What's in your Plank?

[DmitryB]

I bought a used Avast Plank feeder and it is a wonderful thing! I'd recommend people save some money and get one. (I also got the Mini for my 40 gallon; it's a bit different because it does not use a pump and does not send food down into the middle of the tank, but drops it on to the surface. I didn't quite understand this when I bought it, but it's fine!)

So what's in your Plank? What kind of food do you put there? My first batch I basically mixed every dry food I had, flakes, pellets, and coral food too. Observing what happens when it drops food, the flakes seem to be ignored when in the Plank (it's almost like they get ground down too small), but the pellets are eaten fast. So my next batch will be all pellets and coral food.

Does anyone put freeze dried mysis or brine shrimp? I saw somewhere that these need to hydrate first or they'll expand inside the fish's stomach if they eat them too dry, which can be dangerous. Is that the case? Do they have enough time to hydrate inside the chamber or is it not worth the risk?

 

[mmorrison55]

Im using the avast reef jerky. May eventually change to some other freeze dried

 

[rzimm33]

In my experience, too much freeze dried causes the food to get clogged and not dispense as intended.

 

[exnisstech]

I mix 5 different pellet, 2 types of flake, freeze dried calanus and mysis.

 

[exnisstech]

In my experience, too much freeze dried causes the food to get clogged and not dispense as intended.

What plugs, the feeder or the tube? I have a cannon ball on mine and was feeding reef jerky which is pretty much all freeze dried.

 

[DmitryB]

I mix 5 different pellet, 2 types of flake, freeze dried calanus and mysis.

So it's been safe to put in freeze dried mysis and such? It gets enough time to rehydrate before going to the fish?

 

[rzimm33]

What plugs, the feeder or the tube? I have a cannon ball on mine and was feeding reef jerky which is pretty much all freeze dried.

I was doing primarily freeze dried mysis which sits in the tube and isn’t shot down into the water column. I have even set the pump to activate when food is not being dropped and it still fails to come out. Usually I have to use a turkey baster to blast the mysis out and down into the water.

 

[exnisstech]

So it's been safe to put in freeze dried mysis and such? It gets enough time to rehydrate before going to the fish?

It appears to hydrate it. My understanding is that hydrating it is the purpose of the tube. I've been using the tube alone for quite a while and only recently started using the feeder but so far it's dropping food once every hour 11 hours a day. Food appears to be coming out each feeding. I have to feed fish from little damsels to 9" tangs so I create mix of food that hopefully satisfies them all. I still feed frozen a few times a day.

 

[Biokabe]

I have a mix of:

• Freeze-dried mysis
• Freeze-dried calanus
• Freeze-dried rotifers
• Benereef powder
• TDO Chromaboost pellets (small)
• Hikari Herbivore pellets
• Ocean Nutrition Reef Prime flakes
• BRS Golden Pearls

My experience with that mix has been amazing. I haven't lost a fish to non-obvious causes since adopting to that mix - by which I mean, the only fish I've lost have been to either jumping (RIP, jawfish and scissortail goby) or botching a tank transfer (RIP, everything else). The one exception was a copperband butterfly, which I never really observed eating and which rejected all my attempts to get something else into it. Still don't know if it was lack of food or diving into a powerhead that killed it, though I suspect it was that it never started eating and it just got caught up with the powerhead when it was no longer mobile. And apart from the occasional frozen treat or nori sheet (once or twice a week, at best), that's all I've fed the tank for at least the last 3+ years.

Everything does get ground down by the dispensing mechanism - except for when the mixture is fresh, I almost never see visible food particles when it's dispensing, even pellets. But I can see my fish going for things, and if I get really close to the tank I can see what they're going after.

I did use Reef Jerky for a bit and it seemed to be a decent mix, pretty close to what I use except that they also have larger plankton in the mix, and not as much herbivore food. I did have some problems with the larger plankton, but even in that case the dispensing mechanism seemed to grind them down before they hit the water.

 

[JGT]

I mix a little bit of everything but focus on freeze dried foods as I feel that is one of the main benefits of the Plank since it rehydrates the freeze dried and doesn’t float and go into the overflow. I load it up with flakes, 3 types of pellets, freeze-dried brine shrimp, Mysis, plankton, bloodworms, & Copepods. I add them in layers and then use a small spoon to mix everything up. I feed 6x a day for 3:30 and do 2 frozen feedings by hand.