How long without feeding RBTA?

[opiumpipez]

i will be in Hawaii for 9 days and i was wondering if 9 days without silversides, mysis and brine an RBTA can go?

i will feed my rbta right before i leave for hawaii but i am a little concerned.

has anyone had experience with this?

 

[Slakker]

The BTA will likely be just fine as long as other parameters in the tank stay constant.

 

[opiumpipez]

params should be pretty stable over my vacation unless osmething goes horribly wrong

thanks!

 

[Lance M.]

It would be fine like Tyler says, as long as the water params are stable.

Do you have timers for your lights? I would make sure they are set and I'd check the water params before I left to make sure they're good and I would do a water change before I left. JMO

 

[opiumpipez]

im ahead of you..already did a 20g water change and almost everything is on a timer.

just want to make sure before a venture off!

thanks for the responses.

 

[seapug]

If you have adequate light (looks like you do), you really shouldn't be feeding your anemone more than once every week or so, regardless.

I know the big trend nowadays is to dump massive amounts of goop and food into your tank, but the most "successfull" anemone keepers I've seen don't target feed their anemones more than once/month, if at all. A week without food will probably make your anemone (and whole tank) healthier than it's ever been.

 

[opiumpipez]

interesting comment...i only feed my rbta once a week (one piece of silversides).

anemone is extremely healthy but i wonder if i should feed once every two weeks or even longer.

 

[seapug]

People have a lot of strong feelings on this topic, but in my opinion, feeding anemones (and reef tanks in general) is all about a balance between nutritional health and environmental health. As rather delicate, photosynthetic creatures, corals and anemones are more probably demanding in terms of their environment than what's in their bellies. Plus, once a tank is healthy and well maintained for a year so so they start self-generating a lot food via natural stability of bio-diversity and microfauna populations. Sure, feeding/eating is great and can improve growth, but a degraded environment isn't. Not to mention, most clownfish feed their host anemones when they get fed... at least mine do.

Someone can probably post a link to the thread here about the huge RBTA colony tank. I think he said he only target feeds once/month at most.