To Pod or Not To Pod: Are you using live food to nourish your tank?

[AlyciaMarie]

Our tank inhabitants are our children, too! Well, maybe not. But some people see it that way, and nutrition is essential for a healthy, successful tank, and what kind of inhabitants you're keeping has a big influence on what you're feeding. Food for your tank can come in all different forms: frozen, flakes, pellets, live, etc. But many people swear by live food and its benefits to your home reef. What do you think about it? nourish

Are you using live food to nourish your tank (Rotifers, Live Brine Shrimp, Copepods, Phytoplankton, Amphipods, etc.)? Why or why not?

Photo credit: Reef Nutrition
Googly eye-ification: Gumbies R Us

 

[Gman83]

I use pods, phyto, and baby brine shrimp. I typically only get phyto when I order pods, and I do that once a quarter. Then I hatch baby brine shrimp once a week unless I know I won't be able to harvest them completely. All of it (pods, phyto and bbs) are in the ocean, so why not put it in your tank to make the environment for fish/corals as close to the ocean as possible.

 

[lil sumpin]

I chucked cyclops and tisbe pods into my nano 2x in the year it's been running. That was more than enough to get a population going. I see my fish grazing on the rocks from time to time, it's nice to see them hunt and chow down on live food. Shout out to Kent and Sherry of Reef by Steele

 

[PolypParty]

Looking into dosing Live Phyto, nanno. Probably a good idea to dose pods before the phytoplankton?

 

[exnisstech]

All my tanks have pods but I never never purchased them as food, they just appear like many other things. The only live food I feed are earthworms and black worms and baby brine. Black worms are a must have for me when I train a CBB to eat before they move to the DT. I also hatch brine shrimp for that purpose.

 

[LordJoshaeus]

Most of my setups are freshwater, and for the longest time I have added baby brine shrimp to the tanks twice a day for the fish. I am currently taking a break from that for most of my setups because some of my fish have not learned to take dry food and, if I ever have to rehome them, that would be a serious problem...so I am trying to teach them to take dry foods (starting with golden pearls).

My reef jars, on the other hand, won't have fish, but I did just add copepods to them yesterday to feed the corals that will eventually populate the jars. I am also adding live phyto to feed the copepods and perhaps the corals.

 

[AlyciaMarie]

All my tanks have pods but I never never purchased them as food, they just appear like many other things. The only live food I feed are earthworms and black worms and baby brine. Black worms are a must have for me when I train a CBB to eat before they move to the DT. I also hatch brine shrimp for that purpose.

Earthworms? I've never heard of that, but I want to know more! Do you harvest them yourself or buy them?

 

[ZzyzxRiver]

I’m amazed I pulled it off, but I’ve seen several reproduction events from my copepods in my 16g biocube— and that’s WITH a red scooter blenny that munches on them all day long. Dosing phyto for them has had side benefits for the rest of my tank, too.

 

[exnisstech]

Earthworms? I've never heard of that, but I want to know more! Do you harvest them yourself or buy them?

I just pick them up under rocks and logs on our property.
Naso gets the biggest share, she's a pig

 

[AnomMatty]

Dose live phyto daily. Have, and probably will again, added pods, but less as a food source and more as somehting to compete with algae.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

It is something I don't currently do but would like to try in the future!

 

[Ocean_Queenie]

For me it is so fun feeding the brine shrimp, most of the fish we have get really excited and move faster trying to catch them first, I just give these as snacks once in a while! We use several types of pods and phyto

 

[Joseph_Joe]

I use them just for my mandarin dragonets that only eat live pods. I don't dose plankton however. I did at the beginning, but now I let them rely on food wastes.
I replenish it twice a year

 

[gastone]

I breed three varieties of pods, tisbe, Apocyclops, and tigriopus. Feed them regularly to my tanks. I've got a mandarin in an IM30 that needs the regularly feeding. Use the phyto to feed the pods, dump some of that into the systems as well.

 

[Reef By Steele]

Looking into dosing Live Phyto, nanno. Probably a good idea to dose pods before the phytoplankton?

You can dose phyto at any time as it will help out compete other algae you don’t want. Definitely dose phyto when adding pods as it ensures a proper nutritional profile for your pods and increases their chances of establishing a colony.
Nanno is a good phyto, but I would use a blend as there are higher HUFA in the browns and Golds. The diatoms like Thalassiosira weissflogii will help eliminate silicates if present in a new tank or water supply to eliminate diatom blooms. Yep sounds odd but different strains than the diatoms that powder dust our aquariums.

 

[MnFish1]

Our tank inhabitants are our children, too! Well, maybe not. But some people see it that way, and nutrition is essential for a healthy, successful tank, and what kind of inhabitants you're keeping has a big influence on what you're feeding. Food for your tank can come in all different forms: frozen, flakes, pellets, live, etc. But many people swear by live food and its benefits to your home reef. What do you think about it? nourish

Are you using live food to nourish your tank (Rotifers, Live Brine Shrimp, Copepods, Phytoplankton, Amphipods, etc.)? Why or why not?

Photo credit: Reef Nutrition
Googly eye-ification: Gumbies R Us

I do not feed live foods - however, I use high quality frozen food (Larry's) - which also has some 'probiotic' bacteria. The reason - there are at least a couple articles suggesting that 'home made food recipes' (no offense to anyone) may not be balanced nutrition as compared to some flake/pellet in addition. Also - I have not seen a clear benefit using live vs frozen - except - raising fry, or if a new fish has a difficult time starting to eat.

 

[PolypParty]

You can dose phyto at any time as it will help out compete other algae you don’t want. Definitely dose phyto when adding pods as it ensures a proper nutritional profile for your pods and increases their chances of establishing a colony.
Nanno is a good phyto, but I would use a blend as there are higher HUFA in the browns and Golds. The diatoms like Thalassiosira weissflogii will help eliminate silicates if present in a new tank or water supply to eliminate diatom blooms. Yep sounds odd but different strains than the diatoms that powder dust our aquariums.

Thank you, good explanation. cleared that up for me.

 

[buttonreefer]

I use pods, phyto, and baby brine shrimp. I don’t obviously rely on live food. I feed frozen such as bloodworms and mysis, and also occasional pellets. In my 15g, I have seen the cycle of my pods reproducing many times, and have a steady population growing. I of course was very happy since it’s hard to keep a steady, growing number in such a small tank. I constantly see my possum wrasse pecking at the rocks. If you don’t use live, I highly recommend it!

 

[Imrahilwjz]

I feed white worms 2 or 3 times a week. My Klein butterfly and my flame hawk get much more excited about the wiggling white worms than they do about the mix of frozen foods I feed regularly. I buy live clams to feed, but they're not live when I feed them to my fish. I'm following @Paul B's philosophy about feeding live foods to introduce beneficial bacteria. My long term goal is to have dragonets (Mandarin and Ruby Red pairs), so a refugium and a pod population are in my future plans.

 

[Reeferbadness]

i picked up some pods with my live rock when i just set up my tank. Bought a Mandarin Goby pretty early on - was not educated on eating habits (or much else with reef tank keeping) - he's still alive and thriving almost 5 years later. I've supplemented different types some pods in my refugium (1/2) and tank at night 1/2) - usually 1x a year just to add to and diversify the population.