F I N S :   T h e   F i s h   I n f o r m a t i o n   S e r v i c e
  Reef Tank Case Study
 
     

FINS Home
FAQs
Index of Species
Articles
Directories
Glossary
Software
DIY Plans
Gallery
Mailing Lists
Links
About FINS

Search FINS:

 

Food and Additives

I add several different kinds of food on different schedules:
Frozen brine shrimp, Formula I, other prepared foods
I add these mainly for the fish, usually every other day. I add only one type of food at a time, but alternate among the various foods. When I'm feeding brine shrimp, I try to squirt some of them at the corals that will eat it.
Chopped shrimp or squid
About once a month, the larger corals are given 1/4 inch chunks of seafood. I cut up the seafood while it is fresh, and then freeze it in a ziplock bag. At feeding time I defrost the needed amount, and place it on the corals with long tweezers.
Finely ground fry food
Every couple of weeks, I will dissolve some of this in tank water, and then squirt that among the smaller corals and other filter feeders. This is just to make sure that they are getting enough food since I don't feed the fish very much.

I also add a number of different additives:

Kalkwasser
I mix this up regularly, about a teaspoon of Ca(OH)2 to a gallon of water. A couple times a day, I add about a cup of this to the tank, pouring some into the sump, and some across the top of the tank. It is important not to add it too fast to avoid a "snowstorm" where all of the calcium percipitates out of solution. Some day I will build an automatic kalkwasser reactor.
Buffer
When I was dosing calcium with CaCl2, I added about 2 teaspoons a week. Now that I'm using Kalkwasser, I expect to need it much less often. I've been using the Kent Marine seabuffer.
Combisan
While I prefer to use simple additives where I know everything that is in them, I won a couple bottles of Combisan in a raffle, so I'm trying this for a while as an experiment. I've quit adding Strontium or Iodine separately, and am now dosing 1/2 teaspoon of Combisan every other day.
Strontium and Moybdenum
I generally use the Kent Marine preparation for this, adding a couple teaspoons a week.
Iodine
I mix my own iodine additive from Lugol's solution obtained at a pharmacy. I put 1 ml of Lugol's into a liter of R/O water, then does a couple teaspoons of this solution into the tank each week.
I rarely do water changes. When I do, it's about 10 gallons, and it happens every couple of months. I usually gage when to do this by how the corals look. If the corals go a couple of days without opening fully or looking completely happy, then it's time for a water change.
     
(c) Copyright 1993-2000 by Active Window Productions, Inc. See our disclaimers.