Keeping a natural reef

[BrentSA]

This is an article written by a man by the name of Paul, he is 69 years young from Long Island and still loving the hobby and still an inspiration for many  , he has been in reefing for many years and has a tank which is 40years old and currently being moved , some of the fish in his tank he has from startup and those who have perished has been from old age  , which is what I would call being a successful reefer .

 

Many people think that keeping fish alive for 12 or 24 months means they have been successful in looking after fish , when in reality it is not even close to being true , some fish has a lifespan of +-40 years and some maybe +-20 but when we keep them , they don't even live a fraction of that time.  For me this article gave me a peak into this brilliantly knowledgeable man who really has practiced what he has preached and has the fish and corals to show for it . I hope this post helps many in their quest for a healthy tank and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did . 

 

The Advantages of Keeping a Natural Reef

 

 

We all know that there are many ways to run a tank but I would like to start a thread about keeping a natural reef. The ocean is natural and the fish there are all very healthy and never have to worry about getting sick, getting enough food, getting enough sunlight, exercise etc. They do however have to worry about getting eaten by something larger or getting caught in a net, suffocating on the deck of a ship then being stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe".

 

None of the tanks we keep are natural by any stretch of the imagination but I feel we should strive to get as close to naturel as we can.

 

There is a reason for this thinking. Fish in a natural, unstressed state are just healthier. They are healthier because they eat better and by that I don't mean the foods they eat have more nutrition, although they could have. I mean they eat healthier because the foods they eat have the living bacteria in them that help keep fish immune from disease.

 

Fish are different from most of us and some of us smell better than fish. Fish in the sea eat mostly fish and crustaceans and many of us also feed that type of food, but fish in the sea eat whole fish and crustaceans, bones, guts, eyes and all. It is difficult for us to get very tiny whole fish for food and I discussed this point with fish food manufacturers a few times. I can buy very tiny whole maceral babies in an Asian market but they are always freeze dried with the consistency of wood. Fish won't eat wood and neither would I.

 

My last few weeks in Viet Nam we were issued what they call LURPS. It's basically freeze dried stew but if you tried to eat it without adding boiling water, it would be like eating Styrofoam with powdered Styrofoam on top of it. Our problem was that we hardly had water, much less boiling water. If you just added water the same temperature as our tanks, it would just float, and you still couldn't eat it. That’s the same problem with trying to feed our fish freeze dried food.

 

The ingredient in foods that will keep the fish immune is the bacteria and parasites in its gut and a wild fish eats that at every meal. A fishes gut, or intestine and stomach is filled with bacteria just as ours is. We and the fish need that bacteria because it is that bacteria that keep us healthy. That is the reason that when we take antibiotics we get the "runs" and feel lousy. The antibiotics kill our stomach bacteria and we can’t live without it. I don't really know how fish feel but I do know they are supposed to have a gut filled with live bacteria and parasites as all the fish in the sea do.

 

That is the reason fish in many tanks are so delicate and the reason for all the disease threads. Fish are actually very robust and rarely, if ever get sick on the proper diet. A healthy fish in a natural tank will eat right away and not hide for days at a time, unless it is a type of fish that is supposed to do that. All healthy fish will also try to spawn. Of course if you have an algae blenny it won’t try to mate with a whale shark.

 

So many people have trouble with feeding fish such as mandarins, copperbands, moorish Idols etc. That is because IMO, it is not a natural tank.

 

When we get the fish from a store, that fish may have been collected a month ago. In that time it was not eating the food it is supposed to eat along with the bacteria and parasites it is used to eating. It’s like us on antibiotics and its stomach and intestines are not working properly because a fish gets its immunity from its kidney and the kidney knows what types of immunity it should churn out by the types of bacteria and parasites in its stomach.

 

If we get a new fish and put it in a tank with copper or antibiotics, that fish is off to a bad start. I myself used to do that. Treat new fish just to make sure they were “healthy”. I learned the hard way that that is not the way to go. Naturally if we get a fish in the process of having last rites, or if an angelfish is giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation, we have to treat it, but we should rarely get a fish like that.

 

Healthy fish in natural tanks spawn continuously because that’s what fish do.

 

The Mother fish imparts her immunity to her fry so it can survive its first few days outside the egg because a fish fry has a thin coat of slime which is the fishes only defense against pathogens. If that slime doesn’t have any immunity in it from its Mother, it cannot survive because it will be attached by every pathogen in the sea, or a tank. If it’s Mother doesn’t have immunity, neither will its babies because where would it come from? The baby fish hasn’t yet been exposed to anything so it could not get any immunity and it would not survive. As that baby fish starts eating, it consumes bacteria and parasite laden foods which it should be immune to, but only if it got that immunity from an immune Mother.

 

If you keep a sterile tank with no input of natural bacteria or parasites, that fish will always be at risk of infection from bacteria, viruses and parasites so everything in contact with it needs to be quarantined. But even if you quarantine everything that is in contact with that fish, you can’t keep all disease bacteria away from it, especially if you buy coral or rock because those things, even if quarantined for years can harbor disease pathogens in the form of viruses and bacteria that quarantining will have no effect on. Quarantining can remove parasites, but nothing else.

 

You can’t turn a sterile, quarantined tank into a natural tank very easily because those fish have no natural immunity to anything because they are not exposed to anything so it would be a slow and possibly scary process. The fish would need to become infected, and then cured by un natural means until the fish builds up immunity or unfortunately, dies.

 

It is much easier to set up a natural tank in the beginning but of course that can also be scary, especially if you are new at this. If I were to set up another tank tomorrow I would do it almost exactly like I set up my present tank. Reverse Undergravel filter and all, but I doubt the UG filter has much bearing on the health of the fish.

 

I am lucky that I can get some natural water and mud from the sea, but I also add regular dirt from outside my house. Dirt that doesn’t have pesticides, fertilizer, weed killers or battery acid from a 1957 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I add a little soil, not for the soil, but for the bacteria. If I collect earthworms for food, I leave the dirt on. It’s the same dirt that is inside the earthworms. Eating a little dirt won’t hurt us and it won’t hurt your fish.

 

I would also feed something with live bacteria in it at every meal. I use white worms, blackworms, earthworms, or clams that I buy live and freeze myself. Clams that you freeze yourself would still have the same bacteria in it as when the clam was alive because our home freezer is not that cold. Processed fish food you buy is questionable as to the presence of bacteria because it needs to be somewhat free of bacteria so it can last and be sold. It may also be irradiated.

 

(If I could only use one food, it would be clams)

 

Our fish should only die of old age and fish on the proper diet in a natural tank do.

 

#Please note that this is only the opinion of an individual , he does have many years of experience under his belt. 

 

Would love to hear people comments on it.

[nicholc2]

Cool concept and I can see where it makes sense. I recently got rid of mechanical filtration myself and I’ve never used chemipure or carbon or anything like that. I don’t go to the extent he does but my fish and coral have all been healthier since I switched to all natural filtration. 

 

Do you have a link to the original article?

[Nano sapiens]

Paul B. is well known for his views that are based on his many decades of experience with salt water tanks.

 

I would add that we must be a bit careful with comments like "Our fish should live for 20 years, not just 1 or 2".  Very much depends on the type/size of fish.  Small Gobies of different types may have a natural lifespan of less than a year to a few years at most.  Clownfish, some Tangs, Angels and such can make it to 15-25 years (or more) with proper care.

 

Little doubt that live/fresh foods are the best for fish as it's what they'd eat in nature.  Although not a marine food per se, I've been feeding compost earthworms once a week and the small Gobies I've had in my system for ~2-1/2 years still have vigor.  

 

There are a number of threads that pop up every so often regarding 'natural systems' and this is the original form of reef keeping which actually started back in the early 1930's in Indonesia (Lee Chin Eng in the early '60's was not the first to use this method, but he's the first to publish it in a major aquarium magazine publication).  This has been my method of choice for over 30 years now, including my current 12g nano.  Once these systems stabilize, and a balanced import/export routine is developed, they are relatively easy to maintain long-term.

[1891Bro]

4 hours ago, BrentSA said:

This is an article written by a man by the name of Paul, he is 69 years young from Long Island and still loving the hobby and still an inspiration for many  , he has been in reefing for many years and has a tank which is 40years old and currently being moved , some of the fish in his tank he has from startup and those who have perished has been from old age  , which is what I would call being a successful reefer .

 

Many people think that keeping fish alive for 12 or 24 months means they have been successful in looking after fish , when in reality it is not even close to being true , some fish has a lifespan of +-40 years and some maybe +-20 but when we keep them , they don't even live a fraction of that time.  For me this article gave me a peak into this brilliantly knowledgeable man who really has practiced what he has preached and has the fish and corals to show for it . I hope this post helps many in their quest for a healthy tank and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did . 

 

The Advantages of Keeping a Natural Reef

 

 

We all know that there are many ways to run a tank but I would like to start a thread about keeping a natural reef. The ocean is natural and the fish there are all very healthy and never have to worry about getting sick, getting enough food, getting enough sunlight, exercise etc. They do however have to worry about getting eaten by something larger or getting caught in a net, suffocating on the deck of a ship then being stuffed into a small can labeled "Dolphin Safe".

 

None of the tanks we keep are natural by any stretch of the imagination but I feel we should strive to get as close to naturel as we can.

 

There is a reason for this thinking. Fish in a natural, unstressed state are just healthier. They are healthier because they eat better and by that I don't mean the foods they eat have more nutrition, although they could have. I mean they eat healthier because the foods they eat have the living bacteria in them that help keep fish immune from disease.

 

Fish are different from most of us and some of us smell better than fish. Fish in the sea eat mostly fish and crustaceans and many of us also feed that type of food, but fish in the sea eat whole fish and crustaceans, bones, guts, eyes and all. It is difficult for us to get very tiny whole fish for food and I discussed this point with fish food manufacturers a few times. I can buy very tiny whole maceral babies in an Asian market but they are always freeze dried with the consistency of wood. Fish won't eat wood and neither would I.

 

My last few weeks in Viet Nam we were issued what they call LURPS. It's basically freeze dried stew but if you tried to eat it without adding boiling water, it would be like eating Styrofoam with powdered Styrofoam on top of it. Our problem was that we hardly had water, much less boiling water. If you just added water the same temperature as our tanks, it would just float, and you still couldn't eat it. That’s the same problem with trying to feed our fish freeze dried food.

 

The ingredient in foods that will keep the fish immune is the bacteria and parasites in its gut and a wild fish eats that at every meal. A fishes gut, or intestine and stomach is filled with bacteria just as ours is. We and the fish need that bacteria because it is that bacteria that keep us healthy. That is the reason that when we take antibiotics we get the "runs" and feel lousy. The antibiotics kill our stomach bacteria and we can’t live without it. I don't really know how fish feel but I do know they are supposed to have a gut filled with live bacteria and parasites as all the fish in the sea do.

 

That is the reason fish in many tanks are so delicate and the reason for all the disease threads. Fish are actually very robust and rarely, if ever get sick on the proper diet. A healthy fish in a natural tank will eat right away and not hide for days at a time, unless it is a type of fish that is supposed to do that. All healthy fish will also try to spawn. Of course if you have an algae blenny it won’t try to mate with a whale shark.

 

So many people have trouble with feeding fish such as mandarins, copperbands, moorish Idols etc. That is because IMO, it is not a natural tank.

 

When we get the fish from a store, that fish may have been collected a month ago. In that time it was not eating the food it is supposed to eat along with the bacteria and parasites it is used to eating. It’s like us on antibiotics and its stomach and intestines are not working properly because a fish gets its immunity from its kidney and the kidney knows what types of immunity it should churn out by the types of bacteria and parasites in its stomach.

 

If we get a new fish and put it in a tank with copper or antibiotics, that fish is off to a bad start. I myself used to do that. Treat new fish just to make sure they were “healthy”. I learned the hard way that that is not the way to go. Naturally if we get a fish in the process of having last rites, or if an angelfish is giving it mouth to mouth resuscitation, we have to treat it, but we should rarely get a fish like that.

 

Healthy fish in natural tanks spawn continuously because that’s what fish do.

 

The Mother fish imparts her immunity to her fry so it can survive its first few days outside the egg because a fish fry has a thin coat of slime which is the fishes only defense against pathogens. If that slime doesn’t have any immunity in it from its Mother, it cannot survive because it will be attached by every pathogen in the sea, or a tank. If it’s Mother doesn’t have immunity, neither will its babies because where would it come from? The baby fish hasn’t yet been exposed to anything so it could not get any immunity and it would not survive. As that baby fish starts eating, it consumes bacteria and parasite laden foods which it should be immune to, but only if it got that immunity from an immune Mother.

 

If you keep a sterile tank with no input of natural bacteria or parasites, that fish will always be at risk of infection from bacteria, viruses and parasites so everything in contact with it needs to be quarantined. But even if you quarantine everything that is in contact with that fish, you can’t keep all disease bacteria away from it, especially if you buy coral or rock because those things, even if quarantined for years can harbor disease pathogens in the form of viruses and bacteria that quarantining will have no effect on. Quarantining can remove parasites, but nothing else.

 

You can’t turn a sterile, quarantined tank into a natural tank very easily because those fish have no natural immunity to anything because they are not exposed to anything so it would be a slow and possibly scary process. The fish would need to become infected, and then cured by un natural means until the fish builds up immunity or unfortunately, dies.

 

It is much easier to set up a natural tank in the beginning but of course that can also be scary, especially if you are new at this. If I were to set up another tank tomorrow I would do it almost exactly like I set up my present tank. Reverse Undergravel filter and all, but I doubt the UG filter has much bearing on the health of the fish.

 

I am lucky that I can get some natural water and mud from the sea, but I also add regular dirt from outside my house. Dirt that doesn’t have pesticides, fertilizer, weed killers or battery acid from a 1957 Oldsmobile Cutlass. I add a little soil, not for the soil, but for the bacteria. If I collect earthworms for food, I leave the dirt on. It’s the same dirt that is inside the earthworms. Eating a little dirt won’t hurt us and it won’t hurt your fish.

 

I would also feed something with live bacteria in it at every meal. I use white worms, blackworms, earthworms, or clams that I buy live and freeze myself. Clams that you freeze yourself would still have the same bacteria in it as when the clam was alive because our home freezer is not that cold. Processed fish food you buy is questionable as to the presence of bacteria because it needs to be somewhat free of bacteria so it can last and be sold. It may also be irradiated.

 

(If I could only use one food, it would be clams)

 

Our fish should only die of old age and fish on the proper diet in a natural tank do.

 

#Please note that this is only the opinion of an individual , he does have many years of experience under his belt. 

 

Would love to hear people comments on it.

So you just stumbled on @Paul.b article from wherever? Good for you. He used to post here  once in a while. And he’s an IBEW brother, but based on some of the things I’ve seen him post about it, kinda wormy. 

[BrentSA]

@Nano sapiens please can you make a post of all your experiences over the years , ups and downs,  how you went about learning about your little ecosystems and some more of your tips and tricks to keeping all your fish alive with such success . You say you have been in the hobby for over 30 years and I am sure that you have a plethora of knowledge which would be invaluable to any member and especially someone new in the hobby , I am going to follow you and look for all your previous posts ! 

[BrentSA]

7 hours ago, 1891Bro said:

So you just stumbled on @Paul.b article from wherever? Good for you. He used to post here  once in a while. And he’s an IBEW brother, but based on some of the things I’ve seen him post about it, kinda wormy. 

Yeah I really like stumbling upon write ups like this , it allows for debates and discussions to be started and I firmly believe that's the only way you get any form of progression in anything , not just reefs . As nano sapien said these thoughts comes from the 30 and 60's but for me i think, some if their advice still rings true and needs to be incorporated with new techniques and going to do much more reading up on the original articles .  

[WV Reefer]

1 hour ago, BrentSA said:

@Nano sapiens please can you make a post of all your experiences over the years , ups and downs,  how you went about learning about your little ecosystems and some more of your tips and tricks to keeping all your fish alive with such success . You say you have been in the hobby for over 30 years and I am sure that you have a plethora of knowledge which would be invaluable to any member and especially someone new in the hobby , I am going to follow you and look for all your previous posts ! 

 Check out his threads.  

[WV Reefer]

It’s funny because two threads down the homepage is @subsea ‘s  thread about natural filtration. 😆 

 

lots of natural reefs on this site if you just look around. 

[tibbsy07]

I think natural filtration can be done well and if done correctly, it works great. I do, however, think that most of the time it doesn't work well and here's why. Natural filtration is almost always used because "that's how it works in the ocean" but the problem with that reasoning is that our tanks are not the ocean. Our tanks are a tiny snapshot of a fraction of a massive ecosystem that we don't even entirely understand (we know more about the moon and much of our galaxy than we do about our own oceans). So while natural filtration can work, it isn't a guarantee and it doesn't make it the "better" method. There are gaps in our knowledge and compounded with the fact that our tanks are NOT the ocean and do not contain all the variables within the oceans that make the oceans work the way they do, we can't really nail the perfect system down.

 

I think this point, ultimately, is why both natural and mechanical/technical systems sometimes work and sometimes don't - we are basing both methods on what we hypothesize is happening in the ocean. Often times we nail it (see the nitrogen cycle for an example, though we are now discovering that the bacteria involved and the various biogeochemical pathways are more complicated and intricate that we initially understood them to be). More often, we don't. 

[BrentSA]

 

38 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

 Check out his threads.  

Lol, I am busy going through them as we speak  but  it doesn't give a background of what he encountered when he first began in the hobby , what kept him motivated when a obstacle was in front of him . Things like that , I thinks is cool to share , think it gets people more determined to have a successful tank hearing a successful reefer story and how they kept at it through the worst and how the coming out on tbe other side is totally worth the effort .

[BrentSA]

22 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

It’s funny because two threads down the homepage is @subsea ‘s  thread about natural filtration. 😆 

 

lots of natural reefs on this site if you just look around. 

I just posted this article because I thought it was an interesting read , I am busy reading through threads but there are so many it's hard to single out those who is in the hobby for 3 years and those who has been at it for 30, so when I was told that nano sapien has so many years of experience , obviously I jumed at the prospect of learning something from his threads,  I know there are plenty of people with loads of knowledge on here but I would not know where to begin and who else has that level and years of experience under their belt unless I happen to read a specific thread or profile where they say how many years they have been in the hobby and too me the knowlege of someone who has been at it for 30 or 40 years is priceless . How they responded to things going wrong and especially 30 40 years ago where technology was not even close to what it is today is really interesting soo that's why is asked for him to post a thread . Hopefully after a few years I would have caught up with all the post that has been posted on here. 

[WV Reefer]

32 minutes ago, BrentSA said:

I just posted this article because I thought it was an interesting read , I am busy reading through threads but there are so many it's hard to single out those who is in the hobby for 3 years and those who has been at it for 30, so when I was told that nano sapien has so many years of experience , obviously I jumed at the prospect of learning something from his threads,  I know there are plenty of people with loads of knowledge on here but I would not know where to begin and who else has that level and years of experience under their belt unless I happen to read a specific thread or profile where they say how many years they have been in the hobby and too me the knowlege of someone who has been at it for 30 or 40 years is priceless . How they responded to things going wrong and especially 30 40 years ago where technology was not even close to what it is today is really interesting soo that's why is asked for him to post a thread . Hopefully after a few years I would have caught up with all the post that has been posted on here. 

Next time you are looking for something specific try the search feature. It will yield amazing results. ??

[Nano sapiens]

4 hours ago, tibbsy07 said:

I think natural filtration can be done well and if done correctly, it works great. I do, however, think that most of the time it doesn't work well and here's why. Natural filtration is almost always used because "that's how it works in the ocean" but the problem with that reasoning is that our tanks are not the ocean...

'Natural System' is certainly a bit of a misnomer as only a system in nature is truly natural (that's why I always put the term between hyphens).  What we've been trying since day one to do in our reef tanks is emulate as many of the natural conditions/processes as possible, as far as we understand them, because we know they work in nature.  We can only go so far, though, since you are right that our little glass/acrylic boxes are not the ocean.  Luckily for us, bacteria as a rule are very resilient and can usually bounce back from our faux pas and corals are adaptable to varying conditions (within known parameters), which helps make reef keeping possible at all.

 

IMO, in a properly setup 'natural system' or one that uses other supplementary equipment, many problems typically encountered lie not in the system per se, but rather in how the aquarist manages the system.  This might be due to inexperience, incorrect knowledge (or incorrectly applied knowledge) obtained from various sources, unwillingness to regularly do those things that keep a system thriving...or life just getting in the way. 

 

Experience is the best teacher here and no matter how many years someone has been at this there is always more to learn...which makes it a fun and interesting hobby!

[Nano sapiens]

On 8/3/2018 at 4:18 AM, BrentSA said:

@Nano sapiens please can you make a post of all your experiences over the years , ups and downs,  how you went about learning about your little ecosystems and some more of your tips and tricks to keeping all your fish alive with such success . You say you have been in the hobby for over 30 years and I am sure that you have a plethora of knowledge which would be invaluable to any member and especially someone new in the hobby , I am going to follow you and look for all your previous posts ! 

Much of what I've done over the last three decades in reef keeping is not all that special or spectacular.  My first saltwater system in the late 70's was a 35 hex with a Sea Apple, Clarkii Clownfish and a red Seastar that ran for ~5 years before I moved overseas.  I then hand built an 8g nano with a 12g gravity-fed sump from an artricle I read back in the mid 80's, which ran for around 3 years and ended up turning into big Zoanthid fest.  Then a 55g reef tank, which I'd loosely call a 'mixed reef', that ran for a decade.

 

This last decade with this 12g nano tank has actually been the most fruitful as it has forced me to reevaluate and reconsider what I thought I knew coming from larger systems.  Also, the amount of scientific knowledge obtained in the last 10 years is really impressive compared to what was known a few decades ago, which can be useful in understanding what goes on in our little reef systems.

[Subsea]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@tibbsy07

 

Do you still use the phrase “Microbial Overlords”?  I so much like that, I use it as often as I can.  

[tibbsy07]

38 minutes ago, Subsea said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@tibbsy07

 

Do you still use the phrase “Microbial Overlords”?  I so much like that, I use it as often as I can.  

Ha, I do!

[Subsea]

I recently read a paper about coral nutrition on a wild reef which emphasized that 60% of reef food was tied up in the 

“microbial loop”.  Bacteria move nutrients from one food web to another.  Previously, I considered bacteria and algae as my biofilter, I now include cryptic sponges as the third leg of biofiltration.

[nicholc2]

10 hours ago, Subsea said:

I recently read a paper about coral nutrition on a wild reef which emphasized that 60% of reef food was tied up in the 

“microbial loop”.  Bacteria move nutrients from one food web to another.  Previously, I considered bacteria and algae as my biofilter, I now include cryptic sponges as the third leg of biofiltration.

Oddly enough when I was switching my tank from mechanical to natural I read up on cryptic zones and ended up putting some LR in the back chamber of my AIO as a cryptic zone. So I have the main tank, the HOB refugium, and now a cryptic zone. Even though it’s only been a month or so there are already sponges growing there. Pretty sweet stuff actually. 🙂

[tibbsy07]

13 hours ago, Subsea said:

I recently read a paper about coral nutrition on a wild reef which emphasized that 60% of reef food was tied up in the 

“microbial loop”.  Bacteria move nutrients from one food web to another.  Previously, I considered bacteria and algae as my biofilter, I now include cryptic sponges as the third leg of biofiltration.

Yeah coral really rely on their microbial symbionts and the microbes in the ecosystem for a lot, as do other macro species. 

[Subsea]

@tibbsy07

 

Tell me about the nano box in your signature.  Inquiring minds want to know.

[BrentSA]

Read such a cool article , it is on fish diet and how feeding live foods or fresh collected and frozen from the wild can help make fish immune from most disease  , the poop which the fish eats from these live foods works as a pro biotic and how being exposed to germs and micro bacteria from these food sources is what makes them immune.  Will try and find it again and post it on here . 

[Subsea]

5 hours ago, nicholc2 said:

Oddly enough when I was switching my tank from mechanical to natural I read up on cryptic zones and ended up putting some LR in the back chamber of my AIO as a cryptic zone. So I have the main tank, the HOB refugium, and now a cryptic zone. Even though it’s only been a month or so there are already sponges growing there. Pretty sweet stuff actually. 🙂

When 25 year old Jaubert Plenum sand-bed crashed, due to aggressive predatation of sand bed detrivores by  Melanarious Wrasse, I turned out the lights in 30G EcoSystem Mud/Macro refugium and went cryptic refugium 8 months ago.

 

 

Picture today after eight months.  Chile Coral likes cryptic refugium.

[BrentSA]

Think ill be downgrading my 118g to something more manageable and do a natural tank and harvest my own live food to freeze . 

[Subsea]

Harvesting is fun.  I enjoyed collection trips with the kids.  We would m@ke a picknic of it.  

 

I focus on in tank live food webs.  I do not feed fish; I overfeed the  system, but first I invest in micro fauna and fana to inoculate diverse food webs in the sandbed.

[BrentSA]

I was thinking about testing out some black mussels from where I usually pick from  when my family wants some fresh grilled ones too eat . Going to freeze them , shave them and feed it to the inhabitants , just don't know how I'll be getting them out of the shell without cooking them .