What fish food is best for the overall health of your corals? Is dry bad? Is frozen bad?

[revhtree]

What "fish food" is best for the overall health of your corals? See what I did there?

I didn't say what coral foods are best for your coral but rather what fish foods are best for your corals, and I don't mean because the corals eat it. So what do I mean? Well in a reef tank it's important that algae doesn't overtake your rock work and smother your coral among other things. Shocker right! HA! So we want to feed our fish the best food but we don't want to overfeed and just as important we don't want to be feeding the algae with foods super high in phosphates! Of course nutrient export plays an important role when it comes to minimizing nuisance algae but being knowledgeable in what you feed your tank is also an important front line approach to guarding against the toxic green monsters of algae. Let's talk about it!

1. What do you think is the best food for your fish but has the least amount of negative impact on algae growth? Dry Food or Frozen Food?

2. What does your food list look like? List the brands and types of foods for us!


@astn_reef cool clownfish feeding shot

 

[sp1187]

so I feed 3 cubes of frozen, blood worms, brine shrimps and mysis 1 of each, thawed out in about 1 cup of tank water every other night. on the other night I feed approximately 1 1/2 TBS of R.O.E. eggs also in a cup of tank water. these are neither dry nor frozen. I feed most of this over a 4 hour period using a turkey baster. (if you use a turkey baster to feed, you will never need a fish trap to catch a problematic fish).
the rest is left in the container until the next morning when I feed it to my dendro and my sun colony.
the wife feed the fish pellets on occasion.
I'm usually good for two weird bacterial and two algae outbreaks a year.

 

[andrewkw]

LRS - I am kinda surprised they don't market it more as coral food too since they generally have a pretty good marketing program but add it to your tank and watch your LPS turn nearly inside out. If you crush it up there are tons of tiny particles that nearly any sized coral polyp can and will consume.

Once a week I mix about 1-2 cups of water with a big chunk of LRS along with various coral foods and target feed everything in my tank.


Look at the little discosoma mushrooms reaction on the left.

 

[revhtree]

LRS - I am kinda surprised they don't market it more as coral food too since they generally have a pretty good marketing program but add it to your tank and watch your LPS turn nearly inside out. If you crush it up there are tons of tiny particles that nearly any sized coral polyp can and will consume.

Once a week I mix about 1-2 cups of water with a big chunk of LRS along with various coral foods and target feed everything in my tank.


Look at the little discosoma mushrooms reaction on the left.

Very cool!

 

[Paul B]

I feel the best (and cheapest) food for everything is clams. I never feed my corals but the clams I feed the fish exude juice which feeds the corals and sponges.
I also eat them myself.

 

[don_chuwish]

I said 'other' because good quality version of either are no issue. Other = crappy food. I don't even know which ones aren't any good - I stick with Hikari, PE, Reef Nutrition, Rod's Food, etc.

 

[Lasse]

It is not food that´s give algae problems, not even the nutrients in them - it is the lack of grazers that gives algae problems.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[BanZI29]

LRS - I am kinda surprised they don't market it more as coral food too since they generally have a pretty good marketing program but add it to your tank and watch your LPS turn nearly inside out. If you crush it up there are tons of tiny particles that nearly any sized coral polyp can and will consume.

Once a week I mix about 1-2 cups of water with a big chunk of LRS along with various coral foods and target feed everything in my tank.


Look at the little discosoma mushrooms reaction on the left.

What type of coral can eat this? I have a lot of different ones like hammers, torches, acans, frog spawn, xenia, mushrooms, zoa's and paly's, and 2 small anemones. BTW I have no fish

 

[blasterman]

There are very few dry feeds coral will eat. Next problem is getting them to sink I've never had much success with pellets. Even my rock flowers won't eat them.

Reef Roids and foods in that group are perhaps the most popular dry food for corals. Also a direct source of phosphate in my experience.

For fish I've had great luck with high quality freeze dried brine shrimp and some flake food. In some cases they prefer the freeze dried over frozen. I've not seen either affect tank nutrient levels. Over feeding is over feeding.

 

[Joe De Leo]

In the wild they don’t eat dry food , right , I feed frozen food

 

[Ruben Sacramento]

To me, frozen is best as it is the closest to what is found in nature.
I feed a mix of misis, rotifers, calanus, cyclops, copepods and bloodworms from Gamma on my daily manual feeding but but still use some pellets on my auto feeder just so fish are used to it and I can leave home for some time without worrying much.

 

[LeahAnn]

I have fish, acros, montis, blasto, shroom, star polyps, but mostly encrusting corals, an array of snails, blue leg crabs, blennie as cleanup. I feed roids 1 to 2s a week, flake food for reef tamks daily, frozen shrimp on sunday. Tried dried shrimp they spit it out, have pellets for crabs 1x /wk in my 75 reef, then i have a 20 gal tall are blennie, blue legs, snails, 2 yellow tail damsrls and a snowflake clown. Thats my gorgonian and star polyp tank, then a 10 gal with a bonded pr of snowflake clowns. . All are fed every am only ehat they eat in 2or 3 minutes. Check my levels every sun. . So far were doing pretty good . My black blennie doesnt like eating algae off the rocks, he evidentially was hand fed, he waits patiently perched on his rock waiting to be fed, loves the sea. Kelp daily unless its sunday shrimp day. Only about 1 yr into reefs, had freas all my life, have 4 of them, lol, they are flake food primarily. . Ok thats me in a nutshell.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Frozen Mysis + selcon and everything eats it.
New life spectrum pellets work great to, have dragonet eating them and a aptasia eating filefish so they must be tasty. This and a sheet of nori per week

 

[bam123]

What "fish food" is best for the overall health of your corals? See what I did there?

I didn't say what coral foods are best for your coral but rather what fish foods are best for your corals, and I don't mean because the corals eat it. So what do I mean? Well in a reef tank it's important that algae doesn't overtake your rock work and smother your coral among other things. Shocker right! HA! So we want to feed our fish the best food but we don't want to overfeed and just as important we don't want to be feeding the algae with foods super high in phosphates! Of course nutrient export plays an important role when it comes to minimizing nuisance algae but being knowledgeable in what you feed your tank is also an important front line approach to guarding against the toxic green monsters of algae. Let's talk about it!

1. What do you think is the best food for your fish but has the least amount of negative impact on algae growth? Dry Food or Frozen Food?

2. What does your food list look like? List the brands and types of foods for us!


@astn_reef cool clownfish feeding shot

I normally hate designer clownfish, but that one is cool.

 

[dodgerblew]

Frozen gives you a lot of options. LRS gets my vote. I do however think Reef Nutrition serves a great niche (you didn’t offer refrigerated as an option) as does homemade

 

[design.maddie]

I picked other because there is only one answer to this question, ReefRoids

 

[ReefHomieJon]

I picked other because there is only one answer to this question, ReefRoids

Fish food lol not coral food

 

[Crashnt24]

Frozen gives you a lot of options. LRS gets my vote. I do however think Reef Nutrition serves a great niche (you didn’t offer refrigerated as an option) as does homemade

What's this LRS I keep hearing about? What does it stand for?

 

[ReefHomieJon]

LRS frozen. Everybody eats. And my phosphate is controllable. With dry food my PO4 shoots waaaay up

 

[design.maddie]

Chromis and Okinawa Goby both eat the heck out of ReefRoids, and the title is misleading it say fish/coral then asked fish food for algae.