Today on BRStv we are going feed some fish
Hey guys my name is Ryan, welcome to another week of the BRS 160 where every week we do
our best to help you guys, members of the reefing community enjoy your tanks and find
new ways to explore the hobby.
We do that by following the set up and progression of this one hundred and sixty gallon reef
tank.
Today we are going to cover fish foods including the right type of food, how often, how much
and some cool feeding accessories and tips.
I think the most important component of all this first identifying what type of fish you
have in the tank and what their natural diet is.
While fish can survive in a lot of different types of foods their biologic functions have
evolved around utilizing a certain mix of proteins, carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins.
This is pretty similar to other pet foods.
For instance many pet owners acknowledge their dogs and cats are carnivores and make an attempt
to feed them protein rich foods which have minimal to no grain diets, many take it a
step further and feed low carbohydrate or even raw foods almost completely comprised
of the entire animal bones organs and all ground up to supply a very natural source
of protein, minerals and vitamins.
I think we all recognize a dog or cat can survive a long time on the cheapest unbalanced
food out there because they do supply enough nutrients to support biological function.
The same way a human can survive off sugary cereals, pizza, burgers, soda, chips and French
fries for decades however the imbalance of nutrients our bodies are designed for will
likely result in a whole slew of health issues mostly relying around premature organ deterioration
or failure and Immunodeficiency disorders which increase susceptibility to disease or
infections from bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Same can be said of fish.
I think you can buy pretty much any food on the shelf and the fish will survive for many
years as long as you feed them enough to support their energy requirements.
However if your fish have names , you treat them as pets or members of the family and
you take pride in keeping them healthy for ten to twenty years then giving at least some
effort into selecting the right foods is probably a wise move.
At the highest level you have you basic categories of fish.
Your carnivores and your herbivores Carnivores primarily diet being flesh which is very protein
rich, and herbivores diet being primarily algae or plant material.
In reality a good portion of fish in the reef aquarium are omnivores which mean they consume
both algae and flesh.
So the first step in all this is recognizing the natural diets of the fish you selected
for the tank.
For the most part it is somewhat easy to recognize just from their behavior in the tank.
Most of the herbivores or omnivores like tangs, some blennies and rabbit fish spend a majority
of the day obviously looking for algae to peck off the surface of the rocks.
Most of these fish will also have an active feeding response to meaty foods and will rapidly
go after them when they are added to the tank as well.
There are a handful of ways to help fulfill their natural dietary habits as close as we
can in the reef tank.
starting with frozen foods which have algae as part of their mark up like hakari’s mega
marine algae, which has sea algae as the primary ingredient, spirulina brine shrimp which are
brine shrimp that have been fed spirulina just prior to harvesting to increase nutritional
value or maybe mega marine angel which has sponge and sea algae as the primary ingredients.
Outside of frozen foods there are a whole variety of dry foods with algae as the primary
ingredient as well, the most notable being the Hikari seaweed extreme which is close
to 70% seaweed in the pellet.
I am pretty confident this is the highest seaweed content of any pellet food out there.
Outside of that fauna Marin has some excellent soft spirulina pellets.
Fish seem to really like all of fauna’s softer pellets.
Another super common method of feeding algae is nori and other types of algae sheets.
Typically placed in these suction cup or magnetic algae clips.
Not the most attractive things in the world but they give the fish a natural way to graze
all day.
Some reefers will also rubber band some to a rock and throw that in the tank which is
another awesome way, particularly if your fish are aggressive eaters and constantly
pull the algae off the clip,
Two little fishes offers three types, red purple and green.
Green being the most common but different fish like different kinds of algae and I might
try a couple types to see what your fish like best.
Related to that two little fishes also offers these algaes in smaller flakes.
They tend to float so you might need to soak them for a couple minutes and fish are a bit
more picky about these flakes when they are floating around the tank rather than attached
to the clip for some reason.
Time to talk about the Carnivorous fish which primarily eat flesh.
This is pretty obvious with frozen foods clams, shrimp, squid and similar items are all obviously
meaty flesh of some type.
While most fish will do best with a varied diet if you are going to select one you should
do so my nutritional content.
The food blends like the mega marines which have been fortified with nutrients do a great
job of including a varied diet with a high protein and essential fat content but I think
the most popular with seasoned reefers is the Canadian Mysis shrimp because it has a
naturally high protein and fat content and doesn't need to be fortified.
Pellet foods are actually also very high in protein and fat.
I think the Elos pellets being the highest concentration at over 60% protein.
We have used all kinds of pellets here at the office.
My choice is normally the Elos, but we got ridiculous growth and health from the clowns
on the sustainable aquatics diet.
These guys have out grown every set of clowns any of us have ever seen on their food.
I’d like to share some general information on the differences between those broad food
categories of frozen, pellets and flake foods that not everyone considers.
Frozen foods offer a soft natural texture most similar to the live foods makes them
the most palatable and well received by most fish.
pellets and flake foods are a lot more convenient to feed, pelletized foods being the most common
of the two because they sink and a shape better accepted by the fish.
The most notable thing about pellets is they are extremely nutrient dense.
Most frozen foods are about 70-80 water, 1-2 percent fat and only 5 to 15 percent proteins.
Whereas pellet foods have most of the moisture removed is often 5 times as nutrient dense
with as much as 8 to 12 fat and 40 to 60 % protein.
I would compare this to the nutritional content of a single orange verses a cup of orange
juice concentrate which has had the water removed and been fortified with vitamins,
minerals and essential fats.
One of the other nice things about pellets is you can even further fortify them with
additives like fatty acids like selcon, bright well as a whole line designed specifically
for this with garlic, omega three’s, and angel elixir.
Similar to that elos’s extra vitamin and Fauna Marin’s ultra food energizer.
Just add a small amount to your pellets and let them soak it up which not only increase
the nutritional value but also soften the pellets before feeding making them more palatable.
So all that doesn't mean that dry pellet foods are better than frozen foods only that a little
goes a long way and in some cases they are contain a bit more varied form of nutrition.
End of the day everyone has their preferences I personally like frozen food better for my
tanks for a couple simple reasons, first the fish seem to like frozen food better, it stays
in suspension longer , typically doesn't float and because it is less nutrient dense it is
just a lot easier to over feed.
That last part is particularly important.
When you feed pellets which are five times as nutrient dense it is a lot easier to over
feed and cause nutrient issues with your tank which lead to algae growth and other issues.
In fact if you are constantly having nutrient related issues with your tank my first bit
of advice would be to switch to a fairly pure frozen food without a lot of additives like
the Canadian Mysis from Hikari.
To that note that’s what we feed the brs160.
Once a day I hit the feed mode on the tunze’s, dissolve a small chunk of Canadian Mysis in
a cup of water, add my reef chili and a few of the smaller algae extreme pellets from
Hikari and broadcast feed the tank and corals at the same time.
We feed a bit heavier and the reef chili daily rather than just a couple times a week because
the tank has a considerable amount of corals in it and we are less concerned about excess
nutrients, after the tunze’s feed timer is up the roller matt removes most of the
food that goes down the overflow and the Zeovit reactor will keep the overall nutrients near
zero.
Outside of that I add a half a sheet of nori a day to give the tangs something to peck
at and we have a freezer full of foods here so I do like to vary the diet once in while
by feeding clams, squid and krill.
If I wasn't feeding the reef chili I would probably also add some of the cyclopods, rotifers,
or coral gumbo to the mix.
So how much and how often should you feed your fish?
Well what goes in needs to come out so always keep that in mind and only feed what you have
to or what you are prepared to take out with water changes and other tank maintenance or
nutrient reduction methods?
In terms of general fish health most people feed once a day but super active fish might
require more.
In general fish are no different than people or any other animal, they will look skinny
if you don't feed enough and fat if you feed too much.
And super active swimmers like anthias which expend a lot of energy darting around the
open water all day will need a lot more food or energy than pretty docile fish which spend
most of their time perched on the rock work like hawkish and some gobies.
Ill also note that a lot of the smaller fish that spend their time in open water swimming
all day where you might feed them twice or even three times a day often benefit from
much smaller partial foods which are easier to digest and more similar to the plankton
they are eating in the wild.
The frozen cyclopods are a pretty good example of a small particle food reefers use for this.
All that said In general I would recommend you feed you feed about half as much as you
want you both in terms of frequency and amount.
As long as you are paying attention to their size and overall health it’s much more likely
that you are going to pollute the tank with too much food than it is you are going to
malnourish your fish.
Right after heater failure I am going to say overfeeding is probably one of the biggest
causes of complete tank tare downs because the polluted tanks just end up looking horrible.
In direct relation to that there are some tools that help you avoid that and there are
some that dive head first into the polluted tank pool.
Automatic feeders being the number one issue.
Some of you may require them but it is incredibly common for reefers to set them to feed a pretty
sizable amount of extremely nutrient dense foods like pellets five times a day every
day.
While there are exceptions in almost every case this is going to result in a tank with
nitrate and phosphate levels which are off the hook and all kinds of health and algae
issues.
if you do use an automatic feeder try because it suits your lifestyle or livestock needs
just keep in mind that just because you have the option of feeding more doesn't mean you
should.
Pay close attention to how much it feeds each time and how often.
I also strongly suggest placing a feeding ring like this one from two little fishes
which keep the pellets in a place where the fish can easily get them and prevent them
from going over the overflow.
If you have fairly turbulent water the feeding station from skimz or gourmet defroster from
innovative marine are excellent options.
These tubes work really well for those who want to just throw a cube of frozen in and
walk away.
One last bit there are some fish out there that don’t require any direct feedings at
all but do require some thought into what they are going to eat in the tank like sand
sifters and mandarins.
Eventually they both might start to eat prepared foods but in the beginning you absolutely
have to think about what they are going to eat in the tank.
Sand sifters are sifting through the sand for looking for microfauna to eat.
You might not be able to see them with the naked eye but if you look very close there
are all kinds of organisms growing in the sand.
This is a quick shot of everything you can see growing in our sand bed already.
How much microfauna your sand bed has is a component of how long the tank has been up
and how many nutrients settle out in the sand to feed them so keep that in mind.
Mandarins are the same type of thing, they feed on copepods and in the right environment
one the easiest fish there is to take care of but also one of the most abused species.
You can often see the copepods with the naked eye on the glass.
They look like tiny white specs that sit still and then jump around in a jerky movement pattern.
When you first get a mandarin this is the only thing most will eat and as you can see
they are going to eat a ton of these to be healthy.
You will see them hunting for them basically all day long.
To keep a mandarin healthy you not only need a healthy supply of pods but you also need
a safe place for them to reproduce.
Ideally a refugium of some type where they can populate safely within the macro algae
and slowly be released into the tank.
but a large tank like a 100 gallons or over with a lot of rock, sand and particularly
rock like reef saver or pukani which are filled with holes where the pods can safely reproduce
are excellent.
There is a lot of debate on sand sifters and mandarins and a hundred reefers will say they
had no issue at all in their tanks and others will say they have no place in the aquarium
and better left in the ocean.
My opinion is if you have the tank up for a year, and put some real thought into how
you are going to provide their natural diet such as a refugium you are very likely to
have success.
If you throw the poor fish in the tank right after setting it up and just hope it figures
out how to eat prepared foods before it starves to death you are probably just going to kill
it so it was better left in the ocean.
All in all no different than any other fish in the tank, consider its natural diet and
put some effort into feed them nutrient rich foods that they readily accept.
Mandarins and sand sifters just happen to require more planning, none of which is particularly
hard.
I will say sand sifters are one that are more likely to either adapt to prepared foods or
eventually die because it is hard to prevent them from completely decimating the microfauna
population in the sand.
So last week we asked all of you what your favorite component of the BRS160 is and the
roller matt was a land slide winner with over 50%.
Considering our conversation about feeding today it’s easy to understand why.
The roller mat isn’t just a replacement for filter sock but the only piece of equipment
on the tank that removes uneaten food and fish poo before it has a chance to break down
into unwanted nutrients.
I honestly wonder which is removing more waste at this point.
The roller matt or skimmer.
This week we are asking you what type of food you feed so hit that I in the upper right
hand corner and vote.
But honestly this is a super interesting subject so share what, how much and how often you
feed in the comments below for other reefers to check out.
If you Picked up anything new today let us know with quick thumbs up and hit that subscribe
button so you don't miss out on next week’s episode the BRS160 maintenance schedule.