Feeding frustration!

[WannaRace]

So I have to vent and hope I can get some good feedback here...

I bought mysis shrimp yesterday to feed my corals and supplement food for the fish as well. What should I do as far as my skimmer and powerheads are concerned, because they seem to love to suck up the shrimp and waste my money :) I'm not sure if my fish even got any of it! And I placed a few shrimp by the condy but they just get blown away from the current...

Help

 

[RigoSharon]

i havent used mysis, but ive seen that some people turn their filters and powerheads down at chow time..couple of minutes, till everyone has its meal..

 

[WannaRace]

Yeah that'd be the simplest thing to do I guess but I didn't want to have to unplug and plug back in three different things every other morning...

 

[RigoSharon]

true..i understand...lets wait to what advice the forum has to give about this matter..im curious too...

 

[HAWKS12thMAN]

I run my pump/skimmer on one set of timmers and my lights on another set of timers. Both timers are the surge protector style. I dont worry about my mysis being blown around to much, My fish catch most of them. One thing I do do is wiggle the cube in the water until the shrimp break off. For my corals I feed clopeeze with those I wiggle them in the water until enough come off and get mixed in the water a little by the power heads. Then I turn off my pump/ skimmer timmer for about 5 min so the corals can catch them.

 

[Bifferwine]

Mysis might be a little too big for coral food, depending on the corals. What kind of coral are you trying to feed? Something smaller like cyclopeeze is better for most corals, but most LPS can catch and eat mysis sized food.

I don't turn off any of my equipment. I keep my fish hungry enough that they eat all the food before it has a chance to get sucked up in anything.

As for feeding your anemone, if the anemone is hungry and ready to eat, the food will stick to its tentacles when you put the food on it. Just put the food near the mouth and see if it takes it. It will then grab the food and move it to its mouth by itself. The anemone might need something bigger than mysis, depending on its size.

 

[yote]

Since I feed a mix of mysis,brine,cyclops,and a few other things I cant think of right now.I turn off my filter system.Once the water stop going through the overflow,I drop in a couple of medium pinches(using tweezers) of the food.
Then i'll wait about 30 minutes to an hour to turn it back on.I leave the power heads on the whole time,keeps the fish from getting lazy.

 

[WannaRace]

hahah, thanks Yote :)

As far as corals, I've got a condy which I now know how to feed, thank you Biff, a frogspawn, a green star polyp, and a shroom. As far as the shroom goes I know I do not need to feed it anything.

 

[Bifferwine]

You do not need to feed the GSP either. And whether or not you should feed the frogspawn is debatable, many people have them and never feed them and they do fine, I feed mine occasionally. And you are right about the shrooms -- they do not require any feeding.

 

[WannaRace]

Today is the first day that my GSP did not open up. Do they do this occassionally or is something wrong? It was a frag and it looked kind of chopped up when the guy at the LFS sold it to me. When I added it to the tank at first almost all of them opened up, today is the only exception...

 

[RigoSharon]

mines does the same somtimes..just keep an eye on him...

 

[yote]

Some times a coral may not open for no good reason.If it goes 3 or 4 days,then start checking stuff.( nitrates,salinity,PH,Temp).If your tests dont show any thing,take a sample to your LFS for a double check.If that still shows good,then start looking for other things like some thing using it for a snack.

 

[reeffreak]

Its very common with GSP,especially if they recently been introduce.Like yote said,give it a few days then check your parameters.

 

[WannaRace]

So a few polyps on my GSP opened up today, not all of them...

I fed the condy some mysis shrimp and it stuck to it, but it doesn't look like it is eating the food. It has been about an hour now...It's just sitting there. Will it eventually eat it?

 

[RigoSharon]

well..it probably will do so..sometimes my condys eat, somtimes dont..it all depends on feeding times..i feed them directly 2 times a week, somtimes they grab some when i feed the fish..give them time ..somtimes they will move if not recieving too much food..is good to know that your gsp opened today..check often water parameters and do weekly water changes..that will keep them healty..

 

[Doc]

maybe I am doing something wrong, but my corals look good to me and I never feed them aside from what they glean from the mess of food I give to my fish each day. I thought about Marine Snow for food, but I just haven't gotten around to it. My clowns feed my BTA - kinda cool to watch. I like to see the food blow around my tank, and I doubt if I lose anything to my filtration. If that seems to be happening, the solution is easy.....BUY MORE FISH...lol

-Dr Marco :sfish: