Reef nutrition

Bangaii has a mouth full...

Klems

Klems

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Looks like our cardinal fish have been at it again....now I have to figure out how to get the daddy to spit the babies out of his mouth. Last time we found one in the sump and put it back in the display tank....only to have it go missing the next morning. Ordered a small acclimation box from Amazon that is coming in on Thursday that will mount to the side of my DT. Anything special I need to feed them or will they just eat what we broadcast to the tank normally?
 
You will need to feed them freshly hatched brine shrimp. Make sure you have a few batches going at a time. I would personally move them to a seperate cycled tank with a HOB filter filled with marinepure.
Otherwise you can move them into an acclimation box with a fake urchin for them to hide in.
 
Tmjvb said:
I have had the highest success rate with using freshly hatched BBS. Copepods are also an option but requires more time.
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More time and maybe a little more effort, but should be a much more appropriate food source and a Better source of nutrition for salt water fish.
 
Looks like they were released by the male last night...count four in the overflow. Should be fun trying to get them out of there...
IMG_20171226_113409135.jpg
 
Tmjvb said:
Freshly hatched brine shimp will have a higher nutritional value than copepods cultured in phytoplankton.
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What exactly do you mean by "nutritional value"?
In my opinion a feed that would be something they eat in nature is more likely to have the appropriate "nutritional value". What I mean by that is that copepods are part of the marine food chain that these fish are evolved/adapted to utilize. This is something that was reinforced when we had one of the guys from Reed mariculture talk to the club. He obviously is an expert, but made it sound very doable to culture several different types of pods with limited space and time. He also was of the opinion that better quality/more appropriate feeds (often rotifers and copepods) for young offspring were a key step in many of the captive breeding advancements we have seen in the last several years.
I have not yet tried to culture pods, have you?
 
Coral reefer said:
What exactly do you mean by "nutritional value"?
In my opinion a feed that would be something they eat in nature is more likely to have the appropriate "nutritional value". What I mean by that is that copepods are part of the marine food chain that these fish are evolved/adapted to utilize. This is something that was reinforced when we had one of the guys from Reed mariculture talk to the club. He obviously is an expert, but made it sound very doable to culture several different types of pods with limited space and time. He also was of the opinion that better quality/more appropriate feeds (often rotifers and copepods) for young offspring were a key step in many of the captive breeding advancements we have seen in the last several years.
I have not yet tried to culture pods, have you?
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Freshly hatched brine carry a yolk sac for the first few hours after hatching. From what I have read brine shrimp in this time period are more nutritious than most copepods feeding on phytoplankton.
I have cultured many different kinds of pods and phytoplankton in the past. They multiply rapidly but not fast enough to support large clutches of cardinals. The other issue is that most of the pods that we culture are benthic and will not stay in the water column long enough for the fry to eat them.

I would agree that copepods would be a better food source vs. adult brine shrimp
 
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Tmjvb said:
Freshly hatched brine carry a yolk sac for the first few hours after hatching. From what I have read brine shrimp in this time period are more nutritious than most copepods feeding on phytoplankton.
I have cultured many different kinds of pods and phytoplankton in the past. They multiply rapidly but not fast enough to support large clutches of cardinals. The other issue is that most of the pods that we culture are benthic and will not stay in the water column long enough for the fry to eat them.

I would agree that copepods would be a better food source vs. adult brine shrimp
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Well maybe the feeding of the pods was your issue, but I still don't think brine shrimp are the best answer. Maybe most realistic for you and many hobbyists, and certainly better than non live foods, but definitely not the best imo.
 
Coral reefer said:
Well maybe the feeding of the pods was your issue, but I still don't think brine shrimp are the best answer. Maybe most realistic for you and many hobbyists, and certainly better than non live foods, but definitely not the best imo.
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I would agree that they aren’t the BEST option, but I have had a much higher success rate with using BBS over copepods.
:)
 
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