Automatic Continuous Feeder - DIY

The current inputs are:

Bottled blended oysters via/pump, 12 ml/day.
Nori for fish, 8 square inches/day.
1 silverside every two weeks, for the eel.
Pickling lime in the FW topoff, about 1.5 gal/day, for cal and alk; this is the container on the side.
Strontium when I think about it; has no affect that I can see.
Mag when it measures low, which is almost never; has no affect that I can see.

No more arctipods, because of cost. If they were free, I'd feed them, along with rotifers, in a separate feeder.

The more I learn about how you manage your reef tank, the more I'm amazed. I recently spoke to my LFS about making my current "fish only" tank into a full blown reef tank like yours. They told me that I need at least a dozen products from them amounting to hundreds of dollars in ongoing expenses. You have this process simplified, inexpensive, and mostly all natural. Thank you for sharing your secrets - I will be shopping from your list this week!

Chris

92 gal corner tank
Santa Monica ATS
7 months into the hobby

I use freeze dried / spray dried phytoplankton. Seems to work fairly well.
It is probably not as good as the nice refrigerated stuff. But seems ok.

Put that in an automatic feeder. (One of the individual dump-bucket types).
They can be set up to drop several times a day.
So you put a tiny bit in each bucket, and you are all set for a week.

Lower quality, but a lot simpler.

if i have 200gal tank and on the bottle of the oster says 1-2 teaspoon per 100gal thats 5-10 ml do i set it twice that amount for my 200gal ?

The directions on the bottle don't mean anything. If we had strong enough filtration (which we never will), your 200 gal tank of corals could eat that entire bottle every day. Yes, one whole bottle every day; that's how much zooplankton they get in the ocean. But since we don't have an ocean of phytoplankton to do the scrubbing like the ocean does, you'll have to slowly increase the feeding amount until your nutrients start to rise. I'm now at 12 ml/day, and my N and P are completely clear on the test (and, I have eel waste rotting in the pvc pipes).

So, to make it simple, you can feed as much as your scrubber can scrub (your scrubber is your limiting factor.) If you had twice the scrubbing power, you could feed twice as much, etc.

Hello Bryan,
I recently purchased a can of shelled oysters, blended a couple of oysters up with 2 cups of rodi water to a fine puree and started adding a tablespoon or so of the mix to the tank each day in the AM and again in the PM. I'm still feeding rod's food (or homemade version of something similiar) daily. After 4 weeks of this new food, I've noticed that a flower pot coral I bought is doing very well. I started the oyster blend when I bought the flower pot so I don't have anything to compare. I can tell you that I don't direct feed this coral at all. My other corals also seem to be doing well. Do you see a problem with trying to automate feeding this oyster mix through a peristilic pump?

Also, would you recommend thE tb aquatics peristilic pump? It is rated for 1.5ml/min. I have a Neptune Apex controller and can easily time this pump to run any number of seconds per whatever interval I wish. At under $90 this pump looks like a good value. http://reefbuilders.com/2009/09/27/s...p-tb-aquatics/

Chris

I'm planning to make a DIY continuous feeder and was hoping to get your input on a couple of things to make sure I have a plan that makes sense. Thanks in advance.

Liquid Food - I've seen you reference feeding "blended oysters" more recently in order to save money. Is this simply raw oyster meat and RO water mixed together in a blender? Anything else in the liquid food nowadays?

Other Food - I've seen you reference feeding Nori as a food that is in addition to the blended oyster. Is there any other food in the other category that you are feeding besides silversides for your eel?

Regards,
Chrissu

Would there by any problem putting the continuous feeder output in the sump right next to the return pump intake? I figure 99% of the food would get sucked in immediately. I don't want to put this type of equipment on the top of the tank.

You can put it anywhere; the food is not alive.

For less cyano, you want to put it right before the scrubber.

What is the internal diameter on the tubing coming out of the bag on the Zevex delivery sets?