Pumps off for feeding?

[Crustaceon]

Your mandarin eats frozen mysis? I’m Jealous

I started with frozen brine and worked my way up. Hint: get the hikari stuff. The mysis in those cubes aren’t much bigger than adult brine.

 

[KenO]

I don’t like turning off my return pump unless I have to.. the sump fills, probes get fully submerged, and it jets bubbles when starting back up. It’s made it so I do t bother with a feed mode when feeding. Anyone else experience this?

I should probably just connect my Octo8 pump to the apex, so I can dial the flow way back rather than turn it off altogether..

I don’t turn off my return pumps either. System is too big and I don’t want to go through the restart and the bubbles. I have a roller mat so I turn that off along with my skimmer for 30 minutes. Plus any excess that might get into the overflow will get recirculated back to the tanks or end up in my RDSB and feed the critters in there.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I leave mine continuous as i have fish everywhere and the type of pump i use, its not the one you want to turn on and off
Very little to no food gets away

 

[Crotalus]

I will usually turn the power heads off but keep the return pump going. I put half the food in and let them eat it until the point it all is gone or settled to the bottom. I then add the second half of the food. Once that is gone or settled at the bottom, I put on one power head that lifts everything off the sand bed and back into the water column. After about five minutes I put on the second power head. Not sure if this is ideal, but its been working so far for me

I do the opposite. Keeping the return pumps going encourages the food to go down the overflows into the filtration. I turn off the return pump and keep the power heads on. This keeps the food suspended where the fish can easily see it. After a very few minutes the food is gone and I turn the returns back on.

 

[Tastee]

I use an Apex feed cycle with Alexa integration ‘Alexa, tell Apex Fusion to feed the fish’. The standard fish cycle turns the wavemakers off for 5 minutes and the return off for 8 minutes. On my larger tank the COR-20 return then ramps up over a minute and avoids the bubbles. On the smaller one I can’t ramp the return so it just goes on and I get microbubbles for a couple of minutes, no issue. Probably does a bit to clean the water. I find having the wavemakers turn back on before the returns spark the fish into active feeding mode again to clean up the scraps.

When I feed Reef Roids etc I use a longer return and wavemaker off period to give the corals more time to have their meal.

 

[Dragon52]

Even though I have sinking pellets & feed Frozen if I turned my pump off then my bottom feeders wont get any food because the Tangs, dwarf Angels & my Blue Throat Trigger would eat it all.

 

[hyprc]

I don't turn any of my pumps off (my fish are used to feeding with full flow and have their favorite spots to intercept the pellets). If I do, they act dumb and let it fall to the sand for the CUC to clean up. Nothing goes down the overflow (again, feeding NLS pellets here and sometimes flake) as long as it breaks the surface tension (I could buy a feeding ring but I'm cheap/lazy and don't want the extra clutter).

 

[Eric Miller]

I have 4 wrasses that act like they never have eaten a day in their life. (frenzy) doesn't have a chance to go over or sink to the bottom.

 

[YankeeTankee]

I don’t like turning off my return pump unless I have to.. the sump fills, probes get fully submerged, and it jets bubbles when starting back up. It’s made it so I do t bother with a feed mode when feeding. Anyone else experience this?

I should probably just connect my Octo8 pump to the apex, so I can dial the flow way back rather than turn it off altogether..

should the probes not be fully submerged? Is that a problem?

 

[BobT]

return off power heads on = fish eat moving food and very little waste in sump socks!

 

[Calm Blue Ocean]

Depends what I'm feeding. For pellets I leave everything on and drop the food into a feeding ring. I find the ring keeps it safe from the filtration long enough that it starts to sink and then all the flow can circulate it around the tank for everyone to chase (they all seem to prefer moving food). If I'm feeding frozen I turn everything off and target feed to make sure everyone gets their share of the good stuff. Anything left in the cup I dump in and turn the pumps back on so again it can swirl around for anyone still hungry to chase and what they don't want can get cleaned up by the filter.

 

[mucky1957]

God no...leave everything running..

 

[2BeAlive]

Is there a different approach in terms of circulation when feeding coral food to when feeding fish food?

Will the corals open and/or stay open and/or get food if the circulation is stopped completely?

 

[KellyCorals]

I don’t like turning off my return pump unless I have to.. the sump fills, probes get fully submerged, and it jets bubbles when starting back up. It’s made it so I do t bother with a feed mode when feeding. Anyone else experience this?

I should probably just connect my Octo8 pump to the apex, so I can dial the flow way back rather than turn it off altogether..

I agree with you, I don’t turn off my return pump ever unless I’m doing a water change. Every time I do turn it off and then back on it seems to suck up “trash” from the sump and send it flying around the tank on start up. Doesn’t seem to affect anything (That I can tell but danger in a tank is almost always invisible) but I don’t think it’s a good thing. I need to invest in a Bluetooth return pump so I can dial it back when needed. I do turn off the reef wave 45 when feeding the fish and corals tho because it just sends the food flying everywhere, but my fish do seem to enjoy chasing the food from the return pump flow. Spot feeding the corals is a bit hard with the return pump going so that will be my next investment along with a bigger sump.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I don't turn off anything. I figure if they have to chase food in nature, they can do it in my tank too.

 

[LOWRY_PT]

No I use Mobius.

Can you elaborate on that and ... how you have your pumps programmed? I have 2 mp10 now for my 22 long. One on end facing long ways and other is on other end back wall (drain is on other side wall. Over flow

 

[AlgaeBarn]

It honestly depends what I am feeding. For corals using pellets, i shut flow off, if feeding fish i do not. Dosing something like AB+ i shut off return but not my mp40. ~Shaun K

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

Can you elaborate on that and ... how you have your pumps programmed? I have 2 mp10 now for my 22 long. One on end facing long ways and other is on other end back wall (drain is on other side wall. Over flow

Certainly.

I have pumps on opposite sides of the tank, similar to you except I don't have to compete with an overflow. The opposing pumps are set to a parent/child configuration in anti sync. The parent programmed to gyre @ 40% 10m 0s. Meaning while one pump is flowing 40% for 10 minutes the other is idling, after 10 minutes they switch.

During the feeding scene the pumps are programmed to Feed mode at 50%.

Hopefully that's what you wanted to know.

 

[Kris 2020]

I

I don’t like turning off my return pump unless I have to.. the sump fills, probes get fully submerged, and it jets bubbles when starting back up. It’s made it so I do t bother with a feed mode when feeding. Anyone else experience this?

I should probably just connect my Octo8 pump to the apex, so I can dial the flow way back rather than turn it off altogether..

only turn off my gyres when I feed. I let my return pump run, I don’t even shut it off for water changes. I use a fish feeder that lets the food loose several inches beplow the surface so it doesn’t go down the return.

 

[Pistondog]

Using apex feed mode
Press feed mode a
Return pump, skimmer and powerheads off, fish know whats next!
Apply food
Wait 10 minutes
Powerheads on, stirring up any food on surfaces, fish get 2nd chance
Wait 10 minutes
Return pump on
Wait 1 minute
Skimmer on.
Feed mode b, same except apex auto feeder on for a rotation at apply food. For remote feeding.