NPC tank - constant feeding, other questions ? NPC owners please all chime in

[proenca]

Hi there,

Bit of introduction : I have been "reefing" for well, over 10 years.

Well, did the softie route, then lately had a 350g tank with the usual massive SPS and reef tech yadadada.

Well, I had to move countries and a 350g aind exactly a portable thing. Sold the tank and since I never knew exactly where I would go land next, I was tankless for well, last 6 years or so.

Now, I settled for good and bought a Red Sea Max 130d to cure the "fix".

Mainly a softie / LPS tank ( which is what I like, I got tired of the coloured sticks as I call SPS ) and all doing great.

But I'm going to do a house move and I got my eyes on a wall to do a 150g or some sorts reef tank and I would like to convert the Red Sea Max 130D for a NPC tank, which to be honest, I find the most gorgeous tanks ever - plus its a new "discipline" and SPS are sooooooo 80's. I find it very challenging which, well after 15 years of your first reef its hard to come by.

Been reading a lot and got a few questions :

- RSM is 40g total volume, is it ok or its too small ?
- Im ready to install a Vortech if necessary, to increase water movement ( currently at 20x )
- tank has a upgraded skimmer ( Tunze 9002, rated for 65 g ) and Chiller ( 1/10hp )
- lights is 2 x 55w ( both are 50/50 ). should I replace for 1 x full actinic and leave one 50/50 ?

now my main question :

is it possible to dose, via peralistic pump, lets say 4 types of food ( 4 peralistic pumps ), continously to the tank ? or even with the constant dosing, you have to target feed some corals ?

Can't find much info on this regard.

Also, is the skimmer ok for this ? The RSM doesnt have a sump and its virtually a pain to install one ( back chamber where an overflow would be installed is constantly changing its level, making an overflow difficult ) , and the options for replacing the stock skimmer are pretty much two, the Tunze being one of the best.

My worries with the Skimmer is that since I would be constantly feeding ( lets say a few ml per hour ) I would need a good skimmer to provide good water quality.

Still in terms of target feeding, my plans are to do pretty much like Merriqs tank ( what an inspiration that thing !) and do two distinct areas : one with Tubastreas and one with Dendroneptheas on the other side, with a few gorgoneas here and there.

Will these need target feeding if I have a few pumps periodically pumping food to the aquarium ? would I need to do target feeding daily in this case ?

Best regards to all

 

[uhuru]

The Dendronephthya will be your biggest challenge, as you probably know. They make keeping many of the NPS gorgs seem easy.

Constant dosing is a great idea. I use a programmable syringe pump in a little cooler. No clogging, and you can run very thick, concentrated solutions. A nano tank works great because its easier to achieve the proper food concentration, and its easier/cheaper to do water changes, which you can expect to do twice a week or more to keep Dendronephthya happy. I dose 50mL/day of Shellfish Diet/Roti-Feast/Oyster Feast mix into a 20g tank! Add to this I use an automatic feeder to add dry FM products throughout the day, and target feed the gorgs when I feed the fish and Tubastrea. The Dendronephthya so far are doing great, but the Scleronephthya not so great for some reason. Non-photo gorgs also doing great.

For flow you need a lot, so yeah get that extra vortech.

Check out the May/Jun 2009 issue of Coral Magazine. Great article on a non-photo tank. 20% water changed daily!

 

[Aquabacs]

Believe it or not NPC are a lot easier to keep than most think. Treat the aquarium with the same husbandry as you would with a SPS aquarium and keep the water clear (not to green) and you will be fine. Actually it is easier than SPS because you are not having to worry so much of calcium and alk.

For constant feeding, stick with a Fishmate Automatic feeder and Fauna Marin UltraClam & UltraSea Fan. That will help for feeding most sea fans. For your size tank, 1/4 teaspoon in each compartment shoud be enough. In addition feeding of frozen cyclops & rotifers every other day. Try to keep to the larger polyp gorgs before venturing into keeping the the smaller. Swiftia exserta is one of the easier to start out wth. Any section that shows recession, target feed consistantly and it will grow back. (gorgs are also phosphate forgiving. If you run you phosphates high there are no real issues but keep your water clear)

For Dendronephthya, honestly, if you are willing to put the time in and dedication into their care go for it. Otherwise if you are not, dont do it. Even the best of reef keepers hav not been able to keep these corals for any long period of time. (question of the corals life cycle also comes into play)

For Tubastreas, its a mixed bag. It all depends on the specimin. Once you get most of the heads to open they are realitively easy to keep from there. If you have a coral that will not open, it can be difficult, depending how long the coral has been stresses or starved (there is an article recently added to this forum regarding suns to this forum...check it out)

There are also other non-photosynthetic coras that are extremely easy to keep (as long as you feed them) Rhizotrochus typus (not technically legal to buy but they are often for sale), Balanophyllia, Dendrophyllia corals.

Mike

 

[aninjaatemyshoe]

I dose 50mL/day of Shellfish Diet/Roti-Feast/Oyster Feast mix into a 20g tank! Add to this I use an automatic feeder to add dry FM products throughout the day, and target feed the gorgs when I feed the fish and Tubastrea.

Dear lord! How did you determine that you need to dose so much? I have to say that I'm impressed that you're managing to keep your tank stable with such a regimen. I'm basically doing the same thing you are with syringe pumps, except with not nearly as much SD or RF dosed per day. I'm slowly increasing the amount I dose - right now I'm at 3mL of SD and 3mL of RF each day. However, I'm not keeping any non-photo softies, except for a Studeriotes, which I don't believe to be nearly as demanding as dendros or scleros. I'm dosing primarily to boost the tank fauna, such as copepods, amphipods, etc. Have you noticed a significant population of these guys? I would have to assume that is the case.

Have you considered using a feeding scheme that places the food directly upstream of the coral you want to feed, as opposed to a catch-all system of trying to match some density of food in your tank at all times? This is a scheme I intend to try. Basically, I'll have the output from the syringe pump go directly to one of my Tunze pumps that is sitting directly upstream of a coral I intend to feed; in this case I think I'm going to try a Sclero. That way, I might not have to waste so much food. After all, with the general "broadcast" dosing scheme, most of it will be lost to the substrate and filtration. Obviously, the major limitation to this is when you have several non-photo corals you want to feed in this manner.