How much phyto do you feed your tank?

[Fishfreak2009]

Just curious how much phyto everyone here feeds their tanks? Currently my wife is managing my tank for me, and since we are buying from Algaebarn, it gets dosed daily, at 5mL per 20 gallons . If I was home, I'd be growing it to feed, like I did with all my previous systems, and dosing it at much higher levels.

I'm attaching a picture of my old 110 immediately after feeding to show how much I added every evening. I believe this is what kept my thorny oyster, flame scallops, sponges, and feather dusters so happy. I added roughly 2-3 of these bottles daily, using a blend of Nannochloropsis, Tetraselmis, Isochrysis, Rhodomonas, Chaetoceras, and Thalassiosira, all grown in separate cultures, then poured together to feed the tank and feed copepod cultures. Water in the display would clear within 2 hrs of dosing, but it was done in the evening just before lights out, with a refugium on an alternate light schedule to help prevent CO2 from spiking and O2 from dropping.

 

[Chrisv.]

Wow. That's a lot of phyto! I dose about 3-5ml per 10 gallons every few days, mixed with reef roids.

 

[Chrisv.]

How long did it take for that to clear?

 

[Spare time]

Holy feces that is a lot of phyto. I dose like 20-40ml a day in my 75 gallons (minus sump) lol. You must have an absolutely ton of zooplankton in that tank.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Wow. That's a lot of phyto! I dose about 3-5ml per 10 gallons every few days, mixed with reef roids.

Currently my wife feeds the 75 gallon 20mL of Ocean Magik blend daily, along with reefroids, reef chili, Brightwell Coral Amino, and selcon soaked mysis and fish eggs for the corals that will eat it (mostly the sun coral and micro lords, but also occasionally the Favias, Platygyra, Candy Cane, Hammers, Frogspawn, and Torch.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

How long did it take for that to clear?

2 hrs if dosed during the day, 3 or so at night

 

[Chrisv.]

2 hrs if dosed during the day, 3 or so at night

Wow. I. Surprised that it clears so quickly!

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Holy feces that is a lot of phyto. I dose like 20-40ml a day in my 75 gallons (minus sump) lol. You must have an absolutely ton of zooplankton in that tank.

It did. We also dosed Acartia, Parvocalanus, Tisbe, Apocyclops, and Tigriopus copepods. We had a pair of bluestripe pipefish, a pair of green mandarins, multiple leopard and pencil wrasses, multiple fairy wrasses, and a school of Bartlett's Anthias that all greedily ate them.

 

[Spare time]

It did. We also dosed Acartia, Parvocalanus, Tisbe, Apocyclops, and Tigriopus copepods. We had a pair of bluestripe pipefish, a pair of green mandarins, multiple leopard and pencil wrasses, multiple fairy wrasses, and a school of Bartlett's Anthias that all greedily ate them.

This is really cool as phyto blooms followed by plankton blooms are something that I am pretty sure cycles in the ocean and is the source of the majority of coral foods in the wild. I am jealous you had that much to spare. I only keep a gallon going at a time lol (I split it whenever it become brown ish)

 

[Fishfreak2009]

This is really cool as phyto blooms followed by plankton blooms are something that I am pretty sure cycles in the ocean and is the source of the majority of coral foods in the wild. I am jealous you had that much to spare. I only keep a gallon going at a time lol.

Even not feeding as much phyto now, and trying to make up for it with extra reef roids, reef chili, coral amino, etc, we are seeing great growth on the corals. SPS have grown over a 1/2" taller and are either almost or have completely encrusted their frag plugs in under 1 month, LPS gain new heads constantly (1 of the acans has 6 new polyps forming!), and even the pipe organs, mushrooms, GSP, and zoas seem to be growing quite fast with the high input system. Also makes a lot of waste products, but the oversized skimmer and refugium seem to be keeping up with that. In fact the nitrates have actually been too low lately, so now we have some dinoflagellates we've been dealing with in the 75 gallon, but quickly getting that back under control. And we never had nuisance algae issues in the old 110 gallon. I truly believe the live phyto blend and live copepods and copepod nauplii was a better healthier food choice than the reef roids and reef chili.

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

I dose 3ml per gallon of total system volume daily.

50g total system volume = 150ml per day.

I dose 75ml nanno and 75ml Tetra as this is what i am culturing.

 

[Susan Edwards]

I dose 100-120 most days for a 220 total water volume. I add half to the display and the rest to the fuge. I need to increase I think though. Not doing enough. I'm going to set up my own cultivating as I once did. Same with pods.

 

[Gedxin]

Dosing 5ml/day for my 30g. Seems I'm on the low side compared to most of ya'll.

In the morning, right before my lights turn on. Turn skimmer off for 2 hours after.

What time does everyone dose?

 

[Anthony Scholfield]

Dosing 5ml/day for my 30g. Seems I'm on the low side compared to most of ya'll.

In the morning, right before my lights turn on. Turn skimmer off for 2 hours after.

What time does everyone dose?

I dose in the evening. A few hours before lights out. i split the dose between display and fuge. I keep the skimmer running as well.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I dose in the evening. A few hours before lights out. i split the dose between display and fuge. I keep the skimmer running as well.

I never shut my skimmer off when dosing phyto, I figure it helps oxygenate, especially when I'm dosing just before or just after lights go out.

 

[DaJMasta]

I've got isochrysis and tetraselmis cultures going (want to start pelagic diatoms within a couple of weeks) and I'm feeding what I consider pretty heavy: 300mL in the morning and 100mL at night for my e170 (~45g) and 300mL/300mL for my 30g breeding system to try and boost pods in the tank. It never looks as dark as those pictures, but there's some cloudiness that usually clears within an hour. No trouble keeping a flame scallop, a sump mysid culture, and an NPS gorgonian going along with powdered particulate foods daily.

At those levels I have to remove some water and refill with RODI a couple times a week to keep the salt creep down, and it's not that uncommon for both tanks to be closer to 36ppt than 35...

 

[Borat]

100ml a day of home cultured Tetraselmis to a 100g system...

 

[homer1475]

3ml per gallon to my 85G system. 8 species blend I buy from a fellow reefer on here.

Cannot say enough good about @Eldredge and his phyto.

I used to feed that weak sauce from algaebarn. When I found @Eldredge and his phyto, I actually found out how weak algae barns phyto actually is.

 

[J1a]

When we talk about how many ml etc without considering the cell density, it gives a very incomplete information.

I feed my tank with freeze dried plankton twice a day. While it does not have the live plankton's ability to reduce nutrients in the aquarium, it also don't have any residue nitrate and phosphate from the culture medium.

 

[kenbennedy]

When we talk about how many ml etc without considering the cell density, it gives a very incomplete information.

I feed my tank with freeze dried plankton twice a day. While it does not have the live plankton's ability to reduce nutrients in the aquarium, it also don't have any residue nitrate and phosphate from the culture medium.

(gif fail )