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Live food coral feeding

Gogol was asking about live food for corals so I figured we could start a new thread for it. I will start with my feeding habits and maybe other people can chime in with theirs.

I feed my whole tank with brine shrimp 1-2 days after they hatch. Every single coral in the tank opens up after a feeding. Some of my new acan frags opened up so much that I thought the skin was receding. I am probably going to make/put a hatching station in my sump to feed the tank constantly since the coral is responding very well to the young brine shrimp. The baltimore aquarium's coral tanks are fed with live brine shrimp every 30 minutes, so I think this would be a good system to try.

I am also feed DT's live phyto once a week (if that). The coral doesn't really respond to it, but I like to think it does help boost the copepod population in my tank.

I am/was starting to raise rotifers but my culture died so I can't comment yet on adding them. I will probably feed the tank daily with the harvestings as well as see if that has any effect.
 
Mbodell said:
I am probably going to make/put a hatching station in my sump to feed the tank constantly since the coral is responding very well to the young brine shrimp.

Any possibility of hearing more about this? Sounds interesting.
 
I was going to go through with eat, but I realized the nutritional value along with the potential waste from the eggs isn't really worth it.
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I have been hatching brine shrimp every day for over 20 years. I feed these to the tank every day mostly for the pipefish and small gobies but some of the corals eat them also. I also feed the fish and corals live blackworms almost every day.
I feed everything with this, I would never just put food in my tank, everything is target fed.
I built a hatchery for the shrimp that hatches the shrimp and seperates them from the shells, I also built a live worm keeper because I need a constant supply of them to keep my fish spawning

plasticbulb.jpg
 

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Well, most of the corals in my tank are fairly new (well, new to my tank but they are mature specimens), but I've been feeding them a mixture of frozen mysis and cyclops. I chop up and thaw a cube of each with some salt water, then target feed a small amount to every coral that looks "hungry" with a large baster as well.

I'd love to raise/hatch my own brine shrimp to supplement my feedings. How does that hatchery separate them from the shells Paul? Where can I read up and learn how to do this?
 
The idea is that the brine shrimp once hatched swim out into the light through the tube and the egg shells stay in the dark area.
 

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Ahh, thanks Mike and Paul. So is the dark section covered so the only light is through the tube, coming from the other chamber?

Is there a link to show me how to build/setup one of these? Thanks in advance! :)
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I never saw a link, I just always built them that way. You just need a black box and a white or clear box, put them together and make a hole between them that you can close off somehow so that when you siphon out the shrimp, the egg shells stay on the dark side.
 
Paul B said:
I never saw a link, I just always built them that way. You just need a black box and a white or clear box, put them together and make a hole between them that you can close off somehow so that when you siphon out the shrimp, the egg shells stay on the dark side.

Do you keep some sort of flow in the dark side, maybe an air stone or something? I heard you need some sort of flow to keep them off the bottom.
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
I keep an airstone on very low on the dark side. I remove it when I cover it so they can swim into the lighted side. This is a routine I do every day
 

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Sounds like a Star Wars episode. :D

If you don't have a link, then I guess I can find it the old fashioned way (Google) and find some help on the entire subject. I'll need to get some info on everything like building the hatchery, finding the eggs to start with, proper conditions of the water, the life cycle of the brine, etc... Thanks for the tips though Paul.
 

Paul B

NJRC Member
If you don't have a link, then I guess I can find it the old fashioned way (Google) and find some help on the entire subject

There is no link because I think I invented the thing :eek:

There are various configurations of it but the one I pictured is about the simplest.
 

TanksNStuff

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Haha, well then I guess you need to document how to make one and make your own link! ::) Just kidding.

I'm sure I'll be able to find enough info out there to get into brine farming soon. I think I'd like to learn a bit more about the process before I start taking on building stuff for it though. I'm just kind of busy with other stuff going on right now to devote the time to do it just yet. Maybe after the new year though.
 
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