Flake food or Frozen food? insight please

[gavin123]

Which fish food has the most phosphates when introduced to the tank. whether it's been consumed or not. What do you guys recommend especially brands and amount of food per day.

i use frozen cubes twice a week and a moderate pinch of flake food per day.

my tank includes: 37 gallon cube and 20g sump asm g1x
15 hermits
8 snails
large six line wrasse
blue tang
clown
shrimp

what food would introduce less phosphates/nitrates into my tank?
i've been getting a film of algae on teh glass everyday, i'm trying to solve the problem step by step.

gavin

 

[boxfishpooalot]

all food contains nitrate/phosphate after they are broken down by bacteria. Its what makes up organic materials.

some frozen supermarket seafood shrimp contains excessive liquid phosphate sprayed on to preserve it.

Im not sure about frozen foods. Just rinse the food under ro/di water and your set to go.

Vitamin c degrades easer when exposed to air, so flake food may contain less. Frozen might be better because of this.

 

[gavin123]

so you recomend that we should use frozen food.

 

[WarrenG]

With frozen food, you need to rinse it so that all that goes in the tank is edible, not the liquid that won't get eaten (unless you think you're feeding corals). Rinsing will greatly reduce the wasteful amounts of phosphate going in.

With dry food you need to insure that all of it gets eaten and if it's floating around the tank this is likely, but pay close attention. Shrimps are good at finding the leftovers. I've seen a few pellets of Formula One and Two around for an hour or more, and then gobbled up.

"All you can do is all you can do."

 

[kelled2]

is algae a bad thing????? I think it is a sign of a healthy tank. if your tank is healthy you are going to have some, where am I wrong

 

[outy]

algae is a sign of to many phosphates and nitrates nutrients ect. good clean water = no algae

algae is a pain unless its in your fuge so yes its a bad thing

 

[gavin123]

colors tend to be brighter in corals with less phosphates and nitrates.

 

[DrBegalke]

I like New Life Spectrum pellets. My phosphate is zero, but I also have a fuge.

 

[LFS_worker]

Flake foods are extremely high in Phosphates check out the reef chemistry forum and then follow that links to chemistry articles read the one on "phosphates in a reef". or just see these:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-09/rhf/index.php
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2002/chem.htm

Feed frozen and rinse it well.

Just keep in mind what outy is saying is in regards to nusiance algae, not all algae is bad but that is getting way off topic.
Brian

 

[bkbailes07]

is there a type of flake food that does not have phosphate in it? i belive i heard something about it once but not 100% sure

 

[DesertBandits]

I like to feed both to my fish. I feed dry food (formula 2 flake) because dry food has alot more calories in it than frozen brine which is mostly water weight. Also its much eazier than defrosting food everytime. The only reason I feed frozen brine is for my mandarin, she won't eat dry food, and the other fish love it too.

It doesn't seem to me like you are feeding too much, It is just that you have alot of light going into your tank in a spectrum algaes like (your tank could be bluer which would encourage algae less). The tanks that i've seen with high light and were spotless for weeks in a row had 20k bulbs, while at the same time had refugiums with very red bulbs (6500k) which encouraged nutrients to export into the refugium rather than into the display.

 

[Snarkys]

I personally use frozen in my reef systems and pellet in my fish only systems.

 

[gavin123]

i have a refugium. with a 6500k light on top. i think my bulb is low and i have a high bio load.

gavin

 

[skeeter_ca]

Algae is just a fact of life in reef tanks and cannot be eliminated by nutrient import. If it's just the algae your worried about I would bump up your snail count and that will help. I like the small astrea snails. They don't mow down the rocks. I usually have about 1 per gallon. but that's just me.That's why there called the cleanup crew.

aquadw