysis - for two fish, I'd take a chunk the size of my pinky finger or about 1/4in cube and feed half that morning, and the other half in the evening.
Once every 2 or three days, feed the ROE instead of the mysis
Do the phyto and reef roids once a week after lights out.
The six-line can get by fine on prepped foods, and just snack on whatever pods it can find. If you really want to bump up the pod population, then restock them with a fresh bottle once every month or two after lights out so they have time to hide and can start repopulating in the rock and sand.
Whatever the 'pink stuff' is, I can't say until I know what it is. Zooplankton maybe?

If you have chaeto in the bottom of a media basket, how is it being lit?

It is far too early in the morning (it is ALWAYS too early in the morning) for me to recall the name of the pink stuff but it's driving me crazy now - it looks sort of like the antibiotics you give a child when they have an earache.

My chaeto is lit with the magnetically attached JBJ fuge light, I have it come on at night when the DT lights are off.

The other stuff sounds good. Are you suggesting just broadcast feeding everything? Will that be sufficient for the acan?

 

[W1ngz]

I usually just broadcast feed, but have never had acans. You might try target feeding it some reef roids once or twice a week, but they don't need a whole lot that I know of.

 

[BeejReef]

Here's what I would do:
First, stop mixing it all up. Not that there's anything wrong with it being mixed, but it's a lot of 'stuff' in the water all at once.

Mysis - for two fish, I'd take a chunk the size of my pinky finger or about 1/4in cube and feed half that morning, and the other half in the evening.
Once every 2 or three days, feed the ROE instead of the mysis
Do the phyto and reef roids once a week after lights out.
The six-line can get by fine on prepped foods, and just snack on whatever pods it can find. If you really want to bump up the pod population, then restock them with a fresh bottle once every month or two after lights out so they have time to hide and can start repopulating in the rock and sand.
Whatever the 'pink stuff' is, I can't say until I know what it is. Zooplankton maybe?

If you have chaeto in the bottom of a media basket, how is it being lit?

Selcon = pink stuff

 

[W1ngz]

If that's what it is, then skip it, I don't think selcon is adding any benefit to a mix of mysis and ROE. Save it if you get a picky eater in quarantine.

Selcon = pink stuff

 

[chopdrop]

Ah, thank you! Tip of my tongue, for sure.

 

[ceruleanspiral]

I've been working on trying to cut my feeding and lights a bit due to gha (I have a media reactor, new wavemaker, and urchin coming next week, too). I have 3 meat eating fish, a peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab, and about 7 hermit crabs. I cut my mysis or brine cubes into 1/3 and feed one every other day (either mysis or brine, not both). I'm cutting down to 1/4 this week to see if that helps. If it's mysis I save a pinch for my pea puffer (freshwater). The off days I feed my clowns and royal gramma pellets- I drop 1-2 at a time so they eat them all, none on the sand. I use Reef Roids to spot-feed my 11 corals (mostly zoas and mushrooms) once every 5 days or so. I use less than it says to for my tank size.

I just started about a month ago to add phytoplankton every morning (during sunrise lights) and every evening (after night lights come on). Almost every booth I talked to at MACNA said that the corals *love* phytoplankton and they definitely recommend to keep doing that. I also love pods. So I have added new pods 3 times since January. The plan is to do that every few months or so, I would probably do it more often if I had a voracious pod eater.

 

[chopdrop]

Well a few days in and s far, so good. Really the issue here is not with the tank but with myself, retraining myself to not overfeed. Kinda funny cuz I know better than to overfeed intellectually but something about feeding the tank scratches this weird animal brain itch, you know?
But I have lost some animals that have to have been due to my overfeeding and that feels way worse than it feels good to feed.
I guess I'll just keep feeding modestly and keep running the Chemipure and keep testing! Thanks for the help @W1ngz and @ceruleanspiral !

 

[Nasir]

You don’t have to stop mixing your food up. You can feed everything in your tank at once mixing it together. I mix all of my food together and put it in a ice cube tray. Once the cubes are frozen I put them in a freezer bag for keep. You can thaw one cube at a time and leave in frig to continue use. I recommend you feed less. Small amounts in the evening. There is really no wrong or right way. It’s up to your tank.