very cool article i found on RC on coral food.

[Chriskid]

Great article. There is a related thread going on in the SPS forum. Biggles has done some interesting work and videography on what commonly available coral foods are actually consumed by corals (SPS predominately) or at least elicit a feeding response. By no means a comprehensive study, but certainly interesting. Heres the link:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2332173

ive watch biggles quietly for a while. funny bloke

 

[Collinrb]

gotta find someone with a microscope to check your density. If I remember all the way back to high school, the dark green isn't ideal. Its closer to the brink of over population. All of course depending on the species of phyto culture used

 

[CT Reefer]

ive watch biggles quietly for a while. funny bloke

Totally agree. I find his posts helpful and oftentimes hilarious. Love that Aussie sense of humor. :lol:

I don't have a kalk reactor & small fridge or anything to automate this yet, but I did mix some a little reef roids in with some coral smoothie and poured it in my tank last night at lights out.

Any reason this couldn't work with a brs pump dosing slowly over about 2 hours in the evening. I would change out the feed each night. I would think a slower dosing later in the evening would be better. Thoughts?

 

[Collinrb]

Totally agree. I find his posts helpful and oftentimes hilarious. Love that Aussie sense of humor. :lol:

I don't have a kalk reactor & small fridge or anything to automate this yet, but I did mix some a little reef roids in with some coral smoothie and poured it in my tank last night at lights out.

Any reason this couldn't work with a brs pump dosing slowly over about 2 hours in the evening. I would change out the feed each night. I would think a slower dosing later in the evening would be better. Thoughts?

you could mix the powders together, then put them in an auto feeder. that dumps into a small tank w/ pump on a timer to mix, then dose that

 

[Chriskid]

Totally agree. I find his posts helpful and oftentimes hilarious. Love that Aussie sense of humor. :lol:

I don't have a kalk reactor & small fridge or anything to automate this yet, but I did mix some a little reef roids in with some coral smoothie and poured it in my tank last night at lights out.

Any reason this couldn't work with a brs pump dosing slowly over about 2 hours in the evening. I would change out the feed each night. I would think a slower dosing later in the evening would be better. Thoughts?

I think this is great, I do have a fridge and wuz thinking of changing weekly. I think your idea would work though. I just can't tend to my reef daily.

 

[MADtanks]

Cool stuff, and if i may, i can contribute to the club a bit here.... we buy materials and i can help make these kalk reactors so you can ATO with it?.... would be fun project. Let me make one and if you guys like it you can all make some too. I can make a step by step, or pre cut materials and bring them to a meeting and you guys can assemble.

 

[CT Reefer]

That would be cool - I'm interested!

Cool stuff, and if i may, i can contribute to the club a bit here.... we buy materials and i can help make these kalk reactors so you can ATO with it?.... would be fun project. Let me make one and if you guys like it you can all make some too. I can make a step by step, or pre cut materials and bring them to a meeting and you guys can assemble.

 

[Chriskid]

Cool stuff, and if i may, i can contribute to the club a bit here.... we buy materials and i can help make these kalk reactors so you can ATO with it?.... would be fun project. Let me make one and if you guys like it you can all make some too. I can make a step by step, or pre cut materials and bring them to a meeting and you guys can assemble.

Now that would be cool, I've been playing with the idea of an NPS tank with a food reactor of sorts, that would not fill up a minny fridge. how would we go about this in a club fashion? Very interested

 

[ca1ore]

Ok, I guess I find myself taking something of a contrary view here, as I do not purpose feed my corals and don't plan to. I use the growth of small tube worms as a proxy for whether there is adequate food in my tank and if they are growing well then nothing need be done.

I keep a pretty heavy fish bio load in my tank, and regularly feed LRS reef frenzy without rinsing. I get a reasonable daily growth of dust algae on my glass which, when mag cleaned, provides a nice does of phytoplankton to the tank. Not sure I need to do anything more. A buddy of mine is OCD about rinsing his frozen food yet doses all of these liquid food supplements - I have been unable to convince him of the absurdity of this.

I've been in the hobby longer than most, and have fussed around with phyto and zoo cultures and found them to be of marginal help frankly. Not to discourage folks to try - perhaps I just didn't show adequate persistence.

 

[ca1ore]

Obviously if we are talking NPS corals then things are quite different. I did maintain a NPS tank years ago and was able to get some nice yellow tube coral colonies, but ultimately it proved just too much work and I sold it off.

 

[MADtanks]

right, being that it will be NPS, im guessing there wont be as much a bioload in the system? well i dont know what kind of fishload but the point here i believe is to maintain the corals happy with minimal interaction, target feeding and what have you. But im honestly no expert, just trying to contribute to the club if i can.

Ladies, and gents let me sketch up the reactor, and we can go from there. At min i think you will need the following:

Dosing pump of some sort
maxijet pump(to stir the reactor)/or if you want to make it magnetic then you will need the goods for that.
fittings to tap the reactor(feed line, return line)
2 Uniseals(to fit in the maxijet)
Of course the acrylic

I dont know how much it will cost for all of it, or if its even worth it for some, but for me i like to hand make it . I will start a new thread with info and what not. I have not been in the hobby for a while so if anyone has suggestions to make this as cheap(price wise) as possible please add to it

 

[ca1ore]

That's very cool info! I wouldn't be able to feed 24/7 in my tank but I know that corals really come to life at night so maybe dosing some phytoplankton and/or zooplankton daily a few hours after the lights go out?

That's a good point. Though it seems somewhat counter intuitive, I actually clean the glass on my tank after the lights are out. I figure the corals have a better chance of getting some of the dust algae this way.

 

[Chriskid]

That's a good point. Though it seems somewhat counter intuitive, I actually clean the glass on my tank after the lights are out. I figure the corals have a better chance of getting some of the dust algae this way.

Sps corals don't seem to eat phyto, or ditritus. Well for the tests on the attached thread that is.

 

[ca1ore]

Sps corals don't seem to eat phyto, or ditritus. Well for the tests on the attached thread that is.

Hah, yes I saw that. Perhaps yet another thing I do with my tank that makes conceptual sense but has no material benefit.

 

[Chriskid]

Hah, yes I saw that. Perhaps yet another thing I do with my tank that makes conceptual sense but has no material benefit.

Lol , man sounds like you need a hug.....Lol

 

[Chriskid]

I mostly am growing pods for the fun of it. But it should be good. I don't think it can be bad. It seems so far nearly effortless.