Feeding question

[nemo-rox]

Hi everyone! After many questions, I now have added my two clown fish with the sixline wrasse. Everyone is doing great and the sixline is not aggresive thanks to your suggestion of moving rocks around so that he feels like he is in a new tank.

Now for my question, I am feeding pellet food (many mixed incl. garlic for color) and frozen brime shrimp. My LFS advised that I alternate feed between pellets and shrimp everyday for 6 days then 1 day no feeding and then 5 days and 1 day no feeding. Does this make sense to all of you? I feel like this is too much food. Will it not get my phosphates up? Last thing I need is having my water going bad.

 

[melosu58]

Well I`ll be first to go here. IMO you should feed every other day. I`ve been doing this for nine yrs with great results. Of course this is not shared with everybody on the forum but IME it is the best for me and my tank.

 

[Ziggy953]

I've not heard of the 5 on 1 off deal...that's interesting. I would agree with Melosu on the every other day feedings...There are a lot of people that feed several times a day but feed only what the fish consume...the jury is out on this one...it is something you have to decide what works best for you and your tank!

 

[lando]

I too feed every other day, with the exception of Nori almost every day for my tangs. Feeding is far more complex then dumping food in the tank. First off, feed high quality foods so you can feed less often. Secondly, prepare your food properly. If you are feeding any frozen food it should be thawed and rinsed in RO/DI water before adding it to the tank. The "juice" produced when thawing can foul your tank very fast. Lastly, and equally important, add some good dietary supppliments to your food and let it soak prior to feeding. I like Selcon, Vita-chem and Garlic Extreme.

Here is what I do...I feed every other day, rotaitng flake and frozen. For flake I use Ocean Nutrition Prime Reef and OSO Spirulina. For the frozen I use San Fransisco Bay Mysis or Krill, add DT's Phytoplankton, Kent ZooMax and Liquid Life Marine Plankton. Soak in Selcon, vita chem annd garlic extreme. Sounds complicated but it is easy. As I said I hang nori almost every day as well.

Feed lightly and turn off any filtration during the feeding process (except powerheads). This will keep the food circulating in the tank while preventing food from being sucked up to rot in the filters or skimmers. HTH.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

You'll find there are as many feeding rituals as people! Just so you have another data point...

I feed once a day, but I just don't dump the food in and leave. I put in a little food, let the clown and cardinalfish eat it up. Then I put in more and let them eat it up. Repeat until they're ignoring it, or just "mouthing" it. I then feed just a tad bit more to make sure the shrimp and crabs are happy.

I alternate between frozen, flake and pellet. So basically, my daily routine is frozen/flake/frozen/pellet then repeat. I use frozen mysid, Prime Reef flakes, and Formula One small pellets. At least once a week, I soak the frozen in garlic and selcon. I just got some freeze dried plankton, so I'll throw that into the rotation soon and see how that goes over.

Nitrates are zero, as well as phosphates. Tank is 7 months old.

 

[roka64]

I am also one that feeds every other day. I rarely use flakes anymore. I feed frozen mysis, soaked in garlic, selcon and zoe. I also feed the gel cubes, for the shrimp/bottom dwellers, since it sinks to the bottom.