Blog Comments

That sounds pretty good. My daily water changes for the QT come from the reef, and the new saltwater goes into the main reef to replace what was taken.

I use a spare 30g tank, a HOB filter, small heater and a normal florescent light. ( No need for a special light if its just for fish) I also throw in some pieces of PVC pipe so they have some place to hide. A few days before I need it I save the water from the water changes and put in the tank, that way the water is the same as the main tank. Since I do a 3g/day WC, once the QT tank is running the water from the main tank goes to the QT tank, the water from the QT tank goes down the drain. No sand no live rock, this way if I need to treat the fish I don't contaminate anything else.

Ya that happens often when sales go on for fish and coral. I think they sell out fast since we dont have any online places to buy live marine fish/coral

ahhhh 40% off i wish i lived closer!!!! im from london so its quite a drive up combined with picking a day the stores have good selection, ive made the trip a couple times just to find that all that remained were left overs

They can, but they prefer to open up in darkness. So check your tubastrea at 11:30pm and see what it looks like.

my lights are off around 11pm I try to feed them around 9pm.

Do your fully open whith just blue night lights on?

What time do you usually feed? I do so around 9:30pm. The lights are off by 10pm. By 11pm the suncorals are wide open. Your's are maybe 40% open in that picture.

I thought this was fully open.
I havent had a chance to look at it late at night hoping i can take a peek tommorow around 2 am cant wait!!

Yup I got this one at big als oakville. there on sale all week 40% off, I also saw that big als mississauga has them on monday only 40 % off

great sun coral! where did you get it? in the GTA?

I love the sun coral. Have you been checking on it late at night to see how much it can open up?

Those stores are good for freshwater fish.. saltwater, not so much. Those tanks are probably all connected in the back, so chances are those parasites are in every tank. And they never told you at the beginning that Marine is final sale?

It's not bad. You just have to maintain good water quality. Phyto can help keep the glass clean longer, some have noticed.

thanks for the info seems to be both good and bad from feeding phyto and rotifers to a tank

Originally Posted by melev

I've not fed phtyo to my tanks in years. Partially because I was always battling PO4. Now that I've maintained 0 for seven months in a row, I'm somewhat tempted to try it out to see how the reef does.

No articles have been written up on RA for this topic yet.

seems to me you're going to have a great opportunity to satisfy a temptation and contribute some great...and apparently badly needed info

ive been thinking of taking this up myself. if any one here has any good methods id like to hear them

Corals can definitely consume smaller food (plankton-size), since their polyps are their mouths are even smaller. The challenge is feeding your tank without overfeeding it. Corals can absorb all the nutrients in the water to grow, but in a closed ecosystem the excess nutrients pollute the water column. If you really want to overfeed to get better results, I would probably try to couple it with a huge water change shortly thereafter to avoid creating a NO3 / PO4 soup that fuels algae growth.

I've not fed phtyo to my tanks in years. Partially because I was always battling PO4. Now that I've maintained 0 for seven months in a row, I'm somewhat tempted to try it out to see how the reef does.

In the end, I would expect tiny mouths to consume it, leading to better breeding and offspring. Those micro-pods would be food for my fish, and the fishes' waste would be food that the corals consume.

No articles have been written up on RA for this topic yet.

Here is a link to one for phyto that marc had done way back. But correct me if i am wrong Marc you no longer feed phyto to your corals.
http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

Have there been any RA articles on the growing or feeding of phyto and rotifers. I searched but did not find any results.

wo would corals feed off the two and also would it help increase my copepod population?

It's a method of providing live foods to your tank to feed the tiny pods, which then can be eaten by your fish. Rotifers are often used to feed something to newly hatched fish larvae, and phytoplankton keeps the rotifers alive. It's the circle of life.