Doug's 1400 gal Dream Marine Aquarium - 2nd Topic: 1x1400gal or 2 x 800gal?

[AlexG]

On the topic of feeding larger predatory fish in a mixed tank system you will feed a lot of food but much of the food that is fed can be purchased at the seafood market for a reasonable price and mixed with smaller portions of frozen fish food. I put my feeding routine below for the fish. I do spot feed anemones, NPS corals, and LPS corals but I will not add that into the mix. I have a very large skimmer and large refugium to help handle the bioload of the fish. I use one large commercial grade GEO calcium reactor which does not have an issue keeping up with demand. I do water changes once a month of 200 gallons using reef crystals which is a change over the last year as I was not doing any major water changes for the first 1.5 years of the tank running.

Fish feeding routine:
720 Gallon tank (Puffers, Triggers, Angels, Tangs, Rabbit fish, wrasses, and several smaller varieties of fish)

• Automatic feeder: 2x/day large spectrum pellets
• Every other day 1/3-1/2 sheet Nori
• Every other day Big fish food rotation will be one of the following
  • 2-3x large shrimp tail on
  • 1 large shrimp tail on & 1 whole squid 4-6" long
  • 1 large shrimp tail on & 3-6 Clams on half shell
• Every other day ~6-8 cubes of frozen food
  • LRS
  • PE Mysis
  • RODs

480 Gallon Reef:

• Automatic feeder: 2x/day PE Mysis pellets
• Every other day 1/4 sheet Nori
• Every other day ~4-8 cubes of frozen food
  • LRS
  • PE Mysis
  • RODs

 

[DJKNOX]

On the topic of feeding larger predatory fish in a mixed tank system you will feed a lot of food but much of the food that is fed can be purchased at the seafood market for a reasonable price and mixed with smaller portions of frozen fish food. I put my feeding routine below for the fish. I do spot feed anemones, NPS corals, and LPS corals but I will not add that into the mix. I have a very large skimmer and large refugium to help handle the bioload of the fish. I use one large commercial grade GEO calcium reactor which does not have an issue keeping up with demand. I do water changes once a month of 200 gallons using reef crystals which is a change over the last year as I was not doing any major water changes for the first 1.5 years of the tank running.

Fish feeding routine:
720 Gallon tank (Puffers, Triggers, Angels, Tangs, Rabbit fish, wrasses, and several smaller varieties of fish)

• Automatic feeder: 2x/day large spectrum pellets
• Every other day 1/3-1/2 sheet Nori
• Every other day Big fish food rotation will be one of the following
  • 2-3x large shrimp tail on
  • 1 large shrimp tail on & 1 whole squid 4-6" long
  • 1 large shrimp tail on & 3-6 Clams on half shell
• Every other day ~6-8 cubes of frozen food
  • LRS
  • PE Mysis
  • RODs

480 Gallon Reef:

• Automatic feeder: 2x/day PE Mysis pellets
• Every other day 1/4 sheet Nori
• Every other day ~4-8 cubes of frozen food
  • LRS
  • PE Mysis
  • RODs

Thanks again Alex - your fish are eating very well. Did they take to the pellets right away?

 

[|Tom the Bomb|]

Tom I was thinking that if I was to have a large predator aquarium with large fish, the food bill could add up over time... so was wondering about culturing live food - ie feeder fish and shrimps etc... most feeder fish at local stores are not suitable... as you suggest.

u know like table shrimp like this. Like those u can buy in the frozen food section that comes in a clear plastic box

lancefish like this for eels and others

u could also go with some FW ghost shrimp
u could try and breed them
and as for culturing...

Rasing SW feeder fish for preditor fish

I have a 55gal refugium for my main DT that has nothing in it except marco algae and LR. I would like to put a single preditor fish in it, one that I can not have in my reef tank. Before I start scouting around for what type of preditor fish I want (lion, puffer, scorp etc etc) I would like to...

www.reefsanctuary.com

here u could get a 20g tank, get a couple o mollies feed them high nutritious diet and increase the salinity slowly to 1.020 when acclimating and feed them to ur fish when they give birth every 2 months

 

[|Tom the Bomb|]

ALSO...

PE mysis works too

 

[DJKNOX]

Thanks Tom - there is just so much more products on the market today than when I was active in the hobby - incredible resources.

 

[DJKNOX]

Just a quick update on this thread. The pandemic brought a lot of tragedy and adversity to my life and everything was put on hold. I'm just coming up for air now and hope to re-start my new house project that includes the monster aquarium(s) as a sub project.