spot feeding a dendro / carnation coral

[jhale]

I've been trying to figure out how I could keep a dendro in my tank healthy. I'm away a good part of the time and can not spot feed it as often as it needs.


what if I was to use a doser pump to feed the dendro a continuous supply of food through out the day. it would be in a liquid form with small particles so the doser should have no problem with it.

I could run silicone tubing into the tank and under the dendro. the doser timer could be set to feed as often as needed. The tube could even be split so there is more than one food source hitting the dendro.

that's how they get the food in the ocean, they grow along cliffs and the currents sweep the food up to them.

what do you think, will it work?

 

[jhale]

I was thinking one of the reef nutrition formulas, or making my own.

 

[fritz]

I think that you run the risk of food spoiling inside the tubing. Ingenious idea otherwise.

 

[jhale]

just to be clear I'm speaking about the Dendronephthya / carnation coral.

 

[jhale]

sorry for the confusion, but they do have the same name.

anyway back to the subject.

Fred your right about the food spoiling. I did not think that part out. maybe an insulated tubing? back to the drawing board.

 

[ellebelle]

As long as the food didn't get stuck in there, why would it spoil in the tube? Food doesn't spoil in an hour - it would have to be out for a long time. A little insulation would add some extra protection.

 

[jhale]

please, post helpful comments only, thanks (not directed at ellebelle)

 

[jhale]

yes it might not spoil in the tube, but where would it be kept?

I did not think of that either. it would need a mini fridge to keep it fresh.

perhaps one of the ones made for cars, they are small.

 

[jhale]

yes I am discussing the "extreme" feeding requirements here.

it's in my tank, and was collected from the ocean already, so I'm trying to give it the best care possible.
I did not go out and request it to be collected. This is the Dendro that I got for the snail to feed on.
Perhaps both can have a home they can live in, if I can solve the feeding problem.

 

[Deanos]

Extreme feeding

 

[ellebelle]

You would definitely need a little cooling mechanism under the tank. If you were only going to be gone a little while, a cooler with some ice packs might be enough. To last a couple of days, you would need a little fridge. You'd have to do something like they do for kegerators and drill a hole in the front to run the tube through.

 

[ScottK]

I've thought about how to do this, too, as I'd like to have a non-photosynthetic reef some day.

One thing to think about is the type of food you're going to use. From what I've read, it seems that they are very particular about the types of food they eat, size being an important factor. Things like cyclo are too big for them, they eat tiny phytoplankton, and aren't carnivorous.

If you make a setup where you culture your own phyto, you should be able to rig up a system of dosing from the cultures into your DT. If you're growing the cultures, you shouldn't have to worry about refrigeration, right?

 

[ellebelle]

What food are you going to use? Phyto or Zooplankton? If it's phyto, you might be in luck as you could portion some out or make a mechanism where you roommates could refill on a daily basis for you ... But that's going to add a lot of phosphates to your system unless you spin down the phyto and resuspend it all in RO water using a centrifuge.

 

[jhale]

What food are you going to use? Phyto or Zooplankton?

I'm not sure yet. I was going to contact Gresham at reef nutrition for food advice. I will also see if Mr. Delbeek has any updates to the 2002 article.

 

[jhale]

I
If you make a setup where you culture your own phyto, you should be able to rig up a system of dosing from the cultures into your DT. If you're growing the cultures, you shouldn't have to worry about refrigeration, right?

this is true, if it leads to feeding phyto, the cultures could grow in the stand and have the doser tubes direct to the cultures.

 

[ellebelle]

This is true. The only issue is that phyto cultures have to be shaken every day. Would your roommates do that for you?

And, how will you stop your entire tank from becoming polluted with phyto? Your Dendronepthea might do okay, but your acros might not...

 

[ScottK]

Here's another article by Bourneman. It's old, but a good read.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1296/1296_4.html

 

[ScottK]

This is true. The only issue is that phyto cultures have to be shaken every day. Would your roommates do that for you?

And, how will you stop your entire tank from becoming polluted with phyto? Your Dendronepthea might do okay, but your acros might not...

For the stiring problem, you can just use something like a Kalkwasswer reactor as a holding tank for the phyto. Just set the timer to stir every few hours.

 

[jhale]

aqua medic makes a phyto reactor

my idea of spot feeding with tubing was to limit the amount of food going into the tank.
if the food is fed right next to the soft coral that would prevent having to dose massive amounts of phyto that would be wasted.

 

[ScottK]

But how much of what you directly dose will the coral eat? I would guess that only a very small percentage of that would be caught and eaten at one time.