My feeding regimen... critique pls

[jamesbaur13]

Thanks for viewing this... I'll try to best describe what inhabitants I have, how much I feed and please let me know how it can be improved upon.

I have been struggling with nitrates since the tank has been set-up (5ppm). I think i'm not overfeeding... I feed them well, but they consume it quick.

First off it's a 120g display with 40g breeder sump and 10g devoted to refugium (around 150g complete).

Fish:

3.5" Chevron Tang
3" Powder Blue Tang
2.75" Melanurus Wrasse
2.75" Solar Wrasse
2.5" Bartlett Anthias (male)
2.25" Royal Gramma Basslett
2" Ocellaris Clownfish (female)
2" Flame Hawkfish
1.75" Ocellaris Clownfish (male)
1.5" Longfin Fairy Wrasse (male)
1.5" Bartlett Anthias (female)

For these guys I feed...
-2 mid sized pinches of 1mm spectrum pellets + a 1x3" strip of green algae 7AM
- when i get home... a full cube of mysis (hikari) + a chunk of rods fish only that is approx 1/3 the size of the cube (soaked in selcon) 5PM
- a couple hrs later in give them a 1x3" strip of brown (ON) algae 8PM

Corals/Anemone

2 Dendro sm. colonies -1" heads x4 / 1/2" x2, 1/4 x4
Suncoral - approx 60 heads... 3" wide by 5" long
4" dia anemone

I feed my suncoral in a small container and I use 2 selcon soaked mysis cubes. The leftovers are siphoned out of the container and used to feed the dendros... i do this every other day.

The anemone... I feed him sallys silversides. I give him approx 4 1/4x1.5" pieces every 3rd day.

 

[NeilFox]

Sounds good to me. Your anemone is a big eater, lol. How are the NPS working out? That is quite a large colony!

 

[jamesbaur13]

The suncoral is doing great.

I am very happy someone suggested the idea of removing the suncoral and placing him in a container to feed him. He really does well with that. I used an old butter container that has been thoroughly washed out. I wedge the container between the lid of the tank and the rim of the aquarium... keeping the containers water level even with the tanks water level. That way the temp always stays the same with the tank. I basically baste him like a turkey with mysis shimp via a turkey baster.

I've had him approx 1.5 months... he's slowly starting to come out during the fish feedings. I'm hoping to eventually get him trained so I can feed him without removing him, and that he'll stay out more during the evenings while lights are still on.

This is him when I first got him. I need to update his pic, he's feeding a lot more aggressively now... extends more of his polyps a lot more readily as soon as food hits the water.

 

[NeilFox]

Wow, nice coral. I would live to get some NPS in the future but I work offshore and I can't see my wife hand feeding. NPS is nby far bthe most demanding in my book, great job!!

 

[jamesbaur13]

Yeah, there's no doubt... the feedings make them difficult.

In a tank that's solely dedicated to nps it wouldn't be too bad, but in most tanks there's too many thieves.

 

[mil hse]

Your feeding sounds good. I found a while back that rinsing my mysis shrimp before soaking helped my tank. Not sure if it was just the batch I got or what but it helped me. I use PEmysis btw

 

[Peter Eichler]

You could probably be a little less worried about how much your feeding and even feed your fish a little heavier (if you want) as well as drop your nitrates further by getting the next size skimmer up. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're doing as long as your fish seem fat and healthy.