How do you exactly feed zooplankton? Is there any dosage rate i should use? I asked a local store and they said there is no need to feed zooplankton, so i think that is the last time i go in there. thanks for your time
micah
Hey Micah. Are you asking what to feed to zooplankton in your system or how much zooplankton to feed to larger inhabitants?
If you're asking the former then I feed my system a little phytoplankton and a little golden pearls every night. I hope that food supplement, plus the bacterioplankton and the reproductive products that are available in the system is what feeds the various zooplankton in my system.
There isn't a whole lot of zooplankton produced in our systems even with most of our refugiums. Occasional spawnings, like with peppermint shrimp help but I think we would need to run refugiums many times larger than our main tanks to get to natural zooplankton levels. And our skimmers probably remove some also. My thoughts.
im sorry i wasn't clear, what i meant was how do feed it as a fish or invertebrate food. on the container is says not to overfeed fish and so on but no dosage rate. thanks
micah
In the immortal words of Gilda Radner, "nevermind..."
As a general rule don't feed more than fish can consume in three or four minutes. Every bit of food that escapes the food chain adds to the problem of nutrient export in our closed systems. Of course, the food chain includes all the clean up crew and microbes in our live rock/live sand. But still, you don't want to feed more than will be eaten.
Exactly how much depends on the number and species of fish. Some won't eat typical packaged, dead zooplankton like daphnia. So go by how long it takes the critters to clean it all up. More than a few minutes and you rick water quality problems down the road.
