I recently placed and order with John at Reefcleaners for his new freeze-dried filter feeder food. I wanted to give the tank a few months on the food before posting a review, but the results were so dramatic that I didn't need near that much time.

After a little over a month on the food I've noticed the following:

1. Better SPS polyp extension and growth
2. Better zoanthid growth. My AOG zoas did not grow for 6 months (not one new polyp). They've sprouted 3 in the past month. My other zoas have produced similar results. I've made no changes except for adding this food.
3. Better gorgonian polyp extension and growth. My purple gorgs have encrusted over the super glue base, sprouted new limbs, and tripled the PE they had when first in the tank.
4. Sponge growth - I have a number of sponges in the tank and all are growing, with a new variety of sponges sprouting out of my sealifeinc rock.

My results with this food have proven to me that it not only works, but for the price, it's unbeatable. Thanks John for offering another great product at an affordable price. I will update this thread again after a few more months, but I have no doubt that I will continue to see positive results.

before/after pics?

don't trust me?

encrusting


top middle (before)



after

Nice results considering it’s only been a month
I just placed an order from a nano-reefer for some phytoplankton and am anxious to see the same results. How much do you feed the tank ??

I feed a pinch of filter feeder with some rods food once a day.

im assuming that you turn the flow to your tank off ?? And if so, for how long ?

i turn off the main pumps for 15 min. or so.

Wow, this is impressive!

Wow... I was thinking of getting something to feed my zoas. That is awesome... Guess I found it.

good to hear! it lasts awhile too doesn't it?

$.05-$.10 a feeding or so?

haha, true, i have enough in two cans to last me two years. at the rate i'm using it.

The astaxanthin will probably begin to oxidize though at some point from the seal wearing out, or someone leaving it open etc...depends on use. The food wont be bad, but would lose some value at that point.

Good thing I have an extra bottle of astaxan....i mean, nvm.

oh yeah that is right. Those small bottles have built in seals I think, so that is good. I would use the astaxanthin to gut load live foods. I have been doing that with these small shrimp they call daggerblade shrimp, and then feeding those shrimp to the seahorse. It is starting to fatten up, probably just from being fed finally, but what else am I going to do with food right? I bet you could feed it to brine.

Cool shrimp.
http://www.sms.si.edu/irlspec/Palaemonetes_pugio.htm

yeah that is the guy, but there are some others i lump into that. one looks like a stick, very narrow, with an arrow like head. forget the species now. reminds me i have to go collect more today, that seahorse eats better than I do.

Next time I order, I'll get some of the other freeze dried food. Is the krill large enough for anemones?

yeah it is whole krill, pretty big. Freeze dried krill kind of needs to be crumbled as you rehydrate it, otherwise it takes too long. The company who we get the krill from does a good job of keeping the exoskeletons intact. Which is good for nutrition purposes, but that exoskeleton makes rehydrating hard, because it keeps water out. By cracking it a little it allows water in. It isnt a shell you can see or anything, just the outer layer if you want to call it that. Nothing that exciting about the Krill though, the Herbivore Flakes are something I really came to like. That is another "recipe" item, that works really well for damsels and gobies as well as the fish we normally consider to be herbivores.

gobies are herbivores?

Looks like I'll be adding this to my order when I'm ready for a 75g CUC!

some are omnivores, and it is good to mixup their diet. Engineer gobies go nuts for the herbivore flake mix. I meant blennies though, I feed it to my seaweed blenny and molly millers

I know its been a while on this thread... but I just wanted to say that I got some of this filter feeder formula from John and its an incredible mix. Much easier to use than fresh food, easy to feed small amounts. Great variety of food sizes, from large chunks the fish and shrimp go crazy for, to micro stuff I know the zoas and kenya tree are feeding on. I feed a pinch to my DT at the end of the day, and have noticed that nutrients must be tiny enough to make it through the pump into my fuge, as the macro (chaeto and money plant) have taken off immediately after feeding this stuff for a few days.

Is this stuff something that is fine to run through a sump? I've got a filter sock, so I feed fish food with the return pump shut off. However, I don't like to leave the pump off for too long, because the tank temp seems to drop quickly.

you're using your pump to regulate temperature? might want to get a heater and fix that, lol.

i don't know what micron sock you're using. i would treat it no different than your other food, though.

I'm pretty sure he means that the water that is heated by the heater is not circulated to the DT therefore the temperature in the sump may be constant but the DT temp can drop. It happens to me too with my heater in chamber one of my Biocube.

Yup, that's what I meant.



Me neither anymore. I guess I'll continue to feed as usual. Target feeding should help too.

Just kill your pump for 10 min. or so and that should be plenty. You have the MP blowing the food around the tank, right?

what micron size is the sock? the smaller the micron size the more of it would be trapped.

I bought this also. and it works great.

I fed this yesterday for the first time. Did a small pinch.

Is there any special way you are supposed to feed this? It all just sat on the surface of the water. I let it sit for about 20-30 minutes before I turned the pumps back on. Does it eventually just sink?

I use a small bowl and stir it with some tank water/ let it sit for a few minutes before feeding. It's dehydrated, so you need to let it hydrate a bit or it's just going to float.

Thanks DH, I will try that today.

yeah i put a pinch in a small glass, then mix with some tank water and feed with turkey baster toward corals and everywhere willy-nilly ! seriously, my chaeto is about to overflow out of my fuge.

clean out the baster also, as the dry chunks can get stuck

Not to discount your chaeto growth, but I don't think the filter mix has anything in it that the chaeto would use. What may be happening is excess food is breaking down into nitrate and/or phosphate (not sure if there's any in the food) and the chaeto is using those excess nutrients to grow. It could be a sign that you're feeding too much, unless you aren't noticing any bad algae growth.

Maybe I'm wrong though.

+1, I was thinking the same thing

any and all foods, including ours, have the ability to put nitrates and phosphates into the tank. waste is broken down etc... into nitrates, and as fish consume food for energy phosphates are introduced to the system.

dhaut do you use a skimmer? if so what kind?

Thanks for the review, I'll be looking into this product soon.

I don't - I did have an AquaC Remora going but never got good skimmate so I removed it. I never ran it while using this product.

yea i just got me one about 3 weeks ago and yeah my corals loves it..i let it sit in small glass bowl i also added very little frozen food in it too.

JAKE

Just bought some foe my 10g. I'm sure it says it on the packaging, but just curious how much and how often should I feed? I also assume I should just feed at nights like I do when I feed my chalices and frogspawn on a weekly basis or is this an every day thing?

depends on the species, but i wouldnt feed corals every day. feed very sparingly in a 10 through a pipette once or twice a week is what i would do for most species that are photosynthetic and feeding is a supplement. Non-photosynthetic corals/gorgs etc... are a different story, so it depends on the species

Wow! That difference in your gorg is amazing!!

Definitely ordering some of this food when I order my macros

Update:

AOGs (that's just the front of the rock - there's about twice that out of the pic)



The gorg got beat up in a move, but it's almost fully re-encrusted its skeleton.

this stuff is GREAT!

it says the package weights 2oz net weight...we'll I just weighted it and it is a few grams short of 4oz!!!

looks like you get food, snails...ANYTHING at reefcleaners you order, expect double!

love themmmmmmmm!


and after one feeding I can say:

I've NEVER seen the favia feeder tentacles so THICK! usually they're very thin and long, with this food they're like 5x thicker and it tappers down towards the end of the feeder tentacle.

weird, but I'm sure it's weird in a positive way!

after 3 feedings....my GPE palys are more BLUE than green lol! Gives them like an "iced" look on the edges near the skirt.

zoanthids are def eating this stuff too.

hammer coral even shows strong feeding response, normally it doesn't like eating anything. I have baby hammer heads popping up from the base of adult heads...the baby heads even eat the stuff!

I can't wait to see what this stuff does to my tank after a month of use!

Sent out Monday, got here Wednesday. John is a really cool guy to deal with, he answered all my questions and has been really helpful. Awesome service! My tank really loves this stuff, I mix it with mysis, even in full daylight my "nocturnal" corals like candy canes put out their feeders...

I went to their website but can't find the food.

out of stock at the moment unfortunately. turn around time is also slow... takes the producer a good amount of time to get the fresh supply and the freeze drying process etc...only the labels go quick lol...sorry guys we had a spike and everything (plus about 6) was purchased last week.