Beth, Ed, and/or Terry Please. Food and Tank supplements

[clownfish4life]

1) To help maintain proper/healthy water conditions I wanted to know what are good supplements to have? I just began adding coral to the main tank. I chose some small button polyps. It's been a few weeks and every 2 weeks or so I add 5ml of iodine to the tank. In conjunction with the iodine I add calcium to the tank every couple of days and once a week I add Cycle.
2) I read some of the older post refering to food supplements and I keep reading that garlic soaked food should be added once a week. I feed my fish either Brineshrimp, flake food, or meaty morsels.
3) How do feather dusters eat? I have 2 large ones but being ignorant to filter feeder eating habits I am curious. Should I add a fliter feeder supp?
Thanks for any and all help.
Jessica

 

[beth]

For fish food, I'd suggest dropping the processed fish food, except for SeaWeed Selects and spirulina. Get fresh seafoods from the grocery store fish market. A lot of times they will have a seafood mix offerred that will contain a variety of excellent choices all mixed together: squid, mussel, octapus, shirmp, clam, crab, etc. No oil fish, such as Salmon. If you have vegetarian fish, or even inverts, then add to this mix the Seaweed Selects [or Nori, again from the grocery store--oriental section], spirulina, peas carrots. Food process this mixture by adding Zoecon and Zoe. I have a very small Black and Decker food processor that cost me about $15 for this purpose. Once the mixture is food processed you can spoon out single meal sized portions, wrap and store in freezer and use as needed. This is 100% nutritious real food. No preservatives, addittives, or water, like you find in all the processed fish foods you buy. And, it is much cheaper! Many inverts will love this diet as well, including corals.
If you are adding calcium and iodine, you should also be testing for those levels using test kits. For what you have right now, I see no reason to add anything else. Routine water changes will replinsh your tanks trace elements better than additives.
If you want that added assurance then use Reef Crystals Sea Salts which already has calcium, trace elements, vitimins, etc in it. Be sure, though, to test for calcium, not just keep adding.

 

[clownfish4life]

Thanks for all the help.
Jessica