Awhile back you might recall I had posted about my experiences in trying out bloodworms and tubifex as foods for my Reef tank...
Yesterday while out at Aquatica picking up some brine eggs for my baby Banggai brood, I decided to try out 2 more types of frozen food and see how they would be received. I picked up some frozen squid cubes (kind of an obvious choice, I know) and some beefheart cubes w/ daphnia (not such an obvious choice).
The squid was actually the less well-received of the 2, believe it or not. I think it has to do with the food particle size; the squid stays in small "globs" once defrosted - a bit larger (though not huge) than most others foods I use. And, if you have ever eaten squid yourself you know I can be a little "chewy"... to me it seemed all the fish were excited by the presence of the squid itself, but less enthused when it came to actually eating it. The female Banggai liked it (the male isn't eating anything as he is busy carrying their
second batch of eggs
), as well as the Yellow Tail Damsel and the Oscellaris pair all went for it and were able to eat it.
Both angels (Flame and Coral Beauty) ate some, but had to mouth it and spit it in / out several times in order to get it to a more manageable mouth size... the tangs (Powder Blue and Naso) were similar but actually ate even less of it then the angels did. The 6-Line tried but couldn't break off small enough pieces...
Contrast that with the reception of the frozen beefheart cubes. The packaging states it is "best for discus and other freshwater cichlids and carnivores", but in my Reef it was absolutely devoured...
Everybody had some, including the 6-Line. The only fish who didn't seem to care for it was the Naso; ironically the Powder Blue - usually "finicky" when it comes to meaty foods - was actually pulling chunks out of other fishes grasp and gulping them down!
In summary, I would say the beefheart was actually the more "popular" of the two; although with the squid I just think it was a size issue and not a taste or smell issue for the fish...
So now the "Reef Cafeteria" menu at my house reads like this:
Frozen Foods
- Mysis Shrimp - Emerald Entree
- Reef Plankton - Brine Shrimp w / Spirulina
- Angel / Butterfly Formula - Tubifex
- Plankton - Bloodworms
- Scallops - Squid
- Beefheart w/ Daphnia - Krill
- Cyclopeeze
Dried Foods
- Green Sushi Nori - Purple Atlantic Sea Kelp
- Freeze Dried baby Krill - Spectrum Marine Pellets
- Tetra Marine Flake
Some people might balk at the idea of feeding so many different types of foods to your Reef. Maybe concern about the costs, storage, etc. My opinion on feeding is this:
1) Think about how many diiferent foods you have eaten in, say, the past week. Count every different meat, vegetable, tuber, fruit, grain, nut, etc. I pretty much guarantee that most people could list at least 50 different things. Now throw in the different things you drank... and, next week you will probably eat another 50 items - some the same as this week, but some different. In a month's time I'd bet most people consume maybe 90 - 100 different foodstuffs... So why would you feed your (expensive) reef the same 2 or 3 things year-round?
2) And keep in mind I am not feeding my reef all of these items every day... I'll pick 1 or 2 of the frozen foods one day, then 1 or 2 different ones the next. Everything gets rotated in a simple method; I just count the empty "cubes" in a package and choose whichever food(s) have the least empty cubes on a given day, this way everything gets fed at about the same rate over time. And days when I feed dried foods I usually don't feed any frozen. And maybe once every 5 -6 days or so I don't feed anything at all... So, other than a higher initial cost to "stock up" the freezer, the day-to-day expense is the same as a person who alternates between feeding only a few food items...
3) IMO feeding is one of those traits that gets overlooked somewhat when it comes to factors for a "successful" aquarium... to me, it can be a key reason why some "successful" hobbyists wonder why their fish live only 2, 3, maybe 4 years - yet they know of other hobbyists who have the same fishes for a decade or even longer - and can do that consistently...
Edited by carlso63 - December 23 2007 at 11:51am