Food recipes

[nickp87]

Hi All, new to this section of the forum.

I am currently setting up a small (55ltr) NPS system and would love some help with a decent food recipe

The tank will start with a few suns which i am confident with but the plan is to mostly house seafans/gorgs.

I have seen danny dames recipe mentioned a lot but the links are no longer working, anyway my plans for feeding so far is to make a batch of food and freeze into test tubes with a hole drilled in the bottom and suspend in a holder over the tank to release food as it defrosts, can anyone see any major issues with this method ( i may try 24hr feeding methods at some point)

My list of foods so far is

Cyclop-eeze
Reef-roids
Ultra seafan
Ultra clam
Ultra min s
Ultra min f
roftifers which i will culture

Can anyone add any must have's to the list? i am in the UK so can't get some of the stuff you have in the US

Thanks

Nick

 

[nickp87]

Any input guys?

 

[noy]

55 litres is about 15 gallons - that's a very small system.

You may have issues with controlling phosphate levels but that's a different issue.

The foods really depend on the type of gorg/seafans you plan to keep.

I'm not sure you need all the different dried foods - just Reefroids, UM sea fan and maybe the UM clams may be sufficient. I really don't find the UM min foods do much more than reefroids. If you are getting a feed response from reefroids then I don't think you need all the other stuff.

Cyclopeez is a fairly "big" food and is appropriate for gorgs with larger polyps and capture capability - like diodogiorgia.

The only thing you may want to think about is something like oyster eggs- which is in the 1-200 micron range.

Live rotifers is good.

I would not suggest pre-mixing and freezing the dried foods - you can just get a feeder and put a powerhead underneath it to distribute the dried foods. I have an Apex Neptune controller and I use the AFS (Auto-Feeding System) to dump dried foods on a periodic basis. When the food is dumped I stop the return pumps and skimmer and let the foods whirl around for a bit. Once you mix this stuff it spoils fairly quickly. With a small system you can get saturation with a few squirts of a feeder - not really sure you want to bother with a continuous system.

 

[nickp87]

Thanks Noy, just the sort of info i needed

With regards to some of your points above, the system is indeed small and was a big concern of mine, i am hoping that skimming, phos remover and at least a 60-80% WC every week will help keep the water quality up, but i will monitor and change things as necessary.

Interesting info on the food, my huge list of foods is mostly from reading on here what other people feed, seems some people feed massive variety in there mixes, but i suppose that's why i am drawn to NPS as it is still very new and lots of experimentation.

With the dry foods, would you just mix up they diff foods and chuck in the auto feeder?

Thanks again and any other tips guys?

 

[noy]

Thanks Noy, just the sort of info i needed

With regards to some of your points above, the system is indeed small and was a big concern of mine, i am hoping that skimming, phos remover and at least a 60-80% WC every week will help keep the water quality up, but i will monitor and change things as necessary.

Interesting info on the food, my huge list of foods is mostly from reading on here what other people feed, seems some people feed massive variety in there mixes, but i suppose that's why i am drawn to NPS as it is still very new and lots of experimentation.

With the dry foods, would you just mix up they diff foods and chuck in the auto feeder?

Thanks again and any other tips guys?

Think most ppl use different foods as an insurance policy to make sure their gorgs are getting nutrients. No problem with that view. In my experience the different dried foods don't provide a lot of variety. The UM clam and seafan are clearly different formulations than reefroids. Like, if you wanted variety I would add brine nauplii instead of more dried foods.

When you get your livestock I would monitor what foods provide a feeding response. I have a thread on this.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2305738

I would monitor the phosphate situation. Gorg tanks are not like SPS tanks and you don't need SPS low nutrient levels. I think the key is watching algae growth which is death for the gorg as it can grow over healthy tissue and smother the gorg. My approach is to choke phosphate to near zero with GFO so I don't get algae growth. I don't really monitor nitrates at all.

Test the feeder out as it can dump copious amounts of food if you are not careful. Put a powerhead just under it so creates a bit of vortex in the water - this way the dry foods get sucked into the water. Otherwise it tends to float around on the surface.

 

[nickp87]

Noy excellent vids, and great info.

Going back over my feeding plans and after looking at some of your thread/vids i am thinking maybe target feeding even in my NPS only system may be the way to go, as it is only a 40cm cube stocking isn't going to be massive so will take little time and may help with keeping water quality up.

Nick