Stop me before I sin.. again.

[LeftFootedJedi]

My 4 month old/20g AIO has two domino clowns, RG, YWG, 4 hermits & 2 Trochus snails. When I 1st my got my clowns 3 months ago my LFS suggested feeding them 1/4 a block (see attached) every other day & adding a few small algae pellets in between. They never accepted the algae pellets & literally just played with it so I stopped. A little bit later I added the RG & YWG and started adding a 1/4 cube of brine shrimp to my feedings.

Thinking everything was growing about a month ago I increased the feeding to 1/2 a cube every other day of mysis shrimp + 1/4 brine & while the fish happily ate everything I had a surge of algae & had to go dark for a week to get it under control.

My question is, when should I consider increasing the feeding dosage or frequency to avoid another glutinous mistake? All suggestions/comments are welcome.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

over feeding can be a direct reflection of increase nutrients is the tank. If the fish stops eating and the food is allowed to break down in the tank you will start to see elevated nitrates and phosphates. If you start to see those spike, then you may be feeding too much. But if on the other hand the tank water looks free of floating food 1-3 minute after feeding, then you might not be feeding enough.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

It was odd, my nitrates nor anything else spiked but I definitely had an algae bloom go nuts with a few days.
I understand it’s a delicate balance but I also don’t want to underfeed. I might just have to experiment a little & gradually increase it. Maybe 1/3 a cube every other day & play it by ear.

 

[Picasso Clown]

How’d you start up your tank and have you gone through the uglies yet? Ime, if the tank is cycled but there was never a large algae bloom then it’s gonna start happening when you feed the fish (and get fish) just up your feedings slowly (from 1/4 cube a day to maybe 1/2 a cube the next week or 1/4 cube plus some extras) getting some filter feeding corals to eat some of the particles will also help, bumping up your cuc with a shrimp is also a good idea to compensate for over feeding (had a fire shrimp for a year, he died from a bad molt and suddenly I had a huge algae problem)

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

I started my tank with dry rock, ghost fed for a few weeks then added Seachem Stability & later Turbostart. My uglies never got horrible, my metrics rose as predicted but didn’t go nuclear. The algae really didn’t get bad for another month after I increased the feedings as described above. Hell it looked worse recently after I moved my scape around & my nitrates went to 40PPM.

As for stock, I have a few coral frags (zoa, Xenia, GSP), and a medium sized Nasarrius snail (I forgot about him since he’s always under the substrate). I always liked the fire shrimp but was told a 20g is too small? If not that what other shrimp would be suitable? I like peppermint shrimp but it’s hit or miss if they’ll bother your coral.

 

[Gernader]

I started my tank with dry rock, ghost fed for a few weeks then added Seachem Stability & later Turbostart. My uglies never got horrible, my metrics rose as predicted but didn’t go nuclear. The algae really didn’t get bad for another month after I increased the feedings as described above. Hell it looked worse recently after I moved my scape around & my nitrates went to 40PPM.

As for stock, I have a few coral frags (zoa, Xenia, GSP), and a medium sized Nasarrius snail (I forgot about him since he’s always under the substrate). I always liked the fire shrimp but was told a 20g is too small? If not that what other shrimp would be suitable? I like peppermint shrimp but it’s hit or miss if they’ll bother your coral.

I have seen a few people have a fire shrimp in nano tanks. Have you checked out the cleaner shrimp? They are usually less shy than a fire shrimp.

 

[LeftFootedJedi]

If I were picking fire shrimp would be 1 & cleaner shrimp would be 2. I just want to be sure my tank is big enough. That might be a better question in the invertebrate section.

Either way I like the idea

 

[mann1139]

I use similar food, and for 4 small fish like that, I would feed 1/4 a cube at most. I feed 5 slightly larger fish 1/3 of a cube every other day.

Also, how big are those mysis pieces? I had one type of food where the chunks were too big for small fish.

 

[WiscoFishNut]

+1 for the scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp. I have one in my 7.5g nano cube and he does a fine job picking up the scraps. I love how pretty fire shrimp look, but they're so freakin reclusive unfortunately