I'm continuing to get really extravagant growth with (admittedly easy) euphyllias, which have taken over my tank. The curious thing is---they're continuing to double every few months despite a period when, due to a serious illness in-house, I couldn't spare more than a minute to feed and no time for maintenance for 6 months.
This should have spelled, if not disaster, at least a slow growth; but they go like mad.
So I asked myself what I was doing. 1. I drip kalk, and that never stops, so they have plenty of mg and cal. 2. I had no time to get to the lfs to get proper food, so I took my koi pond krill, ground it up in a mortar, and threw it in once daily, thus feeding both corals and fish. 3. even the 4 popped heads that have been floating around since my tanksitter had an issue regrew skeleton and became new corals. That's it.
Then when the crisis eased and somebody asked me how I got popped heads to regrow---I got to looking at what I was doing---which was not much; but I got to looking at the effect of missing water changes, and what I'm feeding: notably---the nutritional content of krill. Selenium, boron, all those micro nutrients that a salt mix supplies, in a balance equal to what the major food source in the ocean contains.
I just offer this for two reasons, one, that it's odd, and might offer another insight into how the ocean distributes food---ie, what's coming directly from the water and what's coming in via consumption of fish who've consumed krill; and two, that it's not a bad regimen for somebody who's broken an arm, run into a crisis of some kind where they can't properly care for their tank. Euphyllias are sort of like green star polyp in some regards---grows like mad; but they sure didn't take any damage from the situation. Neither did my fish. I now add other foods, because my fish appreciate it and I think variety is better for them. But I continue the ground krill, every few days.
This should have spelled, if not disaster, at least a slow growth; but they go like mad.
So I asked myself what I was doing. 1. I drip kalk, and that never stops, so they have plenty of mg and cal. 2. I had no time to get to the lfs to get proper food, so I took my koi pond krill, ground it up in a mortar, and threw it in once daily, thus feeding both corals and fish. 3. even the 4 popped heads that have been floating around since my tanksitter had an issue regrew skeleton and became new corals. That's it.
Then when the crisis eased and somebody asked me how I got popped heads to regrow---I got to looking at what I was doing---which was not much; but I got to looking at the effect of missing water changes, and what I'm feeding: notably---the nutritional content of krill. Selenium, boron, all those micro nutrients that a salt mix supplies, in a balance equal to what the major food source in the ocean contains.
I just offer this for two reasons, one, that it's odd, and might offer another insight into how the ocean distributes food---ie, what's coming directly from the water and what's coming in via consumption of fish who've consumed krill; and two, that it's not a bad regimen for somebody who's broken an arm, run into a crisis of some kind where they can't properly care for their tank. Euphyllias are sort of like green star polyp in some regards---grows like mad; but they sure didn't take any damage from the situation. Neither did my fish. I now add other foods, because my fish appreciate it and I think variety is better for them. But I continue the ground krill, every few days.
