skimmer on while feeding phyto?

aerius007

New member
I bought some DT's phytoplankton and was told by the store I should turn off the skimmer when I feed. To me it seems like turning off the skimmer would be a waste of time. I only get probably 4x turn-over hourly in the sump, so how much phyto could I really skim out in a few minutes?

Whats your opinion?
 
I was also told this when I first started feeding phyton. I did the first few times but I would forget to turn the skimmer back on so I just left it go, I never really noticed it skimming anymore than normal or going crazy just after feeding.
 
when I feed I turn off the pump from my sump to my tank. essence turning off my skimmer for 30min. (feed mode on the reef keeper 2) I like mine.sssss don't tell anybody..I don't want them hating on me :)
 
i turn my return off when i feed or else half the food goes down the overflows but i culture my own phyto and feed haLF A CUP DAILY AND Leave everything running for that. If i was buying dts i would prob turn my skimmer off for an hour or so after i fed it because that stuffs expensive. If you guys are interested in phyto just culture your own its so easy and you prob allready have everything you need to do it.
 
use Reed's phyto feast. You get like 100 times more phyto and it's a better product IMO. Dt's is just green water.

I don't turn mine off
 
http://melevsreef.com/phytosteps.html

i used marcs instructions i started culturing it to feed to my rotifers but it splits so fast i had a lot extra and started feeding my tank also. if you need some budman let me know i can give you plenty to start a culture if you like. supposedly the stuff i started with was supposed to be three strains iso nano and i forget what the other ones called. But i know its viable because my rotifers are eating it and multiplying. same with brine shrimp ive grown quite a few out accidentally in my fry tank currently theres 2 brine shrimp bigger than the remaining fry.
 
Sorry to jump in on this thread, but I feed Marine Snow to my tank and all seems good. Is that a good phyto food? Also it says to feed them 2 hours after the lights go out. IS that really necessary? That would have me feeding at 2 a.m.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14206173#post14206173 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Futurecanadian
Sorry to jump in on this thread, but I feed Marine Snow to my tank and all seems good. Is that a good phyto food? Also it says to feed them 2 hours after the lights go out. IS that really necessary? That would have me feeding at 2 a.m.

As far as I've ever read, no offense, but Marine Snow is junk that just increases the nutrient load in your tank. I've never heard anything positive about it :(

Even phytoplankton has it's difficulties as it isn't actually eaten directly by any corals, but it is eaten by rotifers and other microfauna in the tank, who then spawn/multiply, and feed the rest of the tank with the zooplankton created from that. I know a lot of people dose phyto, but I don't know if necessarily everyone understands why they're dosing it, especially when they're buying the greenwater from the LFS and just dumping it into their tank as directed on the bottle.

For what it's worth, I think that real Marine Snow (basically detritus) is eaten by corals at night in the wild, to a small degree, however I do not believe that it's replicated by that bottled Marine Snow stuff. If you want to feed your corals, for softies/zoanthids and LPS, I've seen most if not all of mine eat cyclopeeze or mysis, and the fish will eat it as well. For SPS, fish poop (natural marine snow), bacteria, and rotifers are the only thing I've actually heard of being successfully utilized to feed them, though it's significantly harder to feed those items, so most people just let the tank do it's thing and people try to keep their params constant and in line, which makes the biggest difference in coral growth and color.
 
Fantastic study DT. Thank you so much for sharing! It does say a lot about the keeping of non-photosynthetic clams, which I suppose could be brought to the discussion of keeping photosynthetic clams, on the assumption that bivalves do eat similar diets, Gulf, Atlantic, Pacific (which I do not know nearly enough to make that assumption, and never would personally, but for the application we're looking at today, sure, let's assume the diets are the same)

So if you're going to try to dose something I would highly recommend dosing DTs Phytoplankton. If you're looking for increased coral growth though, I still stand that phyto won't help. But I have heard good things about DT's oyster eggs with SPS, LPS, softies, basically everything that isn't a non-photosynthetic bivalve. I'd like to see another study if there are any on that (I like reading studies, sorry!).

We're definitely off topic from the original question posed, so sorry about that! Good information in this thread though.
 
Oh and according to the study, basically DON'T use Bioplankton, then the rest of the supplements of dead plankton have more or less effectiveness, which is that they're slightly better than not feeding the clam at all, but they're all significantly less useful than DTs or growing your own Isochrysis galbana plankton (which you can also do).
 
A couple of things to consider. The feeding organs of Tridacnid clams are exactly the same as other clams that do not have symbiotic algae.
This study was done with strict scientific protocol. The two trials are separate studies that were done about 4 months apart. The two combined studies used 3300 clams. Each study used clams from a single spawn. also, since the clams were only about 2mm long the results were measurable and significant. It is hard to do growth studies with larger clams.
The mortality in the first batch is very low compared to the second trial. The clams for the second trial were stressed, probably from shipping and the mortality was much higher. The point I want to make is that the unstressed clams from the first study showed no increase in mortality that were in the unfed control. That is 2mm clams that were not fed for 10 weeks. How long do you think it would take a Tridacnid clam to show the effects of the missing nutrients from not being fed phytoplankton, considering that they get their energy from light and nitrogen from the water? Just because they don't die does not mean that they are getting all of the nutrition they need. Dead phytoplankton is nothing but a placebo to clams.
Another interesting study by the same researchers indicates that there is an external metabolite produced by species of phytoplankton that cause filter feeding mollusks to take it as food.
http://somas.stonybrook.edu/~MADL/pubspdf/Emma-JEMBE-microcapsules.pdf

This research is continuing with a two year study to try to determin what the trigger is.
http://somas.stonybrook.edu/~MADL/partselemma.html

There will soon be some very good information coming out of this study.

Dennis Tagrn
DT's Plankton Farm
 
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