good news and bad news!

[falcondob]

Great reference page for the Education Forum, Gary. We can add type of food as we find that stats. What do you think?
John

[Bill S]

Brine shrimp being compared to junk food is yet ANOTHER great hobby myth. It may not be a perfect food, but it's not all fiber, either.

[GaryP]

That's one of those things that still hangs around. I think some LFS continue to spread this out of date info a lot of times. I admit that I thought the same thing until I took a few minutes to look into it. Just another example of "buyer beware."

[Ram_Puppy]

ok, but how about all the people who have fat happy mandarins that starve to death? I can't remember how many times I have seen this on reefcentral. I won't argue that brine has more nutrition than I thought, and of course, these are all probably gut loaded, but we still see people feeding brine to mandarins and the mandarins wasting away.

Fran, I am not picking on you , I hope your mandarin makes it as well.

[Instar]

People don't feed the slow methodical feeders often enough. One feeding every other day is starving them! One feeding a day or even 2 is still starving them to death unless there is another source for them to feed on. It takes a lot of the little things to feed them well. Imagine how many copepods it would take to fill their fat little bellies. It would take a few less brine, but, it needs to be moving through the digestive tract all day long. Its just how they are built. The 2nd part of the myth is that we have been conditioned by the public news paper, and other sources of proclaimed experts to cut the food and atempt to go make the water nutrient poor when that is not meeting the needs of the animals kept. Imagine feeding your dog or cat once every 3 days just to keep the liter box cleaner? Its still going to build up in that liter anyway. How many times have you seen on here that someone only feeds their fish once every 3 days to once every 3 weeks? Far too often. These fish eat all day long, there is no shortage of food on the reef. To keep these fish without live food support in a large growing area within the tank substrate, they will need fed multiple times per day until they can be conditioned over a long time to get used to gluttony during only a couple mass feedings per day. Also, sometimes people keep a tank population that all feed in the same strata of the tank. Best bet is a mix of one or a couple that feeds the bottom, several that feed mid water, a couple that graze the rocks or on macro, with not all fish feeding the same strata. If a person likes all micro fauna feeders, that takes a special setup and maybe suppliments with live cultured foods.

[GaryP]

Excellent info Instar. Studies of fish on wild reefs have found that they feed on pretty low nutritional value food almost constantly. A lot of their diet is actually other fish's poop. The fish gut is actually very inefficient and most of the nutritional vlaue passes straight through. That's why fish waste can trash water quality easily. If a fish only takes 10% of the nutritional value from food, that means 90% is going into the water as waste. Food that can be grazed on over an extended period of time is a good idea. That's why I like things like Nori and mussels. They're just going to go back to it until its all eaten. I don't have to worry about it getting lost in the LR and going uneaten. If you are concerned with water quality, cutting back on how often you feed is not the way to go. You can still feed the same amount, but just feed more often with smaller portions. IMO, that's a much better way to go. Losing a dead fish in the LR that died as a result of nutritional stress, is going to have a bigger negative impact on water quality then the food.

Something I ran across online that I found interesting is that some fish such as tangs and damsels will cultivate an algae garden that they protect from other fish. Its their territory and will graze on it regularly like a pasture. Their waste fertilizes the garden and continuous grazing will stimulate the growth of the algae just like grazed grass will grow faster then ungrazed grass.

I think this also explains why you will never get something like a tang or lawnmower blenny to completely eliminate hair algae. They are always going to leave some to grow back for them to feed on later.

I don't mean to be overly criticial here, but cutting back on feeding is not a good alternative to putting in the time and using sufficient equipment necessary to maintain water quality. Why would we want to force the fish to accept how we want them to feed instead of how they naturally feed in the wild? They have developed feeding strategies over million of years and in a few days in captivity we are forcing them to change to a strategy of our choosing. This may workk for some fish, but clearly, as is the case with something like a Mandarin, its not a strategy that will work for all fish. We have to feed the tank based on the highest nutritional needs, not the lowest. I'ver never seen a fish die from feeding the tank to often.

The other thing is that lack of nutition is not going to be the actual cause of death. Stressed fish have a weka immune system and its going to be Ich or some other disease that will actually end up doing the deed. Its easy to blame Ich for a fish death when the actual cause may be something like poor nutition or some other form of stress. I can't help but wonder how many of the "My Fish has Ich" posts here may have their roots in poor nutrition. Clearly this is not the only cause. I have found that whatever your problem may be, whether its cyano, hair algae, or Ich, there is usually some other real cause. The problem is usually some other problesm in your system. The "problem" is just a symptom. Studies of wild fish have found that Ich is fairly rare in the wild. That leaves us asking what is that we are doing that makes it so common in our systems. IMO, nutrition may be one of those issues.

[Derek B]

Great information guys. If you think about it .. the more science learns about the human body ... the more we learn that we function more efficiently with continuous meals in smaller quantities. Our metabolism is moving all the time and we don't shock our body with large portions every 4-6 hours which causing organs to overwork and increases our bodies overall stress-load. It is logical that this same concept applies to these wonderful animals that we keep.

In keeping ourselves healthy or any other living creature for that matter ... it's all about giving them the things they need to reduce stress. That stress reducing list would look something like this:

- good acclimation techniques
- excellent water quality and water conditions in general (maintaining small deviations across all water quality parameters)
- not skimping on nutrition and feedings (so do some extra water changes if you have to) and don't buy the cheap stuff
- proper stocking methods (i.e. don't put animals together that are known to be incompatible)

In general, study up and know what each animal needs and whether you can provide it. One thing I've learned in this hobby is that haphazard tecniques and luck won't get you very far (well, luck is a good thing :lol ). Be deliberate and be prepared to give a high level of attention and care to your livestock if you intend to be a successful reef aquarist.

Thanks for the great info guys!