Do you feed your tank at night?

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Do you feed your tank after dark?


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Fishfreak2009

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Does anyone here feed their reef after dark?

I have a few nocturnal fish, some of whom only come out with no tank or room lights on late at night (yellow brotulid pair). In order to make sure they get enough food I feed frozen brine or mysis 3x weekly around midnight. I also feed a clam on the half shell or piece of squid to the horseshoe crab most nights after lights out. And of course, I regularly dose live phyto, baby brine, and reef roids at night for those corals that have open feeding tentacles at night (gorgonians, some of the LPS, Acros, etc).

It's amazing to see how much more active the cardinalfish are after dark as well, and the inverts are all much more active. Corals are shrunk in for the night but feeder tentacles are all extended. It's like a totally different reef.

Picture is of the male yellow brotulid back when it was in quarantine. These fish are basically impossible to photograph in the display.

20230112_180209.jpg
 

Paul B

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I have a few nocturnal fish, some of whom only come out with no tank or room lights on late at night (yellow brotulid pair).
I had one of those for 18 years and probably only saw it 3 or 4 times except if I looked for it at night using a flashlight. Very cool fish you will never see. They are only active at night.

I killed it by accident because I removed some rocks to aquascape and left it out all night not realizing that fish was in it. :anguished-face:
 
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Fishfreak2009

Fishfreak2009

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I had one of those for 18 years and probably only saw it 3 or 4 times except if I looked for it at night using a flashlight. Very cool fish you will never see. They are only active at night.

I killed it by accident because I removed some rocks to aquascape and left it out all night not realizing that fish was in it. :anguished-face:
They are really neat fish, just have to look with a flashlight to see them. I'm hoping since they are livebearers and I have a male and female, I'll find fry in the filter sock or refugium some day.
 

srobertb

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Used to have a pair of soldier fish that were nocturnal so food for them at night was important. Lights out at 8. Red light kicked in so you could still see the tank. Soldier fish, spider crabs, shrimp, etc came out as the day fish went to bed. Was like having 2 tanks in one.

I think it’s a fantastic dynamic to have some nocturnal fish but at this point in my life with kids our house shuts down at 8pm when the day lights go out so there’s not really going to be any enjoyment of them as they’ll be awake when we are in bed.
 
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