natural food source for fish and coral?

unbelievable · 05/14/2011, 03:09 PM

So I want to add something into my tank that will breed and feed the tank. I know shrimp will have babies but what else could I add that might readily breed. Tia!

dzhuo · 05/14/2011, 04:47 PM

There are lots of critters which woud breed and multiply in our tanks. Here are the common ones I can think of: lots of different types of snail, many different types of pods, mysis, certain types of worms, mini-stars, limpet, stomatella, etc. This is by no mean a comprehensive list and I am sure others will quickly come up with more. The best thing is most of them will naturally show up as your tank mature.

unbelievable · 05/14/2011, 05:14 PM

I appreciate your response. My tank is nearly six years old and I have all the common stuff like pods mini brittle stars asterina stars. Now I have even more stuff crawling around since my yellow coris kicked the bucket. I guess I was looking for something that would spawn and give the fish and corals a treat like spawning shrimp do.

dzhuo · 05/14/2011, 08:16 PM

My suggestion would be just don't try too hard.

The idea of having your tank naturally generating food source for corals is nice in theory but probably very hard to achieve in reality. I would imagine one of the most difficult aspect would be to provide the corals enough quantity of micro-organisms to generate enough food. The problem is with a closed system (our tanks), these animals are bound by space and nutrient so unless you intentionally feed a lot, they naturally balance out.

Some of the animals I mentioned earlier do in fact spawn. For example, I just witness a group of stomatella spawn last night. Lots of "smoke" from LR in various parts of my tank.

05/14/2011, 03:09 PM	#1
unbelievable Moved On Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 534	natural food source for fish and coral? So I want to add something into my tank that will breed and feed the tank. I know shrimp will have babies but what else could I add that might readily breed. Tia!

05/14/2011, 04:47 PM	#2
dzhuo Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 4,338	There are lots of critters which woud breed and multiply in our tanks. Here are the common ones I can think of: lots of different types of snail, many different types of pods, mysis, certain types of worms, mini-stars, limpet, stomatella, etc. This is by no mean a comprehensive list and I am sure others will quickly come up with more. The best thing is most of them will naturally show up as your tank mature. __________________ One of the most frustrating thing about this hobby? The blind leading the blind.

05/14/2011, 08:16 PM	#4
dzhuo Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 4,338	My suggestion would be just don't try too hard. The idea of having your tank naturally generating food source for corals is nice in theory but probably very hard to achieve in reality. I would imagine one of the most difficult aspect would be to provide the corals enough quantity of micro-organisms to generate enough food. The problem is with a closed system (our tanks), these animals are bound by space and nutrient so unless you intentionally feed a lot, they naturally balance out. Some of the animals I mentioned earlier do in fact spawn. For example, I just witness a group of stomatella spawn last night. Lots of "smoke" from LR in various parts of my tank. __________________ One of the most frustrating thing about this hobby? The blind leading the blind.

05/14/2011, 05:14 PM	#3
unbelievable Moved On Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 534	I appreciate your response. My tank is nearly six years old and I have all the common stuff like pods mini brittle stars asterina stars. Now I have even more stuff crawling around since my yellow coris kicked the bucket. I guess I was looking for something that would spawn and give the fish and corals a treat like spawning shrimp do.