Fauna Marin foods, fresh, frozen or dry

[fullmonti]

I think I need to change my delivery of FM foods. I have been freezing cubes of the mix & putting them in my little one gal food reactor that has an ice probe & small pump. This mix is pumped into the tank over the course of the day. Some had said I might have some problem with the food breaking down, but there was never any smell & not much gunk build up. This worked well for a time, but my sps tank (part of same system) has started getting some algae, I haven't had in over a year & my carnations have not done well. I have started doing two 10% water changes a week (normally do one) & now dump unused food mix twice a day & put in fresh. While I have seen some good response this is to much of a pain to do permanently, so I need to change my system some how. I maybe could squeeze in a mini fridge but would have to do a lot of moving things around, & the ice probe in my food reactor keeps temp in low 40's so not much deference in temperature any way.

Two questions.

I now put refrigerated tank water in food reactor with FM cubes. Do you think it would make much difference if I used RO water instead?

How are you guys delivering your FM foods, dry, some kind of a fresh mix & delivery, or frozen cubes with what kind of delivery????

Sorry for long back ground, thought it would help.
Thanks
Jim

 

[uhuru]

Jim nothing has given me as good of a feeding response as mixing the FM foods and frozen foods together with water then dosing that into the tank. Nutrients are definitely an issue as is algae. I was just thinking yesterday that guys like you and slapshot REALLY have it tough. Our corals like the dirty juices from frozen foods, they like food that has been soaking in water for a while, but people trying to keep SPS hate that stuff because it causes nutrient issues.

I don't do any carbon dosing but I change 5% of the system volume DAILY, and I have a 40g fuge which grows algae and cyano like mad.

 

[slapshot]

Just skip the freezing process. Mix up enough and feed it into your tank. The advantage of the fridge is it keeps everything cool even the stuff sitting in the tubes waiting to be pushed to the tank.

The pollution thing is a problem in a mixed system. I am not really sure there is a way around that. I hope these pellets work. The science is correct. The other problem is most of the Azoox stuff enjoys the bacteria. Maybe more than the food. Up till now I have been changing water, a lot! Again, hoping the pellets lessen that.

 

[fullmonti]

slapshot when you say you mix & feed, do you feed that manually or with dosing type system?

Also thought about just manually dropping cubes in. Not continuous but pretty often. Any thoughts on that?

I already feed Reef Nutrition foods, some Brightwell filter feeder foods, & phyto manually.

 

[slapshot]

I use a dosing system but mix it all up. At one point I was using multiple dosing pumps but it was just easier to mix it up. I make up three days worth and let it fly. I feed hourly. In addition I feed manually Rods and cyclops alternating nights. Once a week live baby brine.

 

[fullmonti]

I have done some searches for a smaller mini fridge to do that very thing. There are a bunch of the portable type that cool or heat & wine coolers. Apparently they don't use a compressor system & only cool down in the 40s some where. Thought thats not any better than what I'm already doing. Any thoughts on those little portable fridges?

With sps there is a well established set of conditions to meet, & some established ways of getting there. While it's not always easy to get there at least you have a pretty good idea how to go about it. With nps it's more of a stab in the dark & see if there is any change. This would be my least favorite part of nps!

 

[Aquabacs]

Jim, use it dry, I believe Claude will agree with using his products in this manner. If you want to add the Reed's/Reef Nutrition continuous the I would go the refrigerated route. Don't feel that the dry administration of FM foods needs to be any more complicated than need be.

Mike

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[slapshot]

With sps there is a well established set of conditions to meet, & some established ways of getting there. While it's not always easy to get there at least you have a pretty good idea how to go about it. With nps it's more of a stab in the dark & see if there is any change. This would be my least favorite part of nps!

Amen!

 

[GreshamH]

I have done some searches for a smaller mini fridge to do that very thing. There are a bunch of the portable type that cool or heat & wine coolers. Apparently they don't use a compressor system & only cool down in the 40s some where. Thought thats not any better than what I'm already doing. Any thoughts on those little portable fridges?

With sps there is a well established set of conditions to meet, & some established ways of getting there. While it's not always easy to get there at least you have a pretty good idea how to go about it. With nps it's more of a stab in the dark & see if there is any change. This would be my least favorite part of nps!

I have posted on those units in the other thread.

Most of those are "cold wall" TEC technology which isn't the greatest. They also are effected by outside temps and if it's too hot out, their pull down really stinks.

 

[happysak]

I have posted on those units in the other thread.

Most of those are "cold wall" TEC technology which isn't the greatest. They also are effected by outside temps and if it's too hot out, their pull down really stinks.

Jim,

This is a reason why I went ahead and got me mini-fridge with compressor. Room gets pretty hot and humid. It holds 36-38 pretty easy in this room.

 

[fullmonti]

Aquabacs
I like the idea of using FM dry, but I mix a lot of their & other liquids in the mix & not sure how they would be delivered. Also they are so fine & sticky do they clump up in the feeder?

GreshamH
Figured the little units that would fit my space was to good to be true. Also do you think using RO water instead of tank water in food reactor would keep food from breaking down any?

 

[Aquabacs]

Jim, in the fishmate autofeeder there is some sticking of the Fauna Marin foods, but I clean it completely every three days. Just use caution when you do it, dropped one feeder in the tank by accident when the pins were not aligned in the base of it.

What liquid foods do you have in mind to use or using right now?

 

[fullmonti]

I include in the mix, FM organic, min S, min D, ultra bio & reefbooster. Also frozen oyster eggs & bunch of phyto. I pretty much went with the kitchen sink approach.

What I think I would most like to do is put the mix in a fridge in a nice glass easy to clean beaker with a magnetic stirrer. Using my same pump to pump a little in every 15 mins. Room & money being the two problems at the moment.

 

[uhuru]

don't be afraid to back off on the phyto, even completely stop it other than with ultra clam... same with the reefbooster... I will stop dosing phyto for weeks at a time. Actually its been over a month already. Try to document what is going on with your dendros if you can.

 

[fullmonti]

That's funny you say might back off phyto. I've been reading that most of the nps keepers dose a good bit of phyto of one kind or another. I know you said you had to back off the shellfish diet, which I believe is more or less a super type of phyto. But have been dosing another form of live phyto. But I can sure give it a try. My one remaining dendro perked up a bit when I started filling the food reactor twice a day, instead of only once a day, but just a bit still pretty limp.