Automatic Continuous Feeding
- Thread starter SantaMonica
- Start date
Well 43 ml per day was too much for the scrubber to handle by itself. I was cleaning over a pound of algae from the scrubber each week, but it was just not enough (this scrubber was just sized normally, and with only one screen.) My ultra low phosphate situation ended quickly, and I started getting a light pastel blue in the Salifert phosphate test (nitrate stayed clear, however.) So now it's back down to 28 ml per day, and dosing is now every 10 minutes. I also put some gfo back in to speed up the recovery.
I must say that the increased food did seem to speed up the growth of the digitaga, stylaphora, birdsnest and superman. The tubastreas and goniporas are happy as always. The white dendronephtha is not so well; I either started the increased food too late after putting the coral in, or I have the wrong food, or it was just not enough food. Could be flow too, off course. But it's starting to hang and not inflate. No change in the scleronephthya... still partially open. I'm going to move it to a lower flow area. The dark purple gorg did not make it. It was not receding or growing algae, but it completely stopped opening, so it was just a matter of time.
For nephthas and nps gorgs, I'm going to try just getting many small ones of the same type, and putting them in different places. That should help identify flow problems, since food is constant throught the tank.
One big nice thing is not having to feed the fish anymore. Every 10 minutes they are chasing the food that is coming out of the tube.
I must say that the increased food did seem to speed up the growth of the digitaga, stylaphora, birdsnest and superman. The tubastreas and goniporas are happy as always. The white dendronephtha is not so well; I either started the increased food too late after putting the coral in, or I have the wrong food, or it was just not enough food. Could be flow too, off course. But it's starting to hang and not inflate. No change in the scleronephthya... still partially open. I'm going to move it to a lower flow area. The dark purple gorg did not make it. It was not receding or growing algae, but it completely stopped opening, so it was just a matter of time.
For nephthas and nps gorgs, I'm going to try just getting many small ones of the same type, and putting them in different places. That should help identify flow problems, since food is constant throught the tank.
One big nice thing is not having to feed the fish anymore. Every 10 minutes they are chasing the food that is coming out of the tube.
In my year of usage, I've refined things a bit:
1. I'm only feeding blended oysters now. Is much simpler, and cheaper, and covers all particle sizes from 1 to 200 microns. Most important: Oysters STAY SUSPENDED. Most other foods will settle to the bottom and clog the tubing. I'm using Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast, but similar would be fine. This food will stay suspended a whole month without touching it!
2. I don't get the air out of the feeding bag first.
3. Put a 4" filtersock in the chiller first (fits perfectly, and covers the icy cold steel wall). Then put a 1/2" or so of paper towel on the bottom, to keep the bag off the very-cold bottom area. Then just lightly put the bag in. No need to cover the top if you leave the chiller on "continuous".
4. Wrap the tubing to keep light and heat away from it, especially the heat from the chiller. Also, for the part of the tubing that goes from the pump to the tank, if you wrap it with a thin towel and let the towel touch into the tank water, the water will keep the towel wet, and therefore keep it cool.
5. Clean the air-filter on the chiller periodically.
6. For NPS, especially any seafan, put them near and in the direct flow of a powerhead. Even though the polyps may look like they are bending out of shape, they are still getting the most food this way.
7. Super high flow throughout the display, and sump, is critical. You don't want anyplace where the flow stops, since the food will settle out. While settling may help feed the snails, it won't help the corals.
8. Keep a thermometer in the chiller, which you can see while walking by. It stays between 28 and 33 degrees F. The food won't freeze as long as you have a filter sock covering the walls, and have paper towels stuffed at the bottom, and don't cover the top.
Misc:
I once turned off the feeder (but kept feeding the fish/eel) for a month. Every NPS died, along with some other corals, within 3 weeks. The notable exception was a copper colored flower pot that thrives. I never target fed, and won't.
The medical pump has been found on Ebay for as little as $100 USD.
Get a backup chiller. They are cheap, but not sturdy. I had one go out.
Continous feeding puts a ton of food into the water, so start doing it SLOWLY, maybe just 1.0 ml per DAY (not per hour), to see if your Nitrate and Phosphate filtration can keep up. It takes about 3 weeks for the effects of the excess food to show up as increased Nitrate or Phosphate or nuisance algae, so don't think you can increase it each day because you are not seeing any problems yet. If after 3 weeks there is no Nitrate and Phosphate or nuisance algae problem, then slightly increase the feeding amount. There is no limit to how much your corals can eat; the limit is how much Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate filtering you have. If you are designing a system to have a continuous feeder, and a scrubber, then the bigger the scrubber the more you can feed. I'm currently feeding 4.0 ml/day total, for 100 gal. This of course does not include the fish food (about 8 square inches of nori per day), or the eel food (one silverside per week).
1. I'm only feeding blended oysters now. Is much simpler, and cheaper, and covers all particle sizes from 1 to 200 microns. Most important: Oysters STAY SUSPENDED. Most other foods will settle to the bottom and clog the tubing. I'm using Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast, but similar would be fine. This food will stay suspended a whole month without touching it!
2. I don't get the air out of the feeding bag first.
3. Put a 4" filtersock in the chiller first (fits perfectly, and covers the icy cold steel wall). Then put a 1/2" or so of paper towel on the bottom, to keep the bag off the very-cold bottom area. Then just lightly put the bag in. No need to cover the top if you leave the chiller on "continuous".
4. Wrap the tubing to keep light and heat away from it, especially the heat from the chiller. Also, for the part of the tubing that goes from the pump to the tank, if you wrap it with a thin towel and let the towel touch into the tank water, the water will keep the towel wet, and therefore keep it cool.
5. Clean the air-filter on the chiller periodically.
6. For NPS, especially any seafan, put them near and in the direct flow of a powerhead. Even though the polyps may look like they are bending out of shape, they are still getting the most food this way.
7. Super high flow throughout the display, and sump, is critical. You don't want anyplace where the flow stops, since the food will settle out. While settling may help feed the snails, it won't help the corals.
8. Keep a thermometer in the chiller, which you can see while walking by. It stays between 28 and 33 degrees F. The food won't freeze as long as you have a filter sock covering the walls, and have paper towels stuffed at the bottom, and don't cover the top.
Misc:
I once turned off the feeder (but kept feeding the fish/eel) for a month. Every NPS died, along with some other corals, within 3 weeks. The notable exception was a copper colored flower pot that thrives. I never target fed, and won't.
The medical pump has been found on Ebay for as little as $100 USD.
Get a backup chiller. They are cheap, but not sturdy. I had one go out.
Continous feeding puts a ton of food into the water, so start doing it SLOWLY, maybe just 1.0 ml per DAY (not per hour), to see if your Nitrate and Phosphate filtration can keep up. It takes about 3 weeks for the effects of the excess food to show up as increased Nitrate or Phosphate or nuisance algae, so don't think you can increase it each day because you are not seeing any problems yet. If after 3 weeks there is no Nitrate and Phosphate or nuisance algae problem, then slightly increase the feeding amount. There is no limit to how much your corals can eat; the limit is how much Inorganic Nitrate and Inorganic Phosphate filtering you have. If you are designing a system to have a continuous feeder, and a scrubber, then the bigger the scrubber the more you can feed. I'm currently feeding 4.0 ml/day total, for 100 gal. This of course does not include the fish food (about 8 square inches of nori per day), or the eel food (one silverside per week).
I've now raised my liquid feeding to 12ml per day. N and P are both "clear". Matter of fact, instead of looking at the Salifert nitrate test from the top (which always looks clear now), I now look at it from the side, and compare it to an identical holder of just plain tank water. A few weeks ago it had a slight pink compared to the tank water (from the side), but today it was just as clear too. It does stay a bit "cloudy", because of the test chemicals, but the important part is that it is "clear" of any pink.
Since 12ml is double the 6ml I was feeding before, many of the coral tentacles have come out, and remain out all day, much farther than they did before.
If you are using the same pump as me, I've learned that if you are blending food yourself, the pieces don't get small enough for reliable pumping with this pump, because there is a tiny "particle filter" hidden inside the blue tubing device, designed to block large particles. What I did was pull the blue silicone off, and file off the plastic particle filter with a needle file; then put the silicon tubing back on. It worked much better. However I have since switched to the pre-made bottled oysters, and they are extremely finely blended, so there is never a clog.
Since 12ml is double the 6ml I was feeding before, many of the coral tentacles have come out, and remain out all day, much farther than they did before.
If you are using the same pump as me, I've learned that if you are blending food yourself, the pieces don't get small enough for reliable pumping with this pump, because there is a tiny "particle filter" hidden inside the blue tubing device, designed to block large particles. What I did was pull the blue silicone off, and file off the plastic particle filter with a needle file; then put the silicon tubing back on. It worked much better. However I have since switched to the pre-made bottled oysters, and they are extremely finely blended, so there is never a clog.
