Continuous plankton feeding?

[surgeonfish]

I was reminded on Sunday while in a LFS to regularly feed my corals every 1-2 days. This made me feel guilty as I have been feeding them rarely and they haven't been thriving.

This got me thinking. A few of my corals appear to have open polyps and feeding at night, but most of them are contracted at night. Would it be beneficial to continuously feed them 24/7? Would this more closely approximate real conditions on the reef? If so, is anyone doing this?

I was thinking of mixing a weeks worth of phytomax, chromamax, zoomax, reef-roids, coral frenzy etc. into a few litres of SW and dripping them directly into the tank. I am thinking of using a peristaltic pump to accurately control the rate and use a magnetic stirrer or airstone to keep the plankton in suspension. Does this sound crazy?

[Delphinus]

There has been some exploring into this area but it doesn't seem to have taken hold in the mainstream just yet.

In short, yes there is benefit to a continuous feeding regimen if you could somehow manage it.

There are a couple commercial plankton reactors that grow phyto and can be dripped into the tank, presumably could also be dripped into a second stage reactor growing rotifers to feed those, and then have that dripped into the tank. (These are the ones I'm thinking of:
http://www.aqua-medic.com/products/p...kton%20Reactor )

I've always wanted to try something like this at some point:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...nftt/index.php

There's also this:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/20...nftt/index.php

More articles:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/subject/feeding.htm

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by surgeonfish

I was reminded on Sunday while in a LFS to regularly feed my corals every 1-2 days. This made me feel guilty as I have been feeding them rarely and they haven't been thriving.

This got me thinking. A few of my corals appear to have open polyps and feeding at night, but most of them are contracted at night. Would it be beneficial to continuously feed them 24/7? Would this more closely approximate real conditions on the reef? If so, is anyone doing this?

I was thinking of mixing a weeks worth of phytomax, chromamax, zoomax, reef-roids, coral frenzy etc. into a few litres of SW and dripping them directly into the tank. I am thinking of using a peristaltic pump to accurately control the rate and use a magnetic stirrer or airstone to keep the plankton in suspension. Does this sound crazy?

Sounds like the recipe for a big vat of microbial rot to me

You'd have to be going through the batches in pretty short order. Having that stuff sit around at room temperature for any length of time will only yield bacterial snot; lots of it.

[Sushiman]

I agree, put alot of thought into it, it just sounds like if anything goes wrong, it could go wrong bigtime.

[Reefer Rob]

I think you need to look at something else besides lack of food for your corals not thriving. What you're suggesting looks more like a recipe too keep your LFS guys well fed

I haven't found that any of my corals, except my sun coral, need to be fed to thrive. Feeding just speeds up their growth.

When I get my new tank stable, I'm going to start feeding "Pappone" a couple of times a week.

[danny zubot]

I'm curious if its best to feed during the day time or a night? Or does that depend on the coral?

[KrazyKuch]

Depends on the coral....If you look at say Candy caines their polyps are only out at night!!