Feeding: 3x a day or 3x a week?

[BurlyWizard]

Hi all,

I'm about 3 months into a 25 gallon lagoon (build thread in signature), and we're definitely in the uglies. Cyano is basically everywhere at this point.

The tank is (and will be) very heavy inverts, with the majority of them crusaceans.

In the tank right now is:
- 3x Camelback Shrimp
- 2x Emerald Crabs
- 2x Sexy Shrimp
- 1x Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
- 3x Azure Damselfish
- 2x Mangroves
- 2x Shaving Brush Plants

Obviously the tank is basically a massive cleanup crew, so going into it, I figured you couldn't overfeed a tank like this. What didn't get snatched up by the fish would get swarmed by the active shrimp and the rest would get scavenged at night by the nocturnal team. However, the cyano is winning and an obvious strategy against it is to cut back on feeding & lights. Lights is easy, so let's talk cyano and feeding...

In the New to the Hobby thread on starting up the tank, cyano is an 'ugly' that most tanks get, and the guidance on that thread is "Cyanobacteria will now begin its course. Again you will let the slime just do its thing... It is best to leave it be. It will start to clear up eventually."

So my question is, with a tank like mine, should I even worry about overfeeding? Should I cut back based on the cyano ugly phase? Should I "just let it do it's thing" as the thread suggests? The visual element of it doesn't bother me that much as I've had plenty of tanks over time and always had cyano outbreaks. I'd rather not worry much about the feeding quantity if this is just a teenage phase that needs to mature, but also don't want to blindly overfeed assuming my inverts are carrying a heavier lift than they actually are.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for your responses.

 

[vetteguy53081]

With very few fish, 1-2x more than sufficient

 

[ReeferBud]

Not sure why you wouldn’t want to overfeed in any case. Just feed what your animals need.

For cyano, I like to brush it off the rocks and sandbed to get it suspended and not accumulate as much.

you mentioned you’ve had tanks with ongoing cyano before. That usually means a nutrient issue and I would look at your maintenance and husbandry practices to better manage nutrients.

 

[BurlyWizard]

With very few fish, 1-2x more than sufficient

Thanks. The "3x daily" was more just for the title, and I'm really just trying to better understand the efficiency / attention needed to feeding scavengers, as I thought a crew this size would just clean up whatever scraps were left.

Not sure why you wouldn’t want to overfeed in any case. Just feed what your animals need.

For cyano, I like to brush it off the rocks and sandbed to get it suspended and not accumulate as much.

you mentioned you’ve had tanks with ongoing cyano before. That usually means a nutrient issue and I would look at your maintenance and husbandry practices to better manage nutrients.

Yeah I'm not advocating or desiring to overfeed. More just asking in general if overfeeding is a serious risk with a setup like this, or if the cyano I'm seeing could just be new tank stuff. Also, you're very right that previous tanks that battled it were about overfeeding and being a novice to saltwater tanks. This is just a different style of tank, going in without corals and heavy on the "cleanup crew". Thanks for your response!