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Swimming Decorator crab

Feeding Stations

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by
Paul B
, 01-03-2012 at 11:04 AM (3203 Views)
All fish in the sea know how to find their food and in a tank it is even easier for them. The problem is that in the sea Mother Nature supplies food all day, every day. We as humans have other lives and usually don't want to feed our fish continousely. At least I don't. Also some fish are just designed to eat a tiny bit all day because that is just the way their digestive systems were designed. Fish like pipefish and seahorses don't even have a real stomach, just a short tube that acts like a stomach and intestine. These types of fish can not store food as other fish can. Other fish with similar digestive systems are mandarins and any other fish that normally lives on tiny food such as pods. These fish can not even eat a large meal if it were offered to them which is also the reason for their tiny mouths.
For this reason I am a big advocate of feeding stations.
My tank is old and loaded with pods so I really don't have to do this but sometimes a certain fish needs a little help even if the tank is full of pods.
I recently aquired a baby female that is very skinny. I am hoping she matures to mate with my large male.
I hatch and feed live baby brine shrimp to my tank every day and most of the fish eat them, even the larger gobies but this food disappears in a few minutes. Some of it gets skimmed off or caught in powerheads and the rest migrate to the surface because baby brine shrimp are attracted to light.
Most fish that would eat pods, live on the bottom so that food is lost to them.
This feeding station is designed for baby brine shrimp. It is just a plactic container with a mesh over it that barely passes baby brine.
It also has a tube running to the surface so I can fill it with shrimp.
I fill it in the morning and fish just hang around it all day sucking out shrimp.
Many shrimp also escape to be caught by the corals.
About 15 years ago I designed and patented this type of feeding station for adult brine shrimp.
http://www.breedersregistry.org/Arti...l_b/paul_b.htm (I do not sell these)
I have also used a different type of feeding station to feed moorish Idols.


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Comments

  1. FinishingLast's Avatar
    Okay. I want one of these. You should definitely sell them. How well does the brine make its way to the feeding station? Obviously gravity doesn't really work once it reaches the water level so I'm assuming it relies on them swimming down. This would be great to gutload baby brine for finicky bottom feeders like mandarins and the like. Very impressed with the design.
  2. Paul B's Avatar
    When I shoot the shrimp along with water into the tube, the shrimp end up in the feeding station. There is no swimming involved. Don't forget, there is a screen on top of the thing so the water comes out but most of the shrimp stay in there
  3. FinishingLast's Avatar
    That's what I figured, but I didn't see a syringe or anything at the top for pushing the water through, but that's what I figured on. I love the pipefish in your reef tank as that's perfect for it.
  4. Paul B's Avatar
    I love those bluestripe pipefish. She is one of a breeding pair but I lost the male. They only live a few years.
  5. Paul B's Avatar
    I replaced that small funnel at the top with this one. It was a small container of ink for a printer. I just removed the bottom and drilled a hole in the top.
  6. DJ in WV's Avatar
    That's a great Idea Paul
  7. Paul B's Avatar
    I built the thing mainly for this young skinny female mandarin. Up unitl now she has been afraid to go on top of it and would just suck up the shrimp around the edges but now she hangs out on top of it and sucks out dozens of shrimp. I need her to grow a little so she can mate.
  8. Paul B's Avatar
    I took a short video of the thing working.
  9. Paul B's Avatar
    I am happy to say that in the 5 or 6 weeks since I installed this baby brine shrimp feeding station my skinny little female mandarin fattened up nicely and is now bordering on plump.
    The first picture is when I got her, you can see her sides pinched in, especially under her dorsal fin and she resembled Twiggy.
    The second picture is today.

  10. Paul B's Avatar
    I bought a little red scooter bleeny and he is doing well but he is skinny like my baby mandarin was when I got her. He is trying to eat from the baby brine feeder but there are so many fish eating there now that there is no room left. I may have to build a litle larger one. That little female mandarin is always on the thing and she is now nice and plump. My large mandarin also figured it out and also hangs out there but he is already fat so he is just a hog and the copperband monopolizes the thing even though he fills up on worms and clams every day.
    So now using the feeder is the copperband, 2 cardinals, a pipefish, both mandarins a gobi and a scooter bleeny. The thing is only about 3 inches across
  11. Paul B's Avatar
    I know I posted this before but I just love this thing.
    I have been at this for a long time but I get all excited when I see the animals enjoying themselves, especially if it is with something that I created.
    Just about all of my fish eat from this live baby brine feeder even though they have other things they could be eating. The thing was created for a skinny young female mandarin but it has been so successful that I use it every day. Many of the fish hang around it even when there is nothing in it. I have successfully used variations of this method to feed moorish Idols and seahorses. Fish easily learn where the food is and most smaller fish thrive on living new born brine shrimp. There is even a couple of large gobies in there that swim up for huge mouthfulls.
    For people that have certain fish like mandarins, small pipefish or scooter bleenies and are worried they don't get enough to eat should try this. It is just a net stretched over a container with a tube going to the surface so live baby shrimp can be added. It really works great as this video shows.
  12. snorkeler's Avatar
    Very cool Paul, beautiful idea, super simple and effective! I love ideas like that.

    Question: where do you get the brine shrimp to start the process? Do you mail order eggs and hatch them?
  13. Paul B's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by snorkeler
    Very cool Paul, beautiful idea, super simple and effective! I love ideas like that.

    Question: where do you get the brine shrimp to start the process? Do you mail order eggs and hatch them?

    I can buy them everywhere here in New York and I hatch them in my hatchery which also seperates the egg shells. I have been doing this every day for as long as I can remember.