Using Yeast as Coral Food

H2OCulture

New member
Happy New Year to everyone at RC!

So lately I started homebrewing beer seriously and it gave me an interesting idea. To make good homebrew, a starter culture of good quality yeast is a requirement, grown in the malt you intend to brew beer with. In 24-48 hours, yeast can be grown in sufficient quantity to turn the original solution into a milky culture chock full of billions and billions of yeast cells. These guys are about 3-4 microns; about the same size as some of the Chlorophyta plankton and the smaller protists. Knowing this, they might make a good substitute for phytoplankton and other small coral foods. Has anyone tried this? Any thoughts before I attempt it?

My logic is our vodka-infused ULN aquaria could benefit from a periodic rush of cheap food that would be easily suspended and skimmed out before any problems could arise. Yeast (already a component of most fish foods) would dissolve better, be easier for corals to capture, and may generate less waste due to their natural buoyancy. Thoughts?
 
Sounds interesting, I may try it one day with a test tank. It should be high in protein too. I've brewed beer as well and would personally just take the sediment off the bottom of the fermenter when you bottle, it's about 2lb of pure yeast paste. Of course a little would go a long way. I think it may benefit clams/filter feeders more than sps. From what I've seen sps like copepods or food closer to 50-200 microns.
 
Daniel Knop mentions yeast feeding in his "Giant Clams" book. He thought it a good food source of live or suspended yeast is used. Be prepared to skim basically all of it out since only 2% or so will actually be consumed.



I'm also interested to hear how it turns out. I used to grow yeast for CO2 generation when I had a planted FW tank and it's pretty easy.



-Ian

Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express Pro
 
Alright, thanks for the encouragement everyone. Now that I know I'm not crazy ill give this a shot and post the results. Since I only have SPS that's all I can test on. Ill Let you guys know what I discover.
 
I think there is a product called reef critters or something of that line. It is marketed as live zooplankton for your reef. Mix powder in with a sample of tank water, wait 30 minutes and dump it in. Smells like yeast to me.
 
@H20 I've been feeding my 30-gallon mixed reef tank yeast weekly, aside from the food I made using shrimps, fish roe, spirulina, chlorella and cyclopeeze. Just a pinch of it dissolved in a bit of water is sufficient enough for my tank. Don't put in too much though, as it may cause heavy bacterial blooms.
 
Back
Top