Why 30 minutes pumps off for feeding?

[peterhos]

Hi All

My tank is now 2 years old. My gonioporas are tiny now … are they starving? SPS surviving but not really ‘thriving’. Zoanthids small but seem to enjoy broadcast feeding.

So I now ask, why do we turn the pumps off for 30 minutes for feeding? Is there any rationale for this? Do corals need a few minutes to ‘open up’ and so consume food?

I also wonder whether a combination of skimmer + roller mat is too efficient and so starves the tank.

Maybe we should forget the skimmer and roller mat and just have flow and a good CUC.

Anyone got thoughts on this?

Thanks all.

 

[smitten with ocean life]

i leave the powerheads on to move the food around but yes, shut off all filtration. otherwise it just cleans out all the food from the water and you waste a lot of it. it could be you have too much filtration going. idk. you could maybe try just running your skimmer a couple hours a day twice a week and leave the roller mat on. or just shut the roller mat off completely and just run the skimmer. youll have to watch your parameters

 

[NanoNana]

I only use the power heads long enough to disperse food throughout the water then turn them off too. Chalices in particular are slow eaters.

 

[PharmrJohn]

I turned off my powerheads but left the skimmer on. When I reboot, both are going off. I'm changing that up. Although the leaving the PH on for a second to disperse is a good idea......

 

[peterhos]

I only use the power heads long enough to disperse food throughout the water then turn them off too. Chalices in particular are slow eaters.

Interesting. I bought a chalice recently. How slow is slow? Do they need everything off for 30 minutes or longer? How many times a week do they like being fed?

 

[MoshJosh]

I turn my return pumps off so the food does not get sucked into the filtration. I leave them off until everything has eaten. . . or when I remember. I leave my wavemakers on in hopes of getting food to the corals.

This type of feeding ^^^ where you just create a food blizzard in the tank is broadcast feeding, just shooting food around hoping everyone gets a bite. The other type of feeding is spot feeding, where you turn off all flow and shoot the food directly at the coral/corals mouth. The later will maximize the food the corals get. . . is that necessary? I would say no, though there are specific corals that will benefit from spot feeding.

As far as starving the corals, a reef mat and skimmer can definitely strip nutrients from the water, and while nutrient levels are directly related to feeding, it is sort of a different question. . . as in, what are your nitrate and phosphate levels?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I leave my flow on, but its actually very rare that I feed corals, they should not need feeding to grow. Corals get 90% of their energy from light, so if your corals haven't grown in 2 years I would look at lighting first before investigating feeding techniques and time.

 

[peterhos]

I only use the power heads long enough to disperse food throughout the water then turn them off too. Chalices in particular are slow eaters.

I feel that a broadcast feeding with everything off for a while may be the way to go. Has anyone ever tested how slowly corals open up/feed/need in total…?

 

[exnisstech]

Return pumps off 15 minutes just because thats the length of feed mode. I don't touch powerheads. I feed a frozen mix that I don't rinse. I add selcon and vitachem and reef roids on alternating days. I dump it in and it looks like a snow storm. Everything but the tiny stuff is gone in a couple of minutes. I figure doing it this way everything in the tank has a chance to eat.

 

[NanoNana]

Chalices can take a half hour to eat.
To clarify, when I feed fish I turn off everything for 10 minutes then turn flow on and leave the return off for another 20. I have some fish that like to chase their food and the flow will push mysis etc toward corals.
If I broadcast just for corals, I let flow coat all the water then shut the flow down so whatever I’m feeding just hangs and sinks slowly. If I target feed meaty food, I leave everything off for 30 minutes.