Ok, I want to write some reply to all the questions:
General:
- for me the water values for NO3 and PO4 are not so important because I never could realize that the gorgonians showed “bad reaction†with high values (NO3 up to 100 mg/L and PO4 up to 2 mg/l) and this for more than 1 year (in my old tank) â€"œ please notice that these comments are for gorgonians only, not for Dendronepthea (I have no experience with it)
- important is only to reduce the “yellow water†â€"œ I use ozone continuous and every week 1 big cup charcoal
- I change every week 10% of water with Red Sea Coral pro (some time also Reef Crystal salt)
- flow is for me most important, I would say more than food (especially Acalyc.-gorgia), at the moment I run the system with appr. 100 times tank circulation per our hour but my feeling is: It could be more! So I bought already one more bigger pump that I can increase to 120 times circulation per hour
- A “wild†gobie also helps to keep some dust/food in the water column.
- Less light is also helpful because some gorgonians tent to get covered with algae very easy, I use 4x24W in my tank.
Food:
I don’t use the food mix that Alcoy posted here from another old tread (translation from German forum). I stopped dosing a paste made of food, aminos and so on. I realized that I have better results when I dose the pure food, only from time to time I add some amino/fatty acid to the food. I could see also that if the size of the food becomes too small the gorgonians starve. My mixture consists UltraminF & Clam, Ultra Seafan, Time food 1, Spirulina algae and Cyclop eeze. Ultramin F and Seafan is the biggest part of mixture, Cyclop Eeze (very less) I add only because the fans open faster with this food. Every evening I add one cube of lobster eggs to the tank.
Since one week I add oyster feast and phyto feast to tank but until today I didn’t see any changes so I do not want to comment it at the moment. The “very good†reaction posted from Danny I couldn’t realize until now â€"œ but I think it is to early to make a real comment.
Auto Feeder:
I wrote that I use a modified Eheim Twin feeder. I disconnected the internal control unit and connected the motor drive directly to an external time controller with impulse logic. So I can run the feeder for e few seconds only and dose very less food. I dose (I guess) 20 times per day food for 5 seconds. The food I add short before my return pump in the tank sump â€"œ so it get mixed very well with the water and the distribution in the tank is good. To avoid blocking of food I use a high technology vibration device! It is a small (4x4 cm) fan (from pc main board) that I clued at the side of the feeder. Than I fixed a small nut at one wing of this fan â€"œ therefore it results an imbalance. So if the fan is running a vibration of the feeder can be monitored. Without this device it is not possible to dose that small amount of food (because food doesn’t fall down from screw feeder, it clues at the casing…).
Trace element:
Somebody asked for trace elements or iodine: I add from time to time some trace elements (FM) but not regularly and I add in the morning and evening 2 drops (each) of iodine mix from QFI to the tank.
I hope that’s enough for the moment. It seems to be not very “special†but it works fine for me. As I said already â€"œ flow is very important.
Best regards
Marcus
