For a long time my blue mandarin was a very happy fish in my 29g, and would eat prepared foods much to my delight. Since that was the case, I never worried about it. However, in the 280g reef, it was actually being starved to death due to stress by the other mandarins harassing it as well as the voracious Tangs that would circle around it and get every morsel of food off the sand.
Susan did a great job putting together a working manual for everyone follow, including myself. After a few years, that resource vanished from the web. This page was originally written by Susan J. Wilson; page last found online on Sept 12, 2006: http://www.sjwilson.net/reef/phytosteps.html Contents placed on my site as reference only, and these are all her words below...
Growing baby brine shrimp allows me to feed the smaller fish in a reef tank containing large voracious tangs. Every day, one batch is added to the tank while the pumps are off. The tangs swim through the tiny bits of live food, while the little fish have their meal.
Hatching brine is easy, and doesn't cost much. The recipe is available on my site. Two hatching stations allow me to always have a new batch available daily.
Buying frozen foods at the local fish store can get pretty expensive over time. Fish need varied diets, so rotating through separate foods each day of the week can be routine, but ask a person to do this for you while you are away and suddenly it seems overly complex.
Live Phytoplankton is very expensive to buy, but growing your own is pretty easy and much cheaper. Flame*Angel from ReefCentral.com has an excellent page that I followed to get my own culture started. I store it in the fridge, shaking it once a day to avoid settling. New batches are ready on a weekly basis.
Susan did a great job putting together a working manual for everyone follow, including myself. After a few years, that resource vanished from the web. This page was originally written by Susan J. Wilson; page last found online on Sept 12, 2006: http://www.sjwilson.net/reef/phytosteps.html Contents placed on my site as reference only, and these are all her words below...
My reason for setting up the suncoral tank was to allow me to feed these hungry corals easily on daily basis. It housed an adorable tiny eel that I caught during a collection trip near Galveston, Tx. This tank was taken down after four years, when the new 400g came to live. The suncorals were moved to my new Frag Tank.
Feeding an aquarium seems simple enough. Buy a jar of flake food, and toss some in, right? Actually, that really isn’t a good idea for a variety of reasons. Hopefully you’ll find the following information helpful for your own specific needs. Foods come in many forms, including sheets, flakes, pellets, frozen, refrigerated, liquid, and live.
Hatching brine shrimp is quite easy, inexpensive, and beneficial as a food source especially if you are offering up 24-hour old nauptili. These would be baby brine shrimp with their yoke sack still attached, hence more nutritious. Two of the ingredients you already have if you have a saltwater aquarium running, and the rest is found online or perhaps at your local fish store (LFS).
