Over Feeding, anyone else does it?

ogredawg

ogredawg

Member
I've increased my feeding for the last couple of weeks and I can already see difference. My sps are coloring up a bit more and polyp extensions are ridiculous. I only have 3 fish in my 22g tank and I used to feed half of cube (san francisco bay brand frozen/hikari) everyday and just recently doubled it. I also add vita-chem and so far it's good. My nitrates are staying 15ppm but that might be because of the refugium. I am skimming a lot also just to make sure I'm on the safe side.
Are there anyone else here that feeds as much or more and have great success?
 
farslayer

farslayer

Active Member
I try and feed my LPS nightly, and yes it does create quite a bit of growth. My sun coral is getting huge. And no, I have no water quality issues, 0 trates.
 
ogredawg

ogredawg

Member
Not to be rude, but my intention was to see if anyone else does it. I already know a lot of people would think that I'm feeding too much.
I guess no one else does it in here, so this is like an experiment. By the way I got the idea from my friend who overfeeds his tank and everything in his tank grows like crazy. His frogspawn pops out a new head or two every month.
 
digitydash

digitydash

Active Member
If you sell frags alot I would say yea it is a good,but it if you just want to keep it managable maybe not that often.I feed my stuff 2 to 3 times a week.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
I feed on average 5-7 times a day, various foods. I frag alot I skim heavy, I also have a ridiculous water change ritual. I do have some cyano, but nothing out of controll, I definatly DONT reccomend this type of feeding scedual for most tanks, mine has been set up and managed in a way that can cope pretty well with this amount of waste,also i have been in the hobby a number of years and am always pushing the envelope so to speak, not flawless but well enough that my tank doesnt look bad and my trates stay at a 0 readable level. I am also prepared for a ccrasgh i have spare lights and tanks enough that should something go disasterously wrong I can remove everything in a matter of hours.
 
kynekke

kynekke

Member
*blushes*
I'm a compulsive over feeder... it takes a lot of food to get down to my peppermint shrimp and if he doesn't get a piece of pellet I feed again until he does. I have this really weird fear that something I am taking care of will die of starvation so if something in my tank doesn't get a piece I re-feed.
Oh, have I mentioned I have on HECK of a fat LMB from all the algae that habit produces?
 
gatorwpb

gatorwpb

Active Member
I feed alot too, not like reefkprz, but about a cube a day to my 65gal. I make my own fish food, and it includes coral foods as well. So its not a typical "cube"
I find that the make your own food has lower nutrients and my fish, inverts and corals seem to love it. With my refugium, my nutrients are always zero. I do have a small amount of cyano in the fuge, but I think thats because its time to change out my bag of carbon/phosban.
 
mcbdz

mcbdz

Active Member
I way over feed. 3-4 x's a day.
I have a large fish load also, so I do frequent water changes and wet skim. My trates are at 0 and my corals are growing like crazy. I love to feed my lps and anenome also. Just have to do more maintance, but worth it to me.
 
ogredawg

ogredawg

Member
That's what I'm talking about guys! I guess there are a lot of people that does this. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm not sure if i have the guts to feed as much as reefkprz tho, but if I had a really kick a$$ skimmer then I think i might try it.
Mcbdz that's exactly what my friend does, he's stocked up with fish and cleanup crew then over feed the tank like crazy. I've never ever seen corals grow as fast as his does. Although it's very strange that the only coral that doesn't grow as fast are his leathers which he doesn't care about. I'm not even joking but his purple digitata is as big as a basketball, and that's after making 22 frags from it. He lives pretty far but the next time I see him I'll make sure to take a picture of his tank and that monster digitata he has. Oh by the way he has 3 tanks connected, Main tank (75g?), Frag tank (60g?), and refugium (50g?), and a sump with mesh modded euro reef skimmer.
GatorWBP, how are your corals doing? Growth pretty good? What kind do you keep? What's the recipe :) ? Sorry too many questions, but I think your way of feeding fits me best. I use Emerald cuisine, enhanced brine, and Vita-Chem.
 
piscian

piscian

Member
You guys are so lucky! I do the exact opposite of what you do and still have a horrible problem with my nitrates. I was at 50 ppm after a 16% water change. I wish I had your luck
 
integral9

integral9

Member
my 30G SPS gets
- DTs every other day for SPSs
- Mysis shrimp for the tooth coral every 3 days
- 1/2 a silver side for the BTA every 5 days
- Flake once a day for fish
- Cyclopese every other day for the sun coral
I guess it's alot, especially when the days all coincide. But then there are days where all I put in is flake.
my 50g gets
-flake everyday
-left overs from the 30g feedings (hmmmm leeeft overrrss...)

-1/2-1 silver side for the LTA
 
ogredawg

ogredawg

Member
Originally Posted by Piscian
You guys are so lucky! I do the exact opposite of what you do and still have a horrible problem with my nitrates. I was at 50 ppm after a 16% water change. I wish I had your luck

In my opinion, a single 30% or less water change won't really do anything to your nitrates. Try changing bigger amount at least 50% or more. I know many people will disagree but I've done it twice with luck. One time my trates were upto 40ppm and after doing a big water change, it went down to 15ppm. Then it went back to 30ppm after a week (I didn't have a skimmer and I overfed), I did a big water change again and it went down to 10ppm. I think that's where I'm at right now. By the way I do 10g water change on a 22g tank. I'm guessing there's about 15g of water in there so I'm changing more than 60% of water.
 
piscian

piscian

Member
When you say that you figure that you have 15 gallons of water in there, is it because of the LR? See, I have a 90 gallon with a 30 gallon sump and over 200 lbs of LR. I know that there is no way that I actually have 90 gallons of water in my tank, but I really don't know a way of telling how much water I truly have in there. Is there a formula to figure it out?
 
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