zoo food?
- Thread starter PL-Reef
- Start date
ficklefins
New member
Yes and no.
Personally I can't really get my zoas to eat, but palys will eat when they get the chance.
No you cant feed zoas.
Yes you can target feed palys.
Personally I can't really get my zoas to eat, but palys will eat when they get the chance.
No you cant feed zoas.
Yes you can target feed palys.
reefman2525
New member
zoos feed of the tank, but if you want them to grow or spread try pvc or any non toxic plasic. They love soft surfaces and the should pread quick. Zoos can be tricky sometimes but I have been feeding them oyster eggs which is ok. But beleive it or not phosphates are not good for your tank but zoos do feed of them and fatten up. But I dont think that is the health way to make them grow. PVC is the way to go.
MyLittleReef
New member
I started using some stuff called Coral Frenzy about a month and a half ago, and all my stuff goes crazy over it. I know Sharky's Reef is carrying it now.
MuchoReef has been feeding his corals for years and I have yet to see a nicer soft coral tank than his, and he is now using Coral Frenzy.
I think any time you feed the tank anything you have to make sure to not feed too much and a lot of success comes from water quality and tank maintenence.
MuchoReef has been feeding his corals for years and I have yet to see a nicer soft coral tank than his, and he is now using Coral Frenzy.
I think any time you feed the tank anything you have to make sure to not feed too much and a lot of success comes from water quality and tank maintenence.
Reef Junkie
Premium Member
From my experience, feeding your reef tank coral food is not always a good idea.
You have to keep in mind that you need to feed your aquarium for an indefinite amount of time. That means until you're ready to frag all of your coral colonies back to pre-feeding sizes, or tearing the tank down/upgrading.
The reason is when you feed your system this food it will begin to grow according to the amount of food it is given. If the food stops or the greater demand isn't given more food then the corals and bacteria in the tank can crash. Without the energy to keep large colonies of corals and bacteria alive they ultimately die and pollute the tank.
Again, this has been my experience and I even know a few other reefers who went through the whole problem.
This was when Golden Pearls and Tahitian Blend Phytoplankton were big in the industry. Foods have changed, but the concept has remained the same.
Also, after realizing I couldn't afford to keep up that kind of feeding regiment, I quickly trimmed my colonies down and stopped feeding the stuff.
So a word to the wise, if you're going to feed coral food, be ready for the big problem of a successful tank. It can be more work then you might be ready for.
Bill
You have to keep in mind that you need to feed your aquarium for an indefinite amount of time. That means until you're ready to frag all of your coral colonies back to pre-feeding sizes, or tearing the tank down/upgrading.
The reason is when you feed your system this food it will begin to grow according to the amount of food it is given. If the food stops or the greater demand isn't given more food then the corals and bacteria in the tank can crash. Without the energy to keep large colonies of corals and bacteria alive they ultimately die and pollute the tank.
Again, this has been my experience and I even know a few other reefers who went through the whole problem.
This was when Golden Pearls and Tahitian Blend Phytoplankton were big in the industry. Foods have changed, but the concept has remained the same.
Also, after realizing I couldn't afford to keep up that kind of feeding regiment, I quickly trimmed my colonies down and stopped feeding the stuff.
So a word to the wise, if you're going to feed coral food, be ready for the big problem of a successful tank. It can be more work then you might be ready for.
Bill
piberoptikz
Premium Member
Phytofeast!
ficklefins
New member
Bill,
That is a really interesting idea, and I never really thought of feedings and growth in that way. Thanks for the brain teaser today.
ficklefins
New member
Nanomanmaster,
Don't worry about feeding for now. Zoas will grow on their own with time and stability. Once you notice that your colony is growing then play around with feeding. This way you can tell if your feeding has any impact on growth.
In the short run it will be more important for your tank to be stable versus the feeding of zoas.
Don't worry about feeding for now. Zoas will grow on their own with time and stability. Once you notice that your colony is growing then play around with feeding. This way you can tell if your feeding has any impact on growth.
In the short run it will be more important for your tank to be stable versus the feeding of zoas.
Reef Junkie
Premium Member
No problem Fickle. "food for thought"
It's all about supply and demand. If the supply doesn't meet the demand, the entire Aquarium suffers.
You'll see, as your aquarium ages, parts of your large colonies will die off.
For instance, right now you're providing say 1 oz of food a day to your aquarium now. In one year you're still providing the same 1 oz of food. Here's where it gets tricky. If you change that food source to a higher protein/ammino acid content, then that same 1 oz of food has increased in value, but since it's not size, most aquarists wouldn't even think of what would happen if they switched back to the lower nutrient content food.
Now, imagine you switch to not only upping the nutrient content, but also the volume. If you should decide to cut back or switch this food source to a lower nutrient content, your colonies would then begin to recede because they would no longer have the nutrients to sustain their mass.
From my experiences, I usually didn't lose the whole colony, only parts. Smaller faster growing colonies seemed to adjust better, but then again some just quickly died.
Another portion of this is nutrient processing. All of these nutrients have to go somewhere. They usually can be removed with Protien skimming, algae, mechanical filtration and animal growth. Yet, most of the time, Algae is the result of heavy feeding.
It's also the first opportunistic organism to arrive when the feeding stops and organisms begin to die off.
Aquariums should be treated as a single organism when it comes to feeding. Not too much, not too little. It has to be cleaned from time to time (trimmed). And you should never carelessly put anything into your tank without weighing the true benefits.
So, treat your aquarium like a dog and everything will be alright...
It's all about supply and demand. If the supply doesn't meet the demand, the entire Aquarium suffers.
You'll see, as your aquarium ages, parts of your large colonies will die off.
For instance, right now you're providing say 1 oz of food a day to your aquarium now. In one year you're still providing the same 1 oz of food. Here's where it gets tricky. If you change that food source to a higher protein/ammino acid content, then that same 1 oz of food has increased in value, but since it's not size, most aquarists wouldn't even think of what would happen if they switched back to the lower nutrient content food.
Now, imagine you switch to not only upping the nutrient content, but also the volume. If you should decide to cut back or switch this food source to a lower nutrient content, your colonies would then begin to recede because they would no longer have the nutrients to sustain their mass.
From my experiences, I usually didn't lose the whole colony, only parts. Smaller faster growing colonies seemed to adjust better, but then again some just quickly died.
Another portion of this is nutrient processing. All of these nutrients have to go somewhere. They usually can be removed with Protien skimming, algae, mechanical filtration and animal growth. Yet, most of the time, Algae is the result of heavy feeding.
It's also the first opportunistic organism to arrive when the feeding stops and organisms begin to die off.
Aquariums should be treated as a single organism when it comes to feeding. Not too much, not too little. It has to be cleaned from time to time (trimmed). And you should never carelessly put anything into your tank without weighing the true benefits.
So, treat your aquarium like a dog and everything will be alright...
now i have a conflict with your food idea about supply and demand so please correct me if im wrong but what u are sayin is that the more your corals grow the more food they need because of there size, so that in that case u have to feed more and if u dont change amount of food they wont have enough to survive well my disagreement is that i have learned at a camp called seacamp down in the keys that corals get 90% of there food from there light because of the zooxanthellae inside there tissue ( sorry for spelling if wrong) using the sunlioght but in our case pcs, t5, vho, or metal hgalide so why would even need to feed ur tank unless u want the most growth u can possibly get and if im gettin this whole idea wrong sorry my bad for not understanding
Reef Junkie
Premium Member
No problem Nano.
Yep, you are right. You don't have to ever feed your tank if your animals had proper lighting, but that's not what this topic is about. This topic is about feeding your reef.
Now, lets say you never fed your reef tank. That means you have absolutely no fish in your tank that would require a food source to survive. I can say with a lot of certainty that your reef tank would probably be very barren. Your corals might do well, but they would not grow very fast and would probably be dull in color.
But, we know that very very few reefers have a tank without fish. The ones that don't feed their fish are just plain cruel.
So, that means you have a food source. Albeit tiny in comparison to the amount of food that a natural reef recieves.
Seacamp left that part out. Even though these corals can survive on zooxanthellae alone, in the wild they get more food then we'll ever feed our reef tank.
Now, when we talk about food, it's not just the solid nori, mysis, enriched cheesburger food you have to think about. It's the byproducts. Nitrates, ammonia, phosphates... All of these nutrients are absorbed by corals and algae. The cycle thickens; when algae grows, so do algae feeding invertibrates. These are the unseen animals that makup the backbone of our biological filter.
So, you feed your aquarium 1 cube of mysis and three shakes of pellets each day for 1 year to feed your 5 fish. These fish inevitably grow and you're finding them hungry after you just fed them. What do you do? You feed them more.
Not a big deal, but if one of these fish should die and you cut back on the amount of food, then you may also start to see a slight recession in your corals and invert population.
The reason? Even though you have one less fish to add to the pollution, your corals and inverts were relying on that fishes feces to continue there growth. If it's removed from the equasion, animals may begin to die. This is on a small scale mind you.
Finally, back to what this thread is about. If on top of the fish feeding you were feeding your corals and stopped because lets say "a series of unfortunate events" made it a financial burden. You would not feed it and then your entire tank could crash. Remember, I said "could". It would be a domino effect. First, inverts die, nutrients, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate rise. The elevated nutrients is too much for your more delicate corals to handle and they go belly up. The nutrient load has just escalated. The high ammonia has depressed your ph and your fish die suddenly overnight. Now it's an epidemic.
Moderation is the key to this equasion. Corals can be fed, but just remember, if you feed them frequently, then you have to look at the whole picture.
Did I make any more sense this time? I'm sorry if I am confusing, but I have this habit of writing almost exactly like I speak.
Cheers,
Bill
Yep, you are right. You don't have to ever feed your tank if your animals had proper lighting, but that's not what this topic is about. This topic is about feeding your reef.
Now, lets say you never fed your reef tank. That means you have absolutely no fish in your tank that would require a food source to survive. I can say with a lot of certainty that your reef tank would probably be very barren. Your corals might do well, but they would not grow very fast and would probably be dull in color.
But, we know that very very few reefers have a tank without fish. The ones that don't feed their fish are just plain cruel.
So, that means you have a food source. Albeit tiny in comparison to the amount of food that a natural reef recieves.
Seacamp left that part out. Even though these corals can survive on zooxanthellae alone, in the wild they get more food then we'll ever feed our reef tank.
Now, when we talk about food, it's not just the solid nori, mysis, enriched cheesburger food you have to think about. It's the byproducts. Nitrates, ammonia, phosphates... All of these nutrients are absorbed by corals and algae. The cycle thickens; when algae grows, so do algae feeding invertibrates. These are the unseen animals that makup the backbone of our biological filter.
So, you feed your aquarium 1 cube of mysis and three shakes of pellets each day for 1 year to feed your 5 fish. These fish inevitably grow and you're finding them hungry after you just fed them. What do you do? You feed them more.
Not a big deal, but if one of these fish should die and you cut back on the amount of food, then you may also start to see a slight recession in your corals and invert population.
The reason? Even though you have one less fish to add to the pollution, your corals and inverts were relying on that fishes feces to continue there growth. If it's removed from the equasion, animals may begin to die. This is on a small scale mind you.
Finally, back to what this thread is about. If on top of the fish feeding you were feeding your corals and stopped because lets say "a series of unfortunate events" made it a financial burden. You would not feed it and then your entire tank could crash. Remember, I said "could". It would be a domino effect. First, inverts die, nutrients, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate rise. The elevated nutrients is too much for your more delicate corals to handle and they go belly up. The nutrient load has just escalated. The high ammonia has depressed your ph and your fish die suddenly overnight. Now it's an epidemic.
Moderation is the key to this equasion. Corals can be fed, but just remember, if you feed them frequently, then you have to look at the whole picture.
Did I make any more sense this time? I'm sorry if I am confusing, but I have this habit of writing almost exactly like I speak.
Cheers,
Bill
Anecdotal evidence?:
My tank had it's fished removed last summer battling ick... slowly over the fall the tank started to crash... bacteria and nuissance algae got a foothold for sure...
Corals crashed, shrimp and crabs did not... When fish were added back, along with efforts on my part the tank came back.
My tank had it's fished removed last summer battling ick... slowly over the fall the tank started to crash... bacteria and nuissance algae got a foothold for sure...
Corals crashed, shrimp and crabs did not... When fish were added back, along with efforts on my part the tank came back.
Reef Junkie
Premium Member
Ouch, that hurts.
I've been there too, it's very discouraging. But what doesn't kill us makes us poorer.
It's wild to see a once beautiful tank turned into an algae wasteland, right?
It's almost perplexing why a tank with less nutrient intake begins to fall apart. you would think that since you're not adding the food, that it would polish up more.
I guess the real question here is "do you want to feed more and what are the pros/cons?"
Consider the extra cost and maintenance, nevermind the daily chore of feeding all of this food.
Yet, I know how it feels to love your tank so much and want to make it grow up healthy and vibrant. It's not as easy as it sounds.
The largest problem is learning how to throttle back your enthusiasm!:eek1:
Good thread.
I've been there too, it's very discouraging. But what doesn't kill us makes us poorer.
It's wild to see a once beautiful tank turned into an algae wasteland, right?
It's almost perplexing why a tank with less nutrient intake begins to fall apart. you would think that since you're not adding the food, that it would polish up more.
I guess the real question here is "do you want to feed more and what are the pros/cons?"
Consider the extra cost and maintenance, nevermind the daily chore of feeding all of this food.
Yet, I know how it feels to love your tank so much and want to make it grow up healthy and vibrant. It's not as easy as it sounds.
The largest problem is learning how to throttle back your enthusiasm!:eek1:
Good thread.
