Advice for feeding my fish

[firestorm]

Hi,

I have recently bought a 2nd hand marine setup. I have had it for 4 days now. Water quality is good except the phosphate is high 1.0ppm. I have a phosphate absorber in one of the filters to sort that out.

Fish-wise there is the following :

1 x hawkfish

2 x clown fish

1 x regal tang

1 x yellow tang

1 x firemouth

2 x chalk gobies

1 x neon goby

3 x shrimps, corals + various snails

I know fish are constantly hungry, but how much am I supposed to give them ?

At the moment it is a pinch of flake food in the morning and one block of frozen food. It takes them about 90 seconds max to polish off the food. I also put some coral gro in.

The problem is that the chalk gobies don't get much of a chance to eat. The food is finished before it passes midway. One of the chalk gobies is particularly thin.

Any one recommend any foods that sink to the bottom ? Any suggestions ?


Cheers

 

[krullulon]

one suggestion: chop up the frozen food and mix it with tank water, use a turkey baster to suck-up the slurry and release it at different levels in the tank.

this will get food at different levels of the water column at the same time...

alternatively, you can try feeding your fish until the aggressive top-feeders stop eating and make sure there's enough left-over to make it lower in the tank.

fwiw, i generally feed my fish as much as they'll eat in 3-4 minutes. i haven't had a problem with overfeeding yet, they're fat but happy. ;-)

 

[ChrisRD]

You could try sinking pellets too - I think the one I tried was called New Life Spectrum? Most of the fish seemed to like it. Not sure what's available in the UK though. Also, try defrosting some frozen mysis and feeding with the baster as Krullulon suggested.

 

[firestorm]

krullulon
good idea about using a turkey baster - how many times a day do you feed them ?

I'm going to add an extra feed in the morning, a small pinch of flake food. Around 19h00 I'll feed the frozen food, one portion. Then around 23h00 a little more dried flake food.

I'm testing and logging the ammonia and NH3, NH4.

ChrisRD
I haven't seen New Life Spectrum advertised in the UK, there must be an alternative here too.

Thanks for the suggestions

 

[ChrisRD]

Here's a link.

http://www.nlpublish.com/images/products/promotional/booklet-big-1.jpg

The one I tried is the top center (the marine formula).

 

[Steven]

I pre-soak my flake food in tank water and then pour the mixture into the tank. This spreads the food to all levels rather than having it sit just at the surface.

 

[packman9111]

fwiw - since I stopped using flake food and now only use frozen, my phosphates have dropped way down!

Rick