New Product Announcement: Wild Toe

saltwaterfish.com

saltwaterfish.com

Administrator
Staff member
We're going to try something a little different in this thread.
Erik Stenn is the President of Algagen, the manufacturer of the ReefPods Brand copepods we sell on this site. He has developed a new shelf-stable product that is phytoplankton based and is great for feeding corals and filterfeeders. Our coral manager has been using it the past few days and he informs me that the corals immediately react to the product.
Erik has an advanced degree in marine microbial ecology with a focus on microalgae, copepods and bacteria; feeding and nutrition.
AlgaGen is a microalgal biotechnology company. Algagen produces many strains of microalgae and they have extended their capabilites into the production of copepods and other live feeds to support the ornamental and aquaculture markets.
Erik will be on this thread periodically to talk about his companies new product: "Wild Toe".
He will also be able to answer your questions about the features of this new product, and all things Algae, and copepods related.
The products can be viewed here:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/Wild-Toe-_p_3314.html
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/Wild-Toe-_p_3313.html
Please welcome Erik to the forum....
Thanks,
Scott
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
WELCOME ERIK!!! I just received a bottle of this with my order the other day....Have not tried it yet though.
LOL....I will say though....YOU need a new pic on that bottle EWWWWW is right
 
eriks

eriks

New Member
Thank you. The picture....yeah well, there's a story. Last year we decided to try raising fish and corals. We
have copepods, rotifers, brine shrimp, green/brown algae so things should have been easy..they weren't.
We were able to bring some Lookdowns and Palometa through but were less successful with the sargent
majors. Of course it wasn't our technique(lol) but our food source and decided what we needed was a "Wild
Plankton Tow". So we went out and towed for wild plankton. Note to all... when swimming don't drink
the water. We found many copepods, larvae, and diatoms. Our fish responded well as did some of our corals.
IT wasn't all ways easy to get out on a boat and tow, so we decided that we would produce a product that
somewhat mimiced a wild tow. Easy enough-we combine the best of our live feeds and other important
prey items known to be great for fish and corals. But how do we stand out on a shelf full of other products
with pretty pictures of seahorses, corals, and fish? We decided to go the other direction and use a picture
that played on the word Tow..and came up with a wild man's Toe...not pretty, but it gets the bottle picked up
and examined.
The product is packed full of real food items that are great for both fish and corals. It is a phyto based
food, packed with zooplankton and other prey items. Kind of an all-in-one. It draws the attention of inverts,
fish and corals. We have seen nasassarius(?) snails come out fo the sand, shrimp get excited, acans open,
zooanthids feed, dendros open, sun polyps, bubble corals and more respond. It is a shelf stable product
but needs to be refrigerated after opening. We all use it in our tanks and are excited to offer it to a wider
group of people. We think it will take off.
The folks at Saltwater Fish were nice enough to let us come on and talk it up and so in gratitude we will, for
a limited time, give some of the Wild Toe coral food away....free to the subscribers of this forum.
And of course welcome the feedback.
 
al&burke

al&burke

Active Member
Thanks Erik, I am just new to this hobby and I love it. This forum has been really great to me and it is nice to see a company like yours reaching out to a great bunch of people with your offers. I will be following this thread very closely because I am very dedicated to having a healthy reef tank. Thanks and welcome to this forum, I think you will find some very positive feedback from this bunch, as I have. I think Iwill order this product next week, although I live in Canada i will see what I have to do to get it. Thanks again.
Al
 
speg

speg

Active Member
Cool. I hope I get some with the order I just placed and will of course offer my feedback.
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
How have you been dealing with allelopathy when so many critters are in such a tight space?
I'm curious why the nassarius would come out of the sand. They typically smell of death and dying. What is it in your product you think they are identifying food with?
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3254367
How have you been dealing with allelopathy when so many critters are in such a tight space?
I'm curious why the nassarius would come out of the sand. They smell death and dying and mine never reacted to a fresh phyto or copepod products. What is it in your product you think they are identifying food with?
I'm glad you're here......I know you know a lot about this type of stuff, and I was hoping you would have some questions :)
For me it is curiosity
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Is this a live product or no? I was thinking at first it was live, but now I'm not so sure. If it was a dead product that would answer the question about allelopathy and the nassarius
 
speg

speg

Active Member
Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3254370
Is this a live product or no? I was thinking at first it was live, but now I'm not so sure. If it was a dead product that would answer the question about allelopathy and the nassarius

Could you keep something alive in a bottle sitting on a shelf?
 
cranberry

cranberry

Active Member
Some things can be if the top is removed periodically for air exchange. Tisbe pods and Pseudocyclops does not require refrigeration.
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
According to the bottle it says to place the whole bottle in water, and squeeze directly over corals......Can you just pour into the water???? I would never be able to get the bottle anywhere near a lot of my corals?
 
stanlalee

stanlalee

Active Member
sounds like your sort of coral frenzy, reef chili, rods blend type all in one food product but I'd prefer a liquid based product over the dry ones (and maybe or maybe not frozen). Who cares how the directions say to feed, I broadcast feed ALL food at a dose I see fit determined by trial and error. I definately would not be putting a bottle in water and squeezing it over corals lol (perhaps a syringe if I wasn't lazy).
I'm more interested in these questions:
1.whats a "squeeze" so I can determine what 1000 prey items per squeeze means?
2.what are the particle sizes of the ingredients?
3.what are the ratio's of phyto to zoo to ect (probably wouldn't ask if I knew answer to questions one and two).
4. Is this a good feed for sps (you didn't mention any. things mentioned are easy enough to feed with regular frozen fish food). again answers to one and two would answer this for me.
 
speg

speg

Active Member
Originally Posted by Cranberry
http:///forum/post/3254381
Some things can be if the top is removed periodically for air exchange. Tisbe pods and Pseudocyclops does not require refrigeration.
Are those 'phytoplankton based' like this product? I would assume that a plant would have trouble surviving without light (i.e. stuck in a bottle). Maybe what happens is... the phytoplankton dies due to being in a bottle with no light.. and the zooplankton eats the dying phytoplankton and survives until the recommended 'sell by date'.
 
eriks

eriks

New Member
Wow! Thank you for the responses. Good questions. Regarding the snails-absolutely. I am assuming it is
the squid or mussels..they are a great scavenger. I would like to think that it is not the smell o' death but the smell of meat. When I feed my anthias squid pieces that are not eaten, they are rapidly taken care of by the nassarius snails.
The Wild Toe is not live. it is a preserved product.
All items were harvested at peak of enrichment and nutritional potency. It has been our experience that
keeping stuff live in a bottle or other packaging is tricky. We definitely want the highest quality, from a
nutritonal perspective, and minimal if no troublesome bacteria in the product. With all the ingredients in
the product the only option is to offer a preserved product. We believe it is a novel, value
added approach to preserving the product-can't say more or my company directors would have me killed ; )
So it is shelf stable. We only worry that once the product is used as we recommend, there is a possibility
of getting tank water inside the bottle, with bacteria, and causing the product to go bad. So after using,
as recommended, it must be refrigerated!
Wild Toe is on the microside whereas the Rod's, Rodney's foods are larger chunks..Great stuff. We feel
there is a better chance of the microparticlates being removed and not going bad in the tank.
With regards to use.... we only make recommendations-ya'll know your system much better than we do.
We were after a convenience concept. Rinse the bottle to make sure it is clean(with tank water), submerse
it into the tank near the coral you want to spot feed and squeeze the bottle-easy. If you prefer to broadcast
that works too. If you want to attach a piece of air line to the tip and not put the bottle in the tank..that
would work too.
A squeeze....a real scientific measurement(lol)....In my hands over 50 squeezes measured out to be 10mL,
so there should be 100 items per mL. Please understand that the claim of prey items per squeeze DOES
NOT INCLUDE the phytoplankton numbers. We felt that would be cheating.
Particle sizes: 1-20microns(microalgae), 50-100 veg protein(approx), 90-300 copepod nauplii, oyster/clam
spat, artemia cycsts, artemia nuaplii, L-strain rotifers, 1000microns and greater fish eggs/chunks off oyster,
mussel, squid.
question 3 is a good question. I would guess there is at least 100,000 cells of phyto per mL.
Question 4..good question again. Personnally I love sps but am not great with them. I do better with softies
and lps. I was hoping someone could tell me their experiences. We gave some to a coral research facility
and are waiting on thier feedback. They are doing spssss. Many of the prey items were suggested by them so I would hope that sps do, and they should do, well on the TOE.
Great questions-thank you. There is a ton o' work here, 24/7, so I can not all ways in front of the computer
so please bear with me and I will answer all questions I can. Again Thank you
 
speg

speg

Active Member
I actually really lke the idea of there being so many different foods within 'a squeeze'. We're not just feeding our coral one thing every couple days, but 10+(?) at a time... I hope I get a chance to try it.
 
eriks

eriks

New Member
Speg,
Why don't you send me your shipping address, to my e-mail (eriks@algagen.com) and we will send you some...next week.
 
speg

speg

Active Member
Originally Posted by Eriks
http:///forum/post/3254473
Speg,
Why don't you send me your shipping address, to my e-mail (eriks@algagen.com) and we will send you some...next week.
Email sent.
Can't wait.
Thank you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top