Proper Feeding 101

Because I've been doing this a while and because I partially owned a LFS, I'm often begged to go to someones house so see if I can help their beloved sick and dieing fish. I'm often shocked by what I find.....no drip loops on power cords, filter pads that clearly haven't been cleaned in months, a quarter inch of detritus in the sumps, etc.

However, I want to discuss feeding. I also often find a very large container of flake food or pellets with the lid off that are sticking together due to humidity. Well, to be honest with you, that food is now worthless. Heck, I've even seen people feeding freshwater fish food to their saltwater tanks. Flake and pellet food should always be stored with the lid on in the freezer. Also, even though I know it's cheaper per ounce to buy the larger containers, don't. Purchase a size that will run out within 3 months.

Out of all of my tanks over the years, I've never once lost a fish to Ich. Not even fish that are prone to Ich. I believe I've been able to do this by a combination of 2 factors; Good water parameters and good nutrition. If I see a fish has Ich, I simply increased the feedings and the frequency of my vitamin and HUFA (Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids) additions.

GVH by H2O Life (vitamin/fats)
Selco (fats)
Selcon (fats)
Vita-Chem (vitamin/fats)
Zoe (vitamin)
Zoecon (fats)

What worked for me for all those years at home also worked at the store. I built a quarantine warehouse that had more gallons of saltwater in it than most LFS's have total. If a fish got sick while in QT, I just moved them over to my hospital tanks and improved their diet and possibly used metronidazole or on occasion Levamisole (rarely).

We spend a lot of money on our tanks. It only makes sense to not get cheap when feeding them. If you only ate McDonald's you're going to get pretty sick after a while. Yes you're getting proteins, yes you're getting fats, yes you're getting carbohydrates. Number 1, that's the wrong kind of fat that you need, and Number 2, you better be taking your vitamins as well. Our fish deserve the same treatment.

Here's a great article. Feed Your Saltwater Fish Better

 

Thats a very interesting post, thank you inwall 75

Ill keep my eye out for the foods/ additives mentioned

when you mention increased feedings, with vitamins anD HUFA - Could you indicate from what to what - Eg feeding once a day normally, increasing to ? per day if fish is infected

this would be interesting information to have in advance of any problems
Steve

 

I just double up on the feedings from daily to twice a day. I will feed them their normal diet. Then I will use a quality flake food for the second feeding (it soaks up the vitamins and HUFA's best).

NOTE: If you overdo the HUFA's (fats), your skimmer will stop skimming for a couple of hours.

 

thank you for an excellent lesson. being new, i like learning as much as possible. in this hobby, ive got so much to learn and you helped move along some more, thank you again

 

great post, I learned a few things from it, and here I thought I had gotten my feedings down to a tee.

 

thanks for the article, i didn't even know of food additives besides selcon until a year ago.

are you posting pics of your quarentine house, i wanna see!

 

My former partners would throttle me if I did. LOL

However, I'll lay out the basics. There were 6 systems.

2 3000 gallon ponds with LR served as a common sump for roughly 50 40 g breeders. Each tank was drilled and drained by gravity into the sump. The water from the sump was pumped into a MRC MR-5 skimmer and from there it went through a bank of 6 industrial Pentair Aquatics UV Sterilizers, and then it went back to all the tanks. The fish didn't get any live rock, the only thing they had in their tanks was various pieces of PVC in which to hide.

The 3rd 3000 gallon pond contained new coral shipments. The corals stayed in the pond, there weren't tanks surrounding this. This pond was skimmed but not UV'd.

There were 2 smaller systems of roughly 300 gallons each. One was to QT clams and the other was to QT LPS corals that arrived half-starved. Neither of these were skimmed.

The hospital tanks were not plumbed together in any way. Each tank had nothing more than a cheap Bio-Wheel filter on it. That way, I could treat each fish properly for whatever was ailing them.

 

sorry I know this is a dumb question but what does HUFA stand for?

 

Look in the http://www.3reef.com/forums/reef-aquarium-articles-how-tos/common-acronyms-abbreviations-54351.html section to the left.



Luna

 

not listed.....................