What Does Increase Feeding Mean?!

RobertTheNurse

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Current Params:

Nitrate 2
Phos 0 or 0.03
Calcium 440
Mag 1350
Dkh 7.7
Salinity 1.025
Temp 77

Trying to increase my Nitrates back up to 10. And have or maintain a little phos. People always say "increase feeding". Ok, I have 65G with 2 clowns, a royal gamma, banggai Cardinal and a watchman goby. I JUST introduced the cardinal in the tank, but adding another fish IS possible -- I'd just wanna quarentine it first.

SO...how much should I increase feeding.
Currently have a mix of lps and softies.

Current feeding schedule. Fish get 1/3 a cube of brine once a day. I dose Red Sea Reef Energy Plus AB 3x a week. And I've upped the Reef Roids to 3x a week on seperate days too.

I used to have a GHA issue. Now got that under control with a few doses of vibrant. That has since been stopped, and my GHA is manageable.

thoughts?
 

landlubber

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it means add a feeding to your schedule, increase the volume of food delivered or do both.
I always found it easier to add fish to negate stripping the water but other good methods are skimming dryer or reduced hours skimmed per day.
 
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RobertTheNurse

RobertTheNurse

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it means add a feeding to your schedule, increase the volume of food delivered or do both.
I always found it easier to add fish to negate stripping the water but other good methods are skimming dryer or reduced hours skimmed per day.
Don't own a skimmer. Just run a cannister filter without floss or pads. You'd think I'd have some spare nitrates around.

I perform 20% water changes every 2 weeks. Also...so, should I feed another 1/3 a day then? Feed twice a day?

Rob
 

drewwCh

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Feed once a day with more food or feed the same amount twice. You could add more fish or snails, my trochus snails are pooping machines and I would think that contributes a lot to my NO3.

If you could manage your levels through dosing, I suggest that you cut back on water changes. You can either change less water or change water less often.
 
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RobertTheNurse

RobertTheNurse

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Feed once a day with more food or feed the same amount twice. You could add more fish or snails, my trochus snails are pooping machines and I would think that contributes a lot to my NO3.

If you could manage your levels through dosing, I suggest that you cut back on water changes. You can either change less water or change water less often.
I was thinking that. But wouldn't that just contributes to its own problems?

Was thinking to not change my water for 3 weeks. Ya, need another fish. But again, gotta quarentine that first lol
 

Montiman

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If you don't want to feed fish more add aminos or coral food. If that doesn't sit right add neonitro or neophos.
 

sde1500

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What is your goal for increasing nutrient levels? I'd say typically it means just feeding the fish and coral more. But I'd also advise caution, as Vibrant isn't a permanent solution. If you had algae problems before, they can definitely pop up again if you didn't address what was causing them before.
 

ScottR

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One question to ask is why you want to increase nutrients. Do you have corals or fish only? Obviously you’d want to increase your nutrients if keeping corals, but if you have and have had a GHA problem, the reasonable thing to do is to keep nutrients lower.

And how are you testing PO4? When you say 0-.03, I assume you mean salifert? Salifert told me I had 0 PO4. Wouldn’t even change to blue. I increased feeding and added fish but still no change. I got a Hanna ULR checker and it was almost .2! I was shocked and it took me awhile to bring it down. So I’d look into using a better test kit.
 
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RobertTheNurse

RobertTheNurse

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One question to ask is why you want to increase nutrients. Do you have corals or fish only? Obviously you’d want to increase your nutrients if keeping corals, but if you have and have had a GHA problem, the reasonable thing to do is to keep nutrients lower.

And how are you testing PO4? When you say 0-.03, I assume you mean salifert? Salifert told me I had 0 PO4. Wouldn’t even change to blue. I increased feeding and added fish but still no change. I got a Hanna ULR checker and it was almost .2! I was shocked and it took me awhile to bring it down. So I’d look into using a better test kit.
True. You got me on a better test kit. I wanna have a little storage of nutrients for my corals.
 

footgal

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Okay! There’s a couple ways to “increase feeding”

1- Increase the amount fed. Say you feed once a day, continue feeding once a day but feed a larger amount of food (like 2 cubes instead of 1). This really only works if you have lots of fish that can put down quite a bit of food at one time. I don’t recommend this for smaller tanks or tanks with less than 6-8 fish
 

ScottR

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True. You got me on a better test kit. I wanna have a little storage of nutrients for my corals.
Do you have a LFS, friend or someone else that will lend you one? Or do you have some expendable cash? A new test kit will give you much more insight into this.
 
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RobertTheNurse

RobertTheNurse

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Do you have a LFS, friend or someone else that will lend you one? Or do you have some expendable cash? A new test kit will give you much more insight into this.
I'm sure I'll get yelled at "why you buying ANOTHER test kit" lol...I'll get it tested at a store. I'll ask what they test with.
 
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RobertTheNurse

RobertTheNurse

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Okay! There’s a couple ways to “increase feeding”

1- Increase the amount fed. Say you feed once a day, continue feeding once a day but feed a larger amount of food (like 2 cubes instead of 1). This really only works if you have lots of fish that can put down quite a bit of food at one time. I don’t recommend this for smaller tanks or tanks with less than 6-8 fish
I want to add another fish anyway. What are your thoughts on skipping a WC?
 

Montiman

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I think you are overthinking feeding. You can't treat feeding like dosing. It is inherently more subjective. If your food isn't sitting at the bottom rotting you can feed more.

As an example my tank gets fed 5 times perday. 4 auto feeder rotations with pellets plus an average of about 10 frozen cubes a day. I have a 180 so in your 65 feeding 6 cubes a day is not crazy. If you are feeding 1 or 2 you can add alot more as long as your fish eat it. If they don't eat it I would stick with what they eat and add some aminos. Just follow the directions on the bottle and see where that gets you.
 

NeonRabbit221B

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I agree 100% with @ScottR on the test kit. Don't make a change until you know how much of a change you need to make. Guessing with phosphates is not fun to clean up.

Also side note I 100% suggest thinking about dosing instead of just feeding more. By all means, throw in an extra feeding for the fish now and then but dosing hasn't failed me.
 

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