What's your bioload? I've had a 12 gallon nano with one clown, plenty of coral, one cleaner shrimp, and a very large anemone in mine for almost 4 years. I've done maybe 3 water changes in all of that time. I make my own ice cubes with a very nice assortment of goodies for my tank and I feed one ice cube a day. I also feed my anemone about 1/2 a silverside 2 times a week. Everyone is fat and sassy, growing very nicely and all I do is add r/o water. I top the tank off every day so my salinity stays in check. I haven't had any kind of algae outbreak in over 2 years. I clean my glass maybe once a month. My growth is spectacular. Cut back your bioload and you can probably drastically cut back your water changes.
Is it safe to change water oftenly?
- Thread starter NanoCube-boy
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NanoCube-boy
New member
Well, i feed my whole tank two flakes every four days, i feed my sun coral daily with two cubes of mysis, i feed 1ml of the tank phytoplankton once a week.
wow... In my opinion, your sun coral is eating way more than necessary. Can't you dilute about 1/4 of a cube in r/o water and use a turkey baster to feed with? Just use the baster and spray the mysis/water around the coral and it should eat and retract just fine. Not every polyp needs to get that much food every day. I had a beautiful sun coral and a flower pot. I fed both of them like this daily until I got tired of the maintenance for them. I gave them to a friend of mine that just got into it. Is anyone else out there a slave to their sun coral like this? Has anyone else had good success with much smaller portions mixed with water and a turkey baster? It's no wonder you have to do so many water changes..... wow.... that's a lot of food for a 12 gallon nano.
NanoCube-boy
New member
How many gallon was your tank when you have your Sun Coral? How much do you think I should feed my sun coral?
Mine was also in my 12 gallon nano. I fed about 1/4 cube of mysis or a conconction of other stuff including brine, blood worms, chopped up silversides or something like that. Whatever concoction I fed them was always equal to about 1/4 cube of mysis daily. I just dissolved it in r/o water and squirted around the polyps and made the sun coral actually work for them a little, and it really did well. I rarely actually fed the individual polyps. I know you're supposed to, but really in the wild, who feeds them daily... nobody. They actually have to work for it a little in the wild, so I went with that theory. They learned quickly that they would have to work for it because my clown is a hog.... and would eat much more than the sun coral. They're so beautiful though with such vibrant color. I fed phyto regularly too though. The phyot was more for my flower pot which was right beside it than for the sun coral, but my friend that has the sun coral feeds phyto too. Now he feeds more for the feather dusters, but has noticed that when he feeds the phyto the sun coral really likes it too. I'm sorry about all of this.... I'm not trying to get you to change whatever is working for you. I just also have a 12 gallon nano and have had it for 4+ years, and I never do water changes. I probably wouldn't enjoy this hobby half as much if I had to be a water changing slave. By the way...Your pictures are great and your nano looks beautiful.
NanoCube-boy
New member
Do you feed your Sun Coral daily? how much water did you diluted it?
I don't have the sun coral anymore. I did feed it daily and it was very happy about it. I just diluted the mysis with very little water, maybe about 1/4 cup of just r/o water or sometimes if my nano needed to be topped off, then I'd dilute it in however much water I needed to add back in. Then I just used the turkey baster all around it until all the mysis water was in the tank.
NanoCube-boy
New member
i see. thank you.
