Automated Semi-Constant Feeding

[huntinweim]

Since most things on a reef in the wild have food available almost constantly would the same be beneficial for captive specimens? I see a few drawbacks mostly being waste and water quality.

But here's what I had in mind...

Set up a system so that you can "dose" several different food types into a tank at given intervals throughout the day. Using several outputs for each type of food (phytoplankton, zooplankton, rotifers or whatever) that will release small amounts of food through out the day so there is always food available to inverts or whatever.

Would this recreate a more natural feeding cycle much like tides bringing in fresh nutrients at different points of the day???

 

[Valab]

Post picts if you ever get such a system up and running.

 

[Grym]

I would like to bounce some ideas around for that too. I'm setting up a 210 gallon with lots of micro algae macro algae and inverts, sand sifters and grammus and copepods. Was thinking about a drip of micro algae and a flake feeder. How do you automate feeding for a large tank?

 

[huntinweim]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12766644#post12766644 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Grym
I would like to bounce some ideas around for that too. I'm setting up a 210 gallon with lots of micro algae macro algae and inverts, sand sifters and grammus and copepods. Was thinking about a drip of micro algae and a flake feeder. How do you automate feeding for a large tank?

I was thinking of using some type of dosing pump or something similiar and a timer/contoller to control.

 

["Umm fish?"]

The real issue is keeping chilled food from rotting before it gets fed to the tank. So....

My idea would be to use a mixture of _very_ finely blended foods. Enough for one day placed with saltwater in a kalkwasser stirrer that's inside a refrigerator. Run a line from the stirrer to a peristaltic pump that moves the food to the tank.

Good luck! I want pictures, too!

 

[EnderG60]

there was an artical on someone that did this on his big(1000+g) tank and noted that the nitrates as well as fish aggession went down and growth and color increased.

All the while the overall food volume being put in the tank was increased nearly 50% but added in smaller amounts about every 15 min if i remember correctly.

This is on my list of things to do for my next tank(low on the list but on it)

I was planning to use a mini fridge with a 5g bucket in it attached to a dosing pump on a timer. And some way of keeping the bucket stirred, be it a small power head or a rotating bar.

 

[LNell]

If you want to feed live foods (one way to make sure the food doesn't spoil), this would be a pretty good idea:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-07/nftt/index.php

 

["Umm fish?"]

I've thought about that geosapper before. That looks like a monstrous PIA to keep clean. But, I think that it's a great idea if you can keep the tanks fairly separate.

 

[LNell]

Yeah, I could see that being a problem. I like that you get all three types of food in one feeding. I would also make the brine shrimp portion larger to hopefully make it more self-sustaining without having to add cultures to it periodically.

 

[humbugy]

I saw something about this not to long ago, I poked around but I couldnt find it, he had used insulated water coolers to hold phytoplancton (the concentrated stuff) and another one for baby brine shrimp or rotifiers, cant quite remember, and it involved chiilers, timers and dosing pump on a non-photo syntethic reef, it was really interesting, wish I could remember were I saw it.