Phytoplankton Dosing-Worth it?

[Susan Edwards]

The Blend will mono out fairly quickly in that size container you will most likely end up with Tigs or Tisbe at the end . It's always best to do each species separate if that's the route you're trying to go .

Yeah, I forgot about that when I ordered. As long as I end up with pods, I'm not choosy. I also want to find some ampipods to add to the tank, not to culture

 

[Derrick0580]

Yeah, I forgot about that when I ordered. As long as I end up with pods, I'm not choosy. I also want to find some ampipods to add to the tank, not to culture

Aquarium depot dot com usually has amphipods, sometimes BOGO sale!

 

[Susan Edwards]

Aquarium depot dot com usually has amphipods, sometimes BOGO sale!

cool!

 

[Leo.L]

I was looking at this kit. Which kind of Phytoplankton should I get?

I've been using this exact one. My zooplankton have been thriving and so has my mandarin goby, not to mention my filter feeders. Seen great results in my opinion. Feed every other day. Be careful on ho. Much you dose. Good luck

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

My 2 cents.

I dosed phyto for a long time, also reef-roids. The problem and why I stopped dosing both is that I got tons of spirorbid worms and vermetid snails (both filter feeders). This to me was a sign that I had too much particulate food floating around the tank. I stopped feeding Reef-Roids first and that helped. When i finally stopped feeding phyto it helped even more. I still get good amount of vermetid snails, but hardly any spirorbid worms.

For those saying they want to boost point of sale population. If you’re trying to boost for certain fish that eat them like mandarins or wrasse, cool that makes sense, but otherwise, I question what the point is. Once your tank is established you should have balance of organisms eating each other and waste. If there is food copepods will expand their population. If not their populations shrink. Dosing phyto to make pods breed just to eat the phyto seems unnecessary and counter productive. You should have enough copepods to eat the natural waste, algae, phyto etc in the tank.

I feed couple kinds of pellets, frozen mysis, another frozen blend, nori sheets. Mixed reef. No direct or broadcast coral feedings.

Am I wrong here?

 

[merkmerk73]

My 2 cents.

I dosed phyto for a long time, also reef-roids. The problem and why I stopped dosing both is that I got tons of spirorbid worms and vermetid snails (both filter feeders). This to me was a sign that I had too much particulate food floating around the tank. I stopped feeding Reef-Roids first and that helped. When i finally stopped feeding phyto it helped even more. I still get good amount of vermetid snails, but hardly any spirorbid worms.

For those saying they want to boost point of sale population. If you’re trying to boost for certain fish that eat them like mandarins or wrasse, cool that makes sense, but otherwise, I question what the point is. Once your tank is established you should have balance of organisms eating each other and waste. If there is food copepods will expand their population. If not their populations shrink. Dosing phyto to make pods breed just to eat the phyto seems unnecessary and counter productive. You should have enough copepods to eat the natural waste, algae, phyto etc in the tank.

I feed couple kinds of pellets, frozen mysis, another frozen blend, nori sheets. Mixed reef. No direct or broadcast coral feedings.

Am I wrong here?

I'm not sure what the benefits of phyto really are, either. Other than possibly feeding pests.

It's also hard for me to be consistent, and it's not exactly cheap to regularly dose phyto either.

 

[Propane]

I dosed phyto for a couple of months but quit as getting a fresh supply was too much of a hassle. I have never found someone that could consistently get it to me or I had to drive an hour each way to get store bought. My tank is doing fine without it.

 

[bushdoc]

My 2 cents.

I dosed phyto for a long time, also reef-roids. The problem and why I stopped dosing both is that I got tons of spirorbid worms and vermetid snails (both filter feeders). This to me was a sign that I had too much particulate food floating around the tank. I stopped feeding Reef-Roids first and that helped. When i finally stopped feeding phyto it helped even more. I still get good amount of vermetid snails, but hardly any spirorbid worms.

For those saying they want to boost point of sale population. If you’re trying to boost for certain fish that eat them like mandarins or wrasse, cool that makes sense, but otherwise, I question what the point is. Once your tank is established you should have balance of organisms eating each other and waste. If there is food copepods will expand their population. If not their populations shrink. Dosing phyto to make pods breed just to eat the phyto seems unnecessary and counter productive. You should have enough copepods to eat the natural waste, algae, phyto etc in the tank.

I feed couple kinds of pellets, frozen mysis, another frozen blend, nori sheets. Mixed reef. No direct or broadcast coral feedings.

Am I wrong here?

Never dosed phyto myself, but very few corals, especially sps can digest them, so as you have noticed, you basically feeding pods. If that is the goal, than I seen nothing wrong with that, but if people think that they are feeding corals- that might happen only indirectly by increasing pods population.