Unplanned meal plan opportunities: Have you had challenges with feeding your reef?

[Peace River]

Unplanned meal plan opportunities: Have you had challenges with feeding your reef?

Sometimes we all have those day (or months) where things don’t go as planned. With your reef tank, having one of those days may mean an outbreak of algae or disease, stinging corals, or failed equipment. It could also be something frustrating, but possibly less dramatic…feeding may not go as planned. This challenge could include loss of appetite for a fish, too big of an appetite for another fish, spilled food into the tank, vacation feeding challenges, picky eaters, and much more. Has this ever been an issue for you? Have you had challenges with feeding your reef tank? If so, please tell us about those challenges and also let us know in the related discussion thread any solutions or recommendations for feeding opportunities.

Photo by @Reefer Reboot


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[lapin]

I will bite hahahahaaha
Last summer it was very hot . I lost my white worm culture. Also about the same time Eastern Aquatics was redoing his black worm ponds. For about a month my poor fish did not have any real live food.

 

[twentyleagues]

Not reef related but I used to have a colony of Pea puffers that I fed black worms to. I went down to my black worm culture to get some and the whole tub had crashed. Smelled terrible. I think it may have gotten too warm was very hot the day before. Of coarse it was during the vid era and no one had black worms. Of coarse they were really picky eaters. They had to live off frozen blood worms which was a pain to get them to eat. Lots of fighting in the month it took to source more black worms.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes I do have a huge problem feeding my reef - THE FISH EAT BETTER THAN I DO and dont even say Thank You or send me a birthday card !

 

[SlasherZ]

I've got a Peppermint Shrimp that likes to treat my corals as a vending machine everyonce in a while, I've whacked him with my pipette more times than I can count!

 

[BubblesandSqueak]

feeding issues? I get pulled in with the food!

 

[shakacuz]

sometimes i feed too much, and have to deal with disturbing the balance of my reef. usually corrects itself, but recently while i was trying to catch a 6line and tomini tang i had to use food as bait quite often so it dirtied the water causing GHA to get a hold and start to take over.

time to do some manual removing while the CUC do their thing

 

[Joekovar]

Had a clown that lived in the top corner of the tank because a bigger clown picked on it. It got to the point where I fed that corner so the smaller clown got first dibs before food moved out to the rest of the tank.

I've since moved the small clown to a frag tank all by itself, and it's like a whole new fish now. Swims all over, seems a lot happier.

 

[vlangel]

Right now with my current reef, I do not have issues feeding my fish or coral. That is mainly for 3 reasons. 1. I chose mostly hardy omnivore fish and and easy softie/LPS coral. All these animals are less picky and easy to feed. 2. I have an auto flake feeder that dispenses flakes/pellets once a day so even if I have a busy day and my tank does not get a frozen cube on occasion, everyone still gets a meal. 3. This tank is coming on to its 8th year with a healthy population of pods so there is food available naturally.

 

[NaCl addict]

I have always had high phosphates according to my Hannah checker so I must overfeed. I've changed the amount and what I feed, added a skimmer and bio pellet reactor. Hopefully those things will help over time.

 

[Reefing_addiction]

Really just need to remember to feed them. If they had it their way I would feed every day! Between work and school I have to really think about it.

My tangs like to steal food from corals.

I have to make sure my smallest clown gets his food too.

My Tomini tang is the most shy fish in the tank which means I have to feed and walk away or he doesn’t get as much to eat.

My mandarin is happy as a clam and has all the pods plus she comes out for frozen.

my Nassarius snails climb the glass to eat the nori I put out for the tangs.

 

[SocalS14]

No feeding issues with my Plank - I mix reef jerky with pellets and flake. I manually broadcast feed Reef Nutrition to corals once a day; RotiFeast and OysterFeast; PhytoFeast every other day. Only issue lately has been a small spike in Nitrates/Phos from using Reef Roids - probably too much.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

Even though I have plenty of Pods, I’ve been trying to get a Mandarin Goby to eat Frozen Food. It seems interested, may have even eaten a bit of it.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

No feeding issues with my Plank - I mix reef jerky with pellets and flake. I manually broadcast feed Reef Nutrition to corals once a day; RotiFeast and OysterFeast; PhytoFeast every other day. Only issue lately has been a small spike in Nitrates/Phos from using Reef Roids - probably too much.

I target feed my Corals with ReefRoids. Use a 20ml Syringe attached to a long piece of Lee’s 1/4” Rigid Tubing.