- Today in the Five Minute Salt Water Aquarium Guide,
we're gonna feed these fish.
There's a right way and a wrong way
and you're gonna learn what it is.
Hey, I'm Ryan your host at BRStv
and the Five Minute Salt Water Aquarium Guide.
This is a clear, simplified, and direct path
to setting up that first successful reef tank.
It's time to talk feeding these fish.
The challenge here is two-fold.
First, we want to get them the right nutrition.
But, second, overdoing it is the cause of
all kinds of issues.
Today, we're gonna find that balance.
Starting with nutrition, none of the fish we selected
have really complex nutritive needs and almost any
food will keep them alive if that's the only goal.
However, these little guys are our new pets
and the goal is really more than that.
If we treat them right, some of them
will be with us for decades.
In terms of nutritive care and getting the right foods,
I believe there are four main concerns.
Nutrient content, similarity to their natural diet,
coloration, and nutritive density.
Your can approach this in a variety of ways,
but I believe a mix of TDO Chroma BOOST pellets,
Hikari Seaweed Extreme, and Frozen Canadian Mysis
is gonna produce some of the best results.
Starting with nutritive content that primarily means
protein and fat content.
Protein is what the fish will use to build muscle tissue
and fat is one of the primary sources of energy.
In which every pack of food will have protein
and fat content right on the label.
With dry food, 50% protein and fat in the low teens
is a pretty good standard to meet or exceed.
TDO Chroma BOOST pellets being a
BRS favorite in achieving that.
With frozen foods which have a lot more water weight,
12% protein and upwards of 2% fat represent
some of the better food options.
Canadian Mysis like PE and the Kari version clearly
labeled Canadian, meeting that standard.
It's important that it's Canadian Mysis
because some of the other Mysis types
have half the energy content.
Second with similarity to natural diet,
I'll say frozen foods seem to be a bit more palatable
and similar to fishes natural diet.
But this really means that primary ingredients
are aquatic based and not corn, soy,
fruits, or terrestrial animals.
Similarity to natural diet also means incorporating
foods natural to a fish's diet.
For instance, Tangs eat a lot algae.
So, incorporating algae into their diet
is valuable, likely even necessary for
normal metabolic function.
The Hakari Seaweed Extreme is 67% algae
and one of the easiest ways to achieve that goal.
Third and similar to that is coloration.
Many fish cannot synthesize desirable color
pigments on their own.
At least not in the quantity desired by reef aquarists.
The addition of green and red nutritive pigments via
diet is a very effective way of really getting that
color pop from your fish.
In this case were biding primarily
with the red axed xanthan content of Chroma Boost pellets
and green pigments in the SeaWeed Extreme.
Forth is nutritive density meaning pellets
are about five to 10 times as nutrient dense
by weight as frozen foods.
Meaning they can eat much less and get the same nutrition.
But, that also means 5-10 times is easy to overfeed
pellets as frozen foods.
Maybe worse because pellets are kept at the tank
and tempt us to feed all the time.
Whereas frozen foods require us to go to the freezer first.
So, it's just a reality that those that feed frozen foods
are just way less likely to overfeed their tank as pellets.
So, just keep that in mind.
So the net affect here is, I find a mix
of the Chromo Boost, Seaweed Extreme, and Mysis
offer a varied nutritive diet that serves
the needs that we discussed here today.
My suggestion is feed the frozen one day
and then the next day a mix of the two pellets.
Given the right amount can be tricky.
Take the amount that you want to feed because you
like feeding the fish and cut that down by like
80% and that's probably the right amount.
It's a very tiny amount.
Their bellies are small.
I do recommend one of these feeding rings to allow
the food hydrate and sink.
The rings tend to make it easier for the fish
to get as much as possible of the food that you added
rather than letting it get lost in the tank.
If you find yourself overfeeding this is
what's going to happen.
All that extra food is gonna break down
into nitrate and phosphate in the tank.
Nitrate and phosphate are essentially plant fertilizer.
So they feed the undesirable algae growth,
something common in new tanks.
So in that spirit, there are two
sure-fire signs of overfeeding.
Algae growth or continually rising
nitrate and phosphate levels which will eventually
lead to algae growth.
I'll say in a new tank where algae is a concern,
most people are shooting for nitrate in that low
2-5ppm range and phosphate in the 0.1-0.2 range.
But, it's less about hitting that perfect number
and more about making sure it isn't continually rising.
If nitrate and phosphate is continually rising,
it's simple, feed less and it will stop.
If you can't help it and you just like feeding them
you'll have to do more frequent water changes
or up you filtration game with something like a better
skimmer, filter socks to catch the waste or refugiam
that grows algae remotely to uptake the waste
from adding too much food.
So, while your pick up your food consider
a Hanna phosphate checker.
They just work way better than test kits at low levels
and I find Nyos Nitrate Test Kits to be the easiest
to peform and read.
It's been a long wait but today the corals
are going in the tank.
If you want to see how this turns out with corals
that's the next episode.
The entire Five Minute Guide is always available here
but this tank is about to get corals.
Click here to see what's going in the tank.