What to feed SPS

[Tomoko Schum]

I should rephrase my earlier statement.

Reef tanks typically can handle a tiny amount of NH3 because of the filtering capacity of all the live rocks/biofilter. My powder blue tang's poop probably puts more load than the small amount of hatch water. On the other hand, fish breeders tend to have a lot of tiny fry/larvae in a small hatchout/breeder tank with NH3 already nearing the threshold.

Have you experienced unhatched eggs collecting on the bottom of the hatching container? My last batch of brine shrimp eggs seemed to have a lower hatch rate and many of them sank to the bottom of the cone - quite annoying.

 

[wpecoul]

I did not notice a surplus of unhatched cysts. I siphon with the rigid tubing (after removing the airstone) from a point above the floor of the bottle but well below the empty shells on the surface. I usually try to use a flashlight to get the buggers over to the siphon.

I understood why you were saying that about breeders, but I still think it was mainly ease and laziness on my part when I was adding the hatch water back to the system. I just think it would probably be in my best interests to reduce how much goes back in - it's not like it makes anything >that< much more difficult.

Have you tried decapsulating the eggs? I haven't as yet, but might. The procedure kind of weirds me out since it uses bleach - even though everything gets rinsed several times, it still makes me wary. Another alternative is to buy eggs that are already decapsulated, but the cost quite a bit more.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Yes, I've tried decapsulating several times. I could not get the hang of when to stop the bleach treatment and start rinsing. I killed a few batches of eggs by following the instruction exactly. Some batches hatched very well - just about 100%. The trick was to stop early - way before the eggs turn orange. Adding vinegar to neutralize bleach right after a quick rinse works well. Some people use hypo to detoxify bleach.

It was a general consensus among small scale breeders that it was too much trouble to decapsulate eggs. Decapsulated hatchable eggs are pricey but well worth it for a home-based clownfish/bangaii cardinalfish breeders.

I am feeding live rotifers instead of bbs to my reef tank since I have them - just a carryover from fish breeding days.

 

[wrott]

oyster-feast and rodi-feast from Reef-Nutrition every other night and phyto-feast once or trice a week
http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/food/reef-nutrition

 

[3mm3]

oyster feast 4 to 5 times a week. also toss in some reefroids and coral frenzy once in a while.