Live rock as strictly food?

A

axepilot

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Jan 10, 2005
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I'm running a new 75 FO tank with a few damsels, a flame angel, a percula clown, a coris wrasse, and a couple of cleaner shrimp. I know that angels like to pick and prod for food, so I'm considering adding small pieces of live rock as an entree from time to time and pulling them out after a few days. I'm currently feeding them Spectrum pellets with a mix of frozen brine shrimp and flake food. They're eating well.

Good idea, or not?
 
You can get Nori also. Either at your lfs or at an Asian market. You can rubberband it to a rock. I think it is Ocean Nutrition that makes 'pygmy angel food'. My coral beauty loves it. So do my other fish. All fish like and need a variety of foods. I don't think just adding lr. will do it. My freezer is full of different types of food for my fish. I also go to the deli and get whatever is on sale i.e. shrimp, squid, scallops. I freeze these and shave off small pieces and add that with whatever else I am feeding. Look into cyclop-eeze and mysis also.
Frozen brine shrimp has no nutrition. That is like having your fish fill up on ice cream. I use it strictly as a treat.
 
In my past SW tanks, I always fed a wide variety of food. I'm exploring options to keep the fish happy and healthy. I'll keep LR open as an optional treat. I think I need to see what's come available in my 14 years of absence from fish keeping. Maybe a frozen food with all the good algae and sundries along with anything else that the fish might like.
 
The live rock won't be 'alive' if you take it out of the tank and it dries. You could have some in another setup that's put in for a bit of grazing then returned to the other setup to allow the encrusting organisms time to recover, but this will be a slow process. What are you wanting them to consume off of the rock?
 
Your fish will love to nibble the LR, but could get expensive unless you have a cheap source or harvest yourself. Some aquarists keep LR in another tank or smaller refugium and rotate into the display now and then. Be advised, LR from a strange tank can harbor pathogens/parasites so use common sense quarantine and probably better to choose/rotate from your own clean supply. Some of the newer frozen foods include sponges for angels.
 
I think I am cnofused......why do you need to take it out?
You can have a fowlr if you want. It's really great for your water quality too. Have you tried Mysis and Krill?? Mine love it!! I feed a HUGE variety though.........shrimp,scallops,clam,oyster,squid,octipus....ect and ect.
 
LR tends to decline under certain fish species after a while.
The idea here is to rotate some the rock to allow encrusting inverts a chance to recover/grow in a an undisturbed sump/fuge enviro for a while. Then it can be added back to the display for a new source of fresh live food for angels.
This can revive/seed the old LR that is left in the tank on a permanent basis.
 
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