Drip feeding Corals

[Byron]

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?105-Automatic-Continuous-Feeder-DIY&highlight=automatic
Hi Guys,
Have been reading the above thread and another regarding (on this site) feeding corals. I have been absolutely stunned 1. by how much I need to feed them & 2. how regularly. My question is-can I set up a simple drip feed of coral food (ATM using Reef Roids) to feed my corals? I know this is not as accurate as a dose pump but would be light years ahead of my once a day feed! Wouldn't it? Is anyone out there using this method?
My tank at the moment is going through monumental changes ever since I have installed my ATS, shut down my skimmer and now feed more. This seems like the natural progression for the newly converted, which I well and truly am!
Cheers Ben

[SantaMonica]

As long as your scrubber can keep up, you can feed as much as you want. Usually liquid food needs chilling, but if the roids does not, then I guess you don't need to chill it. I'd start by feeding 1 ml per day, per 10 square inches of screen.

[Byron]

Thanks SM, I'll set it up tomorrow!

[Ace25]

From my experience, you can't drip coral food. The reason being is when it is wet it will gum up a drip line (at the valve were you set the drip rate). You will spend all day playing with the valve and it still won't work. You end up not dripping anything, or dumping in most of the container in a few minutes. A dosing pump is really the only way I know of to push coral food through an airline with any consistency. You can get dosing pumps for $30 on ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dosing-pump-Peristaltic-dosing-pump-aquarium-DIY-suction-cup-new-design-/160781447001?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item256f522f59

[SantaMonica]

The thing with that pump and most similar ones, is that it's slowest rate is 20ml per minute. So to get 1 ml you need to run it for just .05 seconds, and that's your dose for the whole day. To divide that up over 24 hours, you'd have to run it for .0021 seconds every hour.

That's why I prefer the pumps that can dose 0.1 ml per dose, so at least you can divide up 1ml over ten doses for the day.

[Ace25]

Good eye. I missed that part. Still, it has a potentiometer to control the output. There is no reason you can't do like I did with LED lights and have a "master pot" and a "slave pot" to slow down to output. Instead of 20-70ml you can install a second Potentiometer after the first one and cut it down to 2-7ml per minute, cost maybe $2 for the part.

[Garf]

I can see how a constant feed system is "ideal" but is it necessary? If you have NPS the I can see an advantage (perhaps a must), but generally, I think 4 feedings a day should be more than enough in a regular system. I think the quality of the food is the main problem, not the frequency, (in a standard system).

[SantaMonica]

Most corals feed at night. And a 100 gal tank of corals can consume a pound of solid food per day. Acro's in the wild can grow 20 inches per year on this natural amount of food. So the goal is to try to see how to feed as much as possible.

[Garf]

Most corals feed at night. And a 100 gal tank of corals can consume a pound of solid food per day. Acro's in the wild can grow 20 inches per year on this natural amount of food. So the goal is to try to see how to feed as much as possible.

Conceded. If my Monti digi grows that much, I am screwed.

[Byron]

Hey SM,
Why don't you just design a scrubber with an automatic coral feeder? LOL

[Garf]

He already has !!

[Byron]

OK guys, I need a kick start here. Tank is looking great with higher food content, lower nutrients (inorganic N & P). haven't had time to look at at a dose pump etc. To get me going (and others) on continuous feeding, could I blend some oysters, brine and nori and feed three times a day? Not quite continuous, but better than twice a week coral food! A basic recipe that I could freeze and feed as required would be fantastic!!

[SantaMonica]

http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?1052-Home-blended-coral-food-5
http://algaescrubber.net/forums/showthread.php?1051-Very-cheap-and-easy-coral-food-chiller-19-99-on-Ebay

[Garf]

I think there may be a link between high alkalinity causing burnt tips on acropora and food in the water column (or lack of it). From what I can piece together;
High Alk encourages faster deposition of skeletal structure. This in turn stresses the flesh of the coral in areas that are growing rapidly.
Feeding is not at optimal in normal tanks, so the flesh receeds instead of keeping up with growth. In turn the skeletal structure that's exposed gets infected with algae turning it brown (burnt tips). So in effect the lack of food in the system could be causing "burnt tips" not high alkalinity at all. Just a theory though. I would appreciate actual feedback from sps keepers.

[kerry]

My Birds nest is fat and happy. I am not an expert by any means but it grows like crazy, like every other day I see new length and new tips growing. I feed 2-3 ml of liquid food (blended shrimp and peas) about 3-4 times a week after the lights are out and I feed the fish a prepared blended mix of shrimp, carrots, and peas that all the live stock feeds on. I suspend it with gelatin so the fish can take bits out of the gelatinous meal.

[Doompie]

Just an idea, I've ordered on of those: http://www.fish-street.com/nano_dosing_pump
just too see what it's like.

Specs look quite well. Slowest mode is 6 ml / hour which reflects to 0,1 ml/minute which could work out..

[kotlec]

Those tiny dosers are not very robust. Usually their motor has very low hour life. Thus not very useful for constant dosing.
May be you can put it on timer to drip 5mins every hour or so ?

For continuous work the best is stepper motor (or such). You hardly can kill it, unless pump is stuck and it fries.

[SantaMonica]

6ml/hr = 144/day. One day I hope to have enough scrubbing power to be able to dose that much. :)