Feeding my reef tankWhen I was doing my initial research before setting up my reef tank I came across a rather scary statement on a website..."Improperly feeding your saltwater fish is the number-one cause of death in the marine aquarium hobby." I cannot remember where I saw it and don't know if it is true but it certainly is 'food' for thought.
I would guess the specifics of feeding a marine aquarium will depend to a large extent on the inhabitants, a fish only housing lionfish will be very different to a mixed reef tank. With a background in freshwater aquariums I was aware of the different dietary needs of different types of fish, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores etc but not really of any other tank inhabitants. In a reef aqaurium there are many other organisms to be considered. There are, as in all aspects of this hobby a number of varied viewpoints and lots of interesting articles on feeding so once again I think it is about finding the best way for me and my reef. On start up I decided to go with well known prepared flake food and some frozen foods. I chose to use Ocean Nutrition formula flake food. I looked at different brands and selected this. I am not saying it is the best but over a couple of years it seems to have worked for me. I try and feed small amounts up to six times a day if possible rather than larger amounts once or twice a day. I use, Prime Reef Flakes, Formula One Reef Flakes, Brine Shrimp Plus Flakes and Formula Two Marine Pellets. These prepared foods offer a variety of ingrediants,size and texture. I also introduce some frozen food into the mix, artemesia, mysis, small krill and a marine mix with vegatable matter. With the frozen food I thaw out and drain any excess liquid. I also add New Era liposome enrichment to my frozen artemesia. Again some people don't thaw or don't drain excess liquid, each to their own here. All of this feeding has really been aimed at my fish population, with the rest of the tank inhabitants not really catered for. This is something I will now have to give more thought to as I have added some LPS corals. I now need to look at feeding my corals, copepods and other micro inhabitants of my reef in a more direct and benificial way. I have decided to add some live copepods to both the display tank and refugium. But am also thinking about phytoplankton as an addition to the tank. There is always that nagging question, am I overfeeding? Interesting articlesFeeding a coral reef aquarium Sanjay Joshi
Feeding the reef aqaurium Ronald L Schimek Reef Food A series of articles by Eric Borneman Feeding Phytoplankton Rob Toonen |