Live Zooplankton vs Cyclop-Eeze

[frankdontsurf]

I do weekly water changes, 10-20%.

I use SeaChem 'Balance' once in a while. I'll throw a cap in my top-off jug, takes about 5 days to use.. For some reason I'm at 7.8-7.9 never 8.1 not that important but I wanted to mention what I'm throwing in my tank.

I add Calcion to my water, 2-3mL every other day keeps me in the mid 400's otherwise I drop to the mid-high 300's (ever since I added coral).

I have a Red Dragonet that eats frozen so I don't feel I need to go on the huge mission for housing pods. I have a 10 gallon tank I do manual top offs to twice daily. I can't see myself having a pod farm/tank.

For nutrition I alternate between Dr G's Mysis & Brine (both say gut loaded), I plan to add a different frozen food (Krill?) soon just because I think variety is important. All these little f*****s love brine though - I know I know.

I'm adding SeaChem 'Fuel' to my regimen this week but...For my corals and small inverts I hear I also need Zooplankton, I can obtain this live and locally for about $5 per 500mL, or I can just buy Cyclop-Eeze which seems to be popular online. Thoughts? Suggestions? Concerns?

 

[frankdontsurf]

Bump...

 

[Craig Borowski]

I'm not sure what would be in the live zooplankton you get locally, but I think the Cyclopeeze would probably be just as good. Many have great success feeding zoanthids mini-mysis or generic frozen coral foods. To be perfectly honest, it really doesn't make much of a difference. Crushed up goldfish food dissolved in water works pretty well, too. As long as you can see a feeding response (polyps close up when hit with the food) then it's fairly safe to say the polyps are getting nutrition from it.

In short, it sounds like you are feeding your tank a large enough variety of foods to not worry too much about what to feed the zoanthids. Good water flow, good lighting and good water chemistry are really all you need to be concerned with and it sounds like you already have those bases covered.