CMA Chapter 8 Foods and Feeding

[LeslieS]

CMA Chapter 8 Foods and Feeding

As I am the Queen of OverFeeding, it is most appropriate that I do the write up for this chapter.:eat:

?Our job as aquarists is to present a palatable, nutritious mix of food items in the right quantity and at the right times.?

Dry foods need to be kept fresh. Only buy what you can use in a few weeks.

Regarding frozen foods, Fenner feels that they can be just as nutritious as fresh, but he does not feel that rinsing them is beneficial or necessary. Most reefers on MR would dispute this.

Freeze dried foods are nutritionally acceptable, but supposedly can be expensive. I have not purchased them so I have no idea how economical they are.

As far as green foods, okra zucchini, and spinach are fine but can lead to a build of oxalic acid which can irritate the lining of the gut. Just as with people, iceberg lettuce has almost no nutritional value. Marine greens such as nori are the best option for veggie eating fish.

Vitamins can be helpful when the food being offered is soaked in them.

Live foods (such as goldfish :goldfish2) are unnecessary. They are more expensive, may introduce pests :snailr disease, are inconvenient, and may intensify predatory behavior. Fenner notes that the exception to his dislike of live foods is when breeding or captive propagation is involved.

Homemade foods are an option if you have the time. Several MR members have recipes that they swear by.

The basic feeding guidelines which I really need to absorb are:

• Know your livestock and your system.
• Feed more frequently with smaller amounts.
• Know how your specimens should look.
• When there is a choice between underfeeding and overfeeding-UNDERfeed.

Lastly, Fenner cautions against believing that because your fish is growing fast, it is healthy. More frequent feedings of higher protein foods in great quantity shortens the lifespan of cultured marine organisms. He further emphasizes that optimum growth for mature and maturing marines is probably very slow.

I think some areas of strong interest to MR members would be rinsing vs. not rinsing food. Almost everyone here swears by it. Is there anyone who does not rinse frozen food? Do you notice an impact on your tank?

Also, does anyone have any food recipes that they would like to share?:squid:

Lastly - and this is just for me - UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed UNDERfeed??.

 

[ellebelle]

I have a tendency to overfeed as well, and I'm trying very hard to curb that. I feel like half the time my tank looks better after I've been away for a while because I always instruct my roommate to feed the tank less often and in smaller amounts than I normally would.

There was a thread a while back on food recepies, phosphates, and other good stuff.

 

[PalmTree]

So true. I love watching my fish eat and pig out. But when I'm away and I tell my friend to only feed once every other day I notice the skimmer pulls out a lot less crap.

 

[daisy]

Leslie, if you are the queen of overfeeding, I am the queen of underfeeding. I try to have something always available for the tang to munch on, but when the poll about "how often do we feed" was up, and the least-often choice was once a day, I could not participate in it, because I almost always skip a day at least once a week. I know there is stuff in the tank that everybody eats, and so I don't even add food every day. I have not had a loss in the tank in many years (knock wood), and everybody looks and acts healthy.

That said, as far as rinsing the food goes, I am looking forward to reading others' replies. I only just started using frozen food, and I was not told to rinse it, but rather, to just plop it into a cup of tank water, let it dissolve with a few drops of garlic juice, and then dump it (slowly) into the tank (as much as they'll eat in a few minutes). I have a TON of filter feeders in the tank (tiny feather dusters everywhere), and I know they get a lot of what is in suspension. I also have a huge pod population, so they, too, eat the really small stuff...

That said, I also know that I need better test kits - I have only a very general idea of what my params are b/c my test kits suck (I use the health of my most sensitive organisms and the presence of different algaes to be my early warning signals...) I spend a lot of time looking at the tank every day and do very frequent small water changes. This has worked for me.

But keep in mind, my tank carries a very low bioload at this point - only four fish, and not much coral yet...

-tahl

 

[Harif87]

As far as feeding goes, i just bought a brine shrimp net, so rinsing has gotten a lot easier and efficient. But i think its so important not to overfeed. Otherwise, we might as well just add pure nitrates phosphates ammonia and other goodies into our tanks and skip the middle man.

If we didnt overfeed we wouldnt need as much dependence on skimmers, RO units, phosban reactors etc.

Its all about cleanliness.

 

[ellebelle]

What kinds of foods do you feed? I generally feed mysis, e. pacifica, cyclopeeze, and zooplankton on a rotating basis, with pellets and flake on occasion when I'm lazy.

 

[Harif87]

I usually feed mysis, silversides, squid (at times), seaweed selects (that count as "feeding"?), and flakes when im lazy.

Since were on the topic, is there anything i could do about uneaten seaweed that is ripped off the clip? I mean, is there any way to keep the seaweed from ripping like that? Could it depend on the quality of the seaweed? I always find about 1/2 suqare inch piece either under a rock or stuck in my overflow..