Planktonic Feeding Corals & Fish?

[CuttleKid]

I have been wanting to set up a completely nps coral tank and I hope it will happen by the end of this year. But for now ive been researching all that i can. I have a few questions that i thought id post in the here because i think id get better responses than "Leave them in the ocean" or "They will die". My questions are pertaining more toward the continuos feeding of these corals and if that will help keep more difficult plankton eating fish thriving. My dream is to have mostly gorgonians with a few dendros/sun corals. Maybe even a rhizo if that fits the budget. I am really interested in keeping pseudanthis ventralis. I was wondering if they would fare well in a nps tank because i would be continuosly feeding zoo/phytoplankton along with other similar sized fod items. Would this also work for apogon parvulus( I think i spelt that right?) Any info/advice would be greatly beneficial.

Thanks

 

[flying_dutchman]

Definitely, a great example would be the Tuka Anthias, they're almost impossible to keep but Matt Wandell has great success keeping them in an azoox tank.
http://www.reefsmagazine.com/showthread.php?t=71849

Although the large amount of foods associated with azoox tank make keeping fish that require a lot of foods throughout the day possible. It also has it's downsides, the fish compete with the corals for food and may be removing food items essential for long term survival of the corals. We have no idea if this is true at all, but it could be possible.

hth

 

[uhuru]

Phyto isn't going to do anything for the fish that you mentioned really. I do keep A. parvulus and Z. leptacanthus with automated zooplankton feeding and it works great. Actually it works great for every planktivore and more closely mimics their feeding behavior in the wild. Even tangs do well with this as long as they also have algae to graze on.

Plankton is a very broad term however. Some foods will be too big for corals and some will be too small for fish. I try to cover a wide range of particle sizes, from less than a micron to 1200+ microns using automated feeding.