feeding phyto and other goodies

Discussion in 'Fish Food' started by Swisswiss, Jan 29, 2014.

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  1. Swisswiss

    Swisswiss Caribbean Reef Squid

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    so my basement is starting to look like a psychopaths laboratory, with bubbling jars of emerald green liquid everywhere.

    i have recently been able to raise brine shrimp with success (winning!) and i shall be feeding the little critters to my tank on a regular basis, I'm thinking about once a week with filter and skimmer off for one night.

    but this brings me to my question, so far iv been pouring about 1 litters (0.2 gallons) worth of rotifers in my 450 litter (120 gallon) tank. is this enough food for my system or am I making a ridiculous dent? keep in mind i don't target feed

    what percentage of food to dt water volume should i be dosing? I'm thinking maybe up it to two litters and include brine, phyto and roti in the mix

    thoughts?
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2014
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  3. mikejrice

    mikejrice 3reef Affiliate

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    It would be more dependent on the specific concentration of what your feeding.
     
  4. Swisswiss

    Swisswiss Caribbean Reef Squid

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    yeah i thought about that after i posted :S. I'm not sure exactly how to calculate the food concentrations.

    what i do with my rotifer culture is that i leave about two fingers of the culture in the jar and top off with phyto. roughly a week later the water is clear and there are wpuerbvowurgn!!! amounts of rotifers. but yeah would be unable to put a number on them.
     
  5. Billme

    Billme Eyelash Blennie

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    Just curious Swiss, where did you get the cultures for your phyto, ect.?
     
  6. Swisswiss

    Swisswiss Caribbean Reef Squid

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    First round i got a liquid starter culture from reefphyto.uk as well as their fertilizer (fertilizer seems to work well) and rotifers. but i lost my phyto cultures to a rotifer infection (turns out dedicated tools for the various cultures is really the only way to roll) after that i was able to get my hands on a couple petri-dish phyto cultures from a local fish store, they imported them from florida-aqua-farm.com

    Culturing only nannochloropsis at the moment
     
  7. Billme

    Billme Eyelash Blennie

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    Wow. Bet your animals appreciate your efforts.
     
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  9. Swisswiss

    Swisswiss Caribbean Reef Squid

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    and these are my brine, i harvested them from eggs roughly two weeks ago. they are in a 5 litter tank that i filled about 1 litter with rodi water and the required salt to get it to 1.021 so as to clean the sieve i collected the eggs from, then topped the rest off with my phyto cultures (also 1.021 salinity) they seem to be doing good, keep munching keep growing!!!
     

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    Last edited: Jan 30, 2014
  10. Swisswiss

    Swisswiss Caribbean Reef Squid

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    its not a miracle solution and it can mess with your parameters if your not careful with your culturing methods, but in my ignorance i believe anything you do to recreate a natural environment helps. also i feel more comfortable feeding these sorts of food live rather than certain concentrates you find commercially.
     
  11. Billme

    Billme Eyelash Blennie

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    Sounds like it's as good as a refugium as far as providing some live food for the critters. I think it's better in that the uneaten food doesn't just find a place and decompose. Live food doesn't pollute as fast in that respect.
     
  12. Gresham

    Gresham Great Blue Whale

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    If you are culturing rotifers and not counting your culture, your blind culturing and setting yourself up for a crash. Counting is easy and take 5 minutes.

    See the Harvest tab on this page: Compact Culture System™ (CCS) | APBreed™ – Hatchery Solutions for Aquarists, Propagators and Breeders