ok, I was just reading another thread and that led me to google for a refresher course of the food chain in the ocean.. and me with my lighting ideas, started applying it to feeding ideas..
So.. question, In a Reef tank, would it be beneficial to feed your tank the largest variety of foods during feeding? Meaning Phytoplankton, Zooplankton, Rotifers/Oyster Feast, actipods/cyclops, and then foods like Mysis, bloodworms (sorry, my fish love them, I can't stop feeding it to them), spirulina, etc, and up into larger foods if your fish require it.
When I was thinking about lighting, and how the entire spectrum seems to give corals the most colors I started to wonder if feeding a small mix of every particle size food daily would be beneficial for the tank. I know the food is all dead for the most part (can culture your own or a few LFS will sell cultured live Phyto or Rotifers), but the hope is the food will feed the living ones in your tank that are one step up the food chain from the food.
Is it possible to "dial in" various amounts of each food? I would imagine if fed daily it would be very small amounts, like from .1 - 1ml of each. I am only assuming all those forms of life are also alive in my tank in some form, would this be a good or bad assumption to make? If there are gaps in the food chain within aquariums then feeding food for something that isn't there to eat it is just going to foul the water.
In the past I have usually only fed Rotifers/Oyster feast as my small particle food and only a few drops a week, mostly relied on my fish to feed the tank through their waste. Just curious if I could do a better job at feeding the entire tank.
So.. question, In a Reef tank, would it be beneficial to feed your tank the largest variety of foods during feeding? Meaning Phytoplankton, Zooplankton, Rotifers/Oyster Feast, actipods/cyclops, and then foods like Mysis, bloodworms (sorry, my fish love them, I can't stop feeding it to them), spirulina, etc, and up into larger foods if your fish require it.
When I was thinking about lighting, and how the entire spectrum seems to give corals the most colors I started to wonder if feeding a small mix of every particle size food daily would be beneficial for the tank. I know the food is all dead for the most part (can culture your own or a few LFS will sell cultured live Phyto or Rotifers), but the hope is the food will feed the living ones in your tank that are one step up the food chain from the food.
Is it possible to "dial in" various amounts of each food? I would imagine if fed daily it would be very small amounts, like from .1 - 1ml of each. I am only assuming all those forms of life are also alive in my tank in some form, would this be a good or bad assumption to make? If there are gaps in the food chain within aquariums then feeding food for something that isn't there to eat it is just going to foul the water.
In the past I have usually only fed Rotifers/Oyster feast as my small particle food and only a few drops a week, mostly relied on my fish to feed the tank through their waste. Just curious if I could do a better job at feeding the entire tank.
Last edited: