nps maintenance costs??

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dingodan87

New member
im in the process of planning an nps/filter feeder tank, and the part im currently stuck on is choosing display tank size. the "bigger is better" rule may not be entirely true in a nps system, so id like to figure out what the general feeding and maintenance costs are so i can choose the largest tank i can afford to maintain. interested in what experienced nps keepers went through on food, water changes, gfo or other filter media, etc.
 
Non-photosynthetic gorgonians and "soft" corals (Dendronepthya spp., Scleronepthya spp., etc.) can become pricey to feed over time. I wouldn't consider maintenance costs much higher, if at all, than other well-kept reef aquariums.
 
yea the food and possibly gfo are my only real concerns. but it all adds up! read about one guy who spends $10 a day on food for his 185g nps reef. would like an idea of how much other people go through
 
I have 2 tanks

A mixed reef - that is fairly easy from the NPS side- there are thing I add because I have sps in there.

The 60 gallon cube is mostly gorgonians and Rhizos I would estimate in a given week I would use

1. close to 2/3 bottle of oyster feast ($25 per bottle)
2. About 15 percent of a small container of dry coral foods
3. 4 cubes of Mysis for the Rhizo's
4. 1/2 pack of frozen rotifers ($7 per pack)
5. 14 cubes of frozen plankton ($7 per pack of about 40)
6. 28 "squirts" of phyto - whatever that adds up to be

I also hatch brine and rotifers - these don't add much to the cost - although I'm expanding the rotifer operation a bit.

I add coral snow and this other Zeovit cyano additive to prevent cyano growth. I'm not sure if this actually does anything (I have no cyano though).

I dose iodine - one capful of the seachem stuff a week.

I probably use between 100mL to 200 mL of Rowaphos a week - this is an estimate.

Working on a LaCL reactor/sump to reduce eliminate Rowaphos use - but I just have too many projects on the go.

Bigger is not better. If you don't target feed you need to build up a concentration of foods to make sure the polyp capture feeders actually get food. This is hard to do in a larger tank.
 
im thinking of going with 75 gal with 40 gal sump. i really cant justify buying any smaller of a tank after 5 years of being stuck with a tiny 25g. i will be culturing my own phyto, rotifers and bbs to help with feeding costs
 
Noy... Just curious, on the 65 gallon, do you use a continuous feeding system or are you target feeding?
 
dingodan87 said:
im thinking of going with 75 gal with 40 gal sump. i really cant justify buying any smaller of a tank after 5 years of being stuck with a tiny 25g. i will be culturing my own phyto, rotifers and bbs to help with feeding costs
Click to expand...

75 is a nice size and probably on the large end. You need to get a saturation of foods in the tank to make sure the nps that rely on polyp capture of foods actually gets food. This will be hard to do in tanks larger than 75.
 
Fallling said:
Noy... Just curious, on the 65 gallon, do you use a continuous feeding system or are you target feeding?
Click to expand...

For the dry foods - i use a mix of reefroids, dried cyclopeez, FM seafan, zooplan etc... - i use an Apex AFS feed to dump quantities in regularly (every 2-3 hours depending on time of day).

For the frozen stuff i dump it all in 2x a day - that way the tank has a nice concentration of foods and i can be assure the foods are actually hitting the polyps of the corals.

Live BBS/Rotifers - once a day.
 
seems like theres 2 approaches to feeding; 1) heavy concentration of food followed by aggressive filtration. and 2) maintaining a constant food supply in aquarium. i wonder which is better? with 1 it could be beneficial for me to have a large sump and turn off return pump while feeding the back on after for diluting the food concentration
 
I'm not nearly as experienced as some of these guys, but have been doing a lot of research as my interest in NPS has been gaining. There are some NPS that you can get away with a concentrated feeding while others will need that continuous supply of food. I have purple menella gorgonian that I target feed a cocktail of frozen cylop-eeze, reef roids, and fauna marin to 1x or 2x a day... turn off return and all circulation pumps. After 10 min, I turn the circulation pumps back on but leave the return off for at least 30 mins... usually more.

So far, so good. I've had him for 3 months and he grown probably an inch and is open 90% of the time. Of course, 6 months and a year are better marks for judgement of how it's fairs. I do want to try some other NPS gorgs such as Diodogorgia as it seems they'll do ok with the concentrated target feedings. I wouldn't dare try a blueberry gorgonian or something like a carnation coral. My sun corals have been relatively easy to care for as well... just have to make sure the fish don't steal the mysis away, but I have figured out a routine for myself that works.

So, my personal opinion is that it depends what you are wanting to keep.
 
i dont plan on keeping gorgs. my original attraction was carnation but after alot of reading i decided i may let that one go. instead ill go for chili coral, kinda look similar. but aside from that im mostly keeping sponges seasquirts scalops maybe a sun coral and if any other soft nps come on my radar id likely go for it
 
dingodan87 said:
i dont plan on keeping gorgs. my original attraction was carnation but after alot of reading i decided i may let that one go. instead ill go for chili coral, kinda look similar. but aside from that im mostly keeping sponges seasquirts scalops maybe a sun coral and if any other soft nps come on my radar id likely go for it
Click to expand...

Chili corals are easier than the carnation type soft nps corals.
Might be a good place to start - they feed quite readily. May sure you get a healthy specimen from the LFS. Here is mine feeding on cyclopeez.

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