Spot feeding tips/advice.. (among other things!)

A

azaghalsei

AC Members
Jan 8, 2007
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Hey everyone! I've been doing some spot feeding for only a week now in our new 90g reef and am finding it very time consuming and difficult at times...

Let me start by indicating who I spot feed:

1) Gold/Yellow Polyps
2) Some Zoos
3) Sebae Anemone
4) Serpent/Brittle Stars (at times)

So during this process I have some challenges aside from the usual arm cramming/water dripping... ;)

1) My cleaner shrimp love nothing more than the easy meal of swiping grub from the polyps as they slowly ingest their supplementary meals... I find I have to hang around with the baster and blast them with jets of water every minute or two..

2) I like to feed the stars every few days directly to keep their voracity at a minimum.. My brittle star seems to know what's up and comes out to the front of the rockwork during feeding, but my serpent stars seem to like to continue to hide and attempt to steal his food rather than come out for their own. I've thought of "wedging" some food about the rockwork for them to locate, but am concerned this will be swiped by nass snails and cleaner shrimp before they find it!

3) My sebae is host to a comical white anemone crab who seems so hungry he's able to snatch up every little chunk of food that sticks to the anemone.. even when I've relocated the anemone (for it's own good) the crab find his way back in less than 30 minutes... should I worry about this? Is supplemental feeding of the sebae all it's cracked up to be? Is the crab ACTUALLY getting all the food or is the anemone surely getting small pieces I do not see?

4) Lastly, I have found that at feeding time I must disable my HOT protein skimmer so that it doesn't suck in food and go nuts - I actually need to leave it off for ~30 minutes until all the fuss settles down.. then I usually have to spend 10 minutes getting the flow just right again from it. Any tips on this mess? We have no sump for now because our children are very inquisitive (read: destructive) and we fear OJ and crayons in the sump!

Thanks to any that can share some knowledge and advice!
mrknowitall.gif


Ian
 
Give the cleaner shrimp a little food before you start MAY help that, Try feeding your anenome larger chunks of food like half a silverside, the crab SHOULD leave that alone. Put a peice of krill or chunk of silverside under the serpents arms before feeding this wil keep them happy while you feed.

Last what type of skimmer (size and type) and what size tank, also what exactly are you feeding as this is not normal IME!!
 
jojo22 said:
Give the cleaner shrimp a little food before you start MAY help that, Try feeding your anenome larger chunks of food like half a silverside, the crab SHOULD leave that alone. Put a peice of krill or chunk of silverside under the serpents arms before feeding this wil keep them happy while you feed.

Last what type of skimmer (size and type) and what size tank, also what exactly are you feeding as this is not normal IME!!
Click to expand...

I'll answer for him since I think he's at a meeting now (I'm his wife :) )

We have a CSS 125, 90g tank, and we feed a variety that includes mysid shrimp, marine cusine, reef plankton, cyclops, spirulina enriched brine shrimp (that's the one we use the least since it's not as good for them as the others), and I think that's it for now.
We've been spot feeding the brittle star and the serpent stars with since freeze dried krill that we soak first.
About the skimmer, it's on the back of the tank since we have small, curious children that we don't trust with a sump so as soon as we put food in there, if the skimmer is on, it micro bubbles like crazy.
 
Try soaking your food in RO water, then straining it and putting it in another bit of ro water, it seems to me that one of your frozen foods has a preservative or additive that is causeing your skimmer problems, can you list exact brands and what quantity you feed of each per meal??

Sorry to ask so much but I have never seen a skimmer act like that except when I feed live, found out the LFS added stress coat to the bag of feeders!!!
 
I'll check when I'm downstairs making the kiddos lunch. We were originally soaking it in RO water but recently we've been using a bottle cap full of tank water to thaw the food. We usually feed 1-2 cubes of food.
 
jojo22 said:
Try soaking your food in RO water, then straining it and putting it in another bit of ro water, it seems to me that one of your frozen foods has a preservative or additive that is causeing your skimmer problems, can you list exact brands and what quantity you feed of each per meal??

Sorry to ask so much but I have never seen a skimmer act like that except when I feed live, found out the LFS added stress coat to the bag of feeders!!!
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We actually soak the frozen food (brine.. mysis.. cyclops.. plankton) in drawn RO tank water! :)

The foaming gets crazy if i leave it on as it sucks up food particles, and the other day when I went to turn it back on the bubbling mechanism was failing and it was filling with clear waters sans bubbles... after a whack on the power head I was slowly back in business!

I'm also not digging the output - there is a pad on the bottom that is getting filthy and impermiable; apparently replacements are not available so I am considering some filter floss.

Thanks,
Ian
 
jojo22 said:
http://www.tylermerrick.com/content/css_notes.php


Might help you out!!
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Holy hell! That made an awesome difference! (I made several adjustments based on the site!)

Thank you very much for digging that up; I appreciate it.

Ian

P.S. When I fed/spot fed today my cleaner shrimp stayed away from the polyps.. maybe they are learning to fear the giant baster monster!! :) I didn't even have to chase them off. Also, I wedged some large krill into nooks of the live rock wall in the tank for the stars to locate later, and also gave a chunk to the anemone to dissuade the crab. It all worked rather well!
 
Glad to hear all went well for you!!
 
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