How Often Do You Feed Your Acans?

[SelectedByNature]

Just wondering how much/often people feed their Acan Lords, and if some people don't feed them?

 

Also what foods have you had success with?

[TheBig053]

Twice a week. Once with reef roids and then once the day before a water change with a meatier frozen food (either reef plankton or mysis). Usually just one-two mysis per head and one squirt (very exact measurements!) from a pippette of the reef roids or reef plankton.  Then I spend 15 mins defending them from my stupid skunk cleaner shrimp while they consume the food.  I've only had mine in the tank for about 2.5 weeks so I haven't any noticeable growth yet, but the colors look good. 

[holy carp]

I feed mine whenever their tentacles are extended during feeding time.  Probably every other day on average.

 

I just give them whatever frozen foods I'm feeding the fish.  They seem to love mysis and lrs the most, judging by how quickly they pull it in.  I only feed the tank frozen food by hand, pellets in the vacation feeder.

[VP616]

2-3 times/week. Either ReefRoids or Rod's Coral Food, on top of whatever gets fed to the tank for the fish. Just before lights out. 

[SelectedByNature]

Thanks all for your input.

 

I think I'll try every other day or 3 times a week.

 

I haven't had mine long but they seem to respond very well to feeding. I also think I almost killed one I've had for 2-3 months by not feeding it. I just started feeding it a lot more over the last 2 weeks and it's starting to come back.

 

I know some people do not feed them but based on my experience I'm not sure that is wise.

 

I also hear that overfeeding can be stressful so trying to be reasonable with it.

[Simulated Fish]

I have never had a LPS live healthy for more then 3 months without feeding. Anyone who says they dont feed a not aware how to care for them. They are feeding them, just not directly or intentionally 

 

That said I do 2 or 3  times a week if they are sweeping. I only feed my tanks LPS frozen.

[SelectedByNature]

58 minutes ago, Hippieheadshot said:

I have never had a LPS live healthy for more then 3 months without feeding. Anyone who says they dont feed a not aware how to care for them. They are feeding them, just not directly or intentionally 

 

That said I do 2 or 3  times a week if they are sweeping. I only feed my tanks LPS frozen.

Thanks a lot!

 

If they are sweeping? Some weeks they just don't sweep or what?

[Clown79]

I feed reef roids twice a week, anymore and i get nutrient issues.

 

 

[TheBig053]

4 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I feed reef roids twice a week, anymore and i get nutrient issues.

 

 

This is why I feed the frozen food the day before a water change. Make a mess before cleaning day. Atleast it makes sense in my head...

[SelectedByNature]

35 minutes ago, TheBig053 said:

This is why I feed the frozen food the day before a water change. Make a mess before cleaning day. Atleast it makes sense in my head...

As far as I know frozen food makes less mess than dried which typically is a very dense/compacted amount of food.

 

I think frozen food is like 85% water or something like that.

 

That being said I also feed a bit more heavily before a water change.

[TheBig053]

3 minutes ago, SelectedByNature said:

As far as I know frozen food makes less mess than dried which typically is a very dense/compacted amount of food.

 

I think frozen food is like 85% water or something like that.

 

That being said I also feed a bit more heavily before a water change.

Hmm, i've heard differently. Essentially, frozen foods will cause more nutrient issues when decomposing.  Gotta love all the conflicting info out there in this hobby!

[SelectedByNature]

2 minutes ago, TheBig053 said:

Hmm, i've heard differently. Essentially, frozen foods will cause more nutrient issues when decomposing.  Gotta love all the conflicting info out there in this hobby!

Haha right?

 

Oh well. Overfeeding is overfeeding and we shall avoid that regardless of type of food I guess.

[Clown79]

Opposite. Frozen food can cause nutrient issues. Most soak it, then strain, dump the watee before adding it.

 

flakes do too, coral food does, zooplankton, phyto all do.

 

[SelectedByNature]

8 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Opposite. Frozen food can cause nutrient issues. Most soak it, then strain, dump the watee before adding it.

 

flakes do too, coral food does, zooplankton, phyto all do.

 

I've been using the water to stimulate a feeding response/broadcast before/after feeding. I guess that is ill-advised?

[Clown79]

Do you mean the water you put the frozen food in is then dropped into the tank?

 

I do it but I also only feed frozen food 2 times a week and small quantities

[SelectedByNature]

3 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

Do you mean the water you put the frozen food in is then dropped into the tank?

 

I do it but I also only feed frozen food 2 times a week and small quantities

Yes I'll thaw the food in some tank water and feed fish/corals by pipette until I think they've each had enough, but before all that I normally squirt a few pipettes worth of the water/food particles into the tank with the pumps on to prepare corals/fish for food.

 

I am running a skimmer and change my floss every day or two. I also have Nassarius snails that seem to find remaining food pretty effectively.

 

What do you think?

[TheBig053]

I also thaw in tank water but do not squirt the excess into the tank.  Just what goes into the pipette and then is released during the targeted feeding. 

[holy carp]

I don't rinse my frozen food anymore after reading this article by Randy Holmes-Farley.  

In my opinion, if it elicits a feeding response, it probably isn't that bad.

 

The relevant part is the pasted below:

 

 

Rinsing Foods and the Effect on Phosphate

Now that we have some information on the phosphate in foods, we can critically examine the concern that many aquarists have about foods, and specifically their rinsing of frozen foods before use. A typical test you see is someone taking a cube of fish food, thawing it, and putting it into a half cup of water. They then test that water for phosphate and find it "off the charts". Let's assume that means 1 ppm phosphate, which would give a very dark blue color in many phosphate tests. Bear in mind this is a thought problem, not an actual measured value, but it is typical of what people think the answer is.

Is that a lot of phosphate? Well, there are two ways to think of the answer.

The first way is as a portion of the total phosphate in that food. A half cup of water at 1 ppm (1 mg/L) phosphate contains a total of 0.12 mg of phosphate. A cube of Formula 2 contains about 11.2 mg of phosphate. So the hypothetical rinsing step has removed about 1 percent of the phosphate in that food. Not really worthwhile, in my opinion, but that decision is one every aquarist can make for themselves.

The second way to look at this rinsing is with respect to how much it reduces the boost to the aquarium phosphate concentration. Using the same calculation as above of 0.12 mg of phosphate, and adding that to 100 gallons total water volume, we find that phosphate that was rinsed away would have boosted the "in tank" phosphate concentration by 0.12 mg/379 L = 0.0003 ppm. That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the "in tank" target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much, based on input rates from Table 4. Again, the conclusion I make is that rinsing is not really worthwhile, in my opinion.

[TheBig053]

I don't "rinse" the food, just use tank water to speed up thawing.  Rinsing seems like too much work just for feeding.  Rather put the effort/time into weekly water changes and sand siphoning. 

[Clown79]

I put my water in the tank

 If you are diligent with maintenance it really shouldn't be an issue.

 

If nitrates and phos increase and issues aris, then it times to cut back usually on feeding and quantity

[SelectedByNature]

Hmm makes sense. But that's nice that even rinsing will only remove 1%. So I guess the phos is getting into the tank no matter what

 

It seems more about limiting the amount of food given to the tank as opposed to the manner in which the food is added.

[Simulated Fish]

3 hours ago, SelectedByNature said:

Hmm makes sense. But that's nice that even rinsing will only remove 1%. So I guess the phos is getting into the tank no matter what

 

It seems more about limiting the amount of food given to the tank as opposed to the manner in which the food is added.

 

 

You should never feed more then your fish/corals eat. If you do this you will never have nutrient issues. Personally I use LRS and the state that you should not rinse it as they add amino acids to the blend. 

 

I have two 2.5 inch clowns 3 in lemon angel and a 2in six line. I feed about a quarter sized chunk 3 times a week to the fish and coral. 

 

I change filter floss AFTER feeding so any bits they miss don't break down. 

 

I only run carbon and GFO no skimmer.

 

Doesn't matter what or how you feed your tank, it's all about keeping a balance.

 

 

[TheBig053]

Feeding time. Gig Giddy!