Reef Discussion

[daveH]

I have been buying Ocean Nutrition Mixed Reef blocks for quite some time and have noticed lately that the amount of water in each block is increasing, probably past the 50% mark now.
I thaw/rinse the blocks through a tea strainer to remove the unwanted water which I don't want in my tank.
May have to start looking for another brand that has more content.

 

[Buddy]

I didn't buy any for a long time and the last packet I bought was like this. The top 1/3 of each block was just water.

 

[Agent M]

Hikari ;)

 

[Savage Henry]

I always try to buy products generic products from general stores rather than expensive products from LFS so that I don't pay through the teeth (i.e. buying chemicals from Bunnings), however I got burnt recently buying frozen fish food from a recently opened large pet store in my area. They had a special on and so I bought about 10 packets of brine shrimp etc. The brand was a known brand in the pet industry (not necessarily reliable in aquarium industry). But, the quality was very low and the actual mass of food was very low. The mysis shrimp was mostly just shrimp heads. I definitely now stick to buying Hikari and other reliable brands from LFS only.

 

[Rob]

I dont feed a lot of frozen food but thanks for the heads up... I'll stay clear of this...

 

[Lesley]

Hikari ;)

I only buy Hikari frozen. But have noticed exactly the same thing happening. :(

 

[daveH]

What's the preferred Hikari product?

 

[Lesley]

What's the preferred Hikari product?

I buy Brine, mysis and Sprillana Brine all Hikari brand.

 

[Tannum_Paul]

Time to make your own? A lot of you guys live in Melbourne, why not take it in turns to make MASS frozen food a share? Works out SO cheap and your fish/coral get exactly what they would get in the wild!

Or start a small business making it selling it to the LFS and fellow reefers. Even if you only made $1-2 a freezer bag that soon adds up and pays your power bill or salt bill......

 

[Andrew B]

Time to make your own? A lot of you guys live in Melbourne, why not take it in turns to make MASS frozen food a share? Works out SO cheap and your fish/coral get exactly what they would get in the wild!

Or start a small business making it selling it to the LFS and fellow reefers. Even if you only made $1-2 a freezer bag that soon adds up and pays your power bill or salt bill......

everybody stop, i will volunteer for the second option (i have the most time, since the hockey season is over)

 

[daveH]

I don't just use the commercial frozen stuff, I do make up my own prawn/scallop mix which the fish all love. As for pellets, I can't go past Elos sv.M2, which the fish absolutely go nuts for and is so good for them.
I think I'll just steer away from most of the frozen commercial stuff.

 

[Agent M]

Finely shaved frozen prawn, hold the parsley, is as fancy as my fish get these days :rolleyes

 

[daveH]

Finely shaved frozen prawn, hold the parsley, is as fancy as my fish get these days :rolleyes

What, no garnish?

 

[Savage Henry]

I made up a large stock of my own food a little while ago, but when I fed it to the fish they only ate certain bits of it and wasted most of it so I gave up trying to please them. My clowns seem to prefer NLS granules over everything else except for frozen brine shrimp.

For my corals, I pulverise fish and prawns and make a suspension coral food.

I just bought Fish Food Company's "Marine Food". Made in Australia apparently. I am feeding it to a tank that only has my clowns in it and some corals. I don't think the clowns ate any of it.

 

[ReeferRob]

Culturing brine shrimp isn't hard to do. One thing to be aware of is that the Great Salt Lakes are drying up and the salinity is increasing due to Commiefornia's need for water. I don't know if that has anything to do with the quality, but I'm sure it's not helping.

I'm going to go collect up some stuff in a few weeks to make some food, maybe I'll shoot some video. Locally I can catch silversides, squid, clams and mullet. My fish LOVE that combo, I catch small shrimp, what we call grass shrimp, to feed the Comets and larger predators when we have them. Anyone close to the water should be able to catch their own stuff to make food with. Just be sure to abide the rules set by your fisheries department, cheap food could become VERY expensive if you don't. I've seen it happen here more times than I care to think about, $250-$500 in fines buys a hell of a lot of food.

Right now I make my own foods from stuff I collected last fall as well as clams I purchase direct from the boats. That's something else you could do, get together and go to the docks and buy in bulk, it' saves you a hell of a lot of money. Shrimp isn't cheap here, locally it's about $25/kg (had to convert for the rest of the world ;) ), off the boats it's about $10/kg, a considerable savings. maybe someone close to to where the fisherman come in could check on prices and then have a GTG to divide and prep the foods.

 

[Tannum_Paul]

Culturing brine shrimp isn't hard to do. One thing to be aware of is that the Great Salt Lakes are drying up and the salinity is increasing due to Commiefornia's need for water. I don't know if that has anything to do with the quality, but I'm sure it's not helping.

I'm going to go collect up some stuff in a few weeks to make some food, maybe I'll shoot some video. Locally I can catch silversides, squid, clams and mullet. My fish LOVE that combo, I catch small shrimp, what we call grass shrimp, to feed the Comets and larger predators when we have them. Anyone close to the water should be able to catch their own stuff to make food with. Just be sure to abide the rules set by your fisheries department, cheap food could become VERY expensive if you don't. I've seen it happen here more times than I care to think about, $250-$500 in fines buys a hell of a lot of food.

Right now I make my own foods from stuff I collected last fall as well as clams I purchase direct from the boats. That's something else you could do, get together and go to the docks and buy in bulk, it' saves you a hell of a lot of money. Shrimp isn't cheap here, locally it's about $25/kg (had to convert for the rest of the world ;) ), off the boats it's about $10/kg, a considerable savings. maybe someone close to to where the fisherman come in could check on prices and then have a GTG to divide and prep the foods.

LOL, $250-500...............that is very cheap! Here they just confiscate your boat and trailer the car attached to it and fine you $20000 so you learn not to do it. Especially in my part of the world because I am in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Trust me it very hard not to go help yourself to some free coral and fish.

 

[ReeferRob]

LOL, $250-500...............that is very cheap! Here they just confiscate your boat and trailer the car attached to it and fine you $20000 so you learn not to do it. Especially in my part of the world because I am in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Trust me it very hard not to go help yourself to some free coral and fish.

They'll do the here as well depending upon the violation. For simple things such as going over the daily limits or keeping over or under sized fish or inverts it's a fine.

Back when we were trying to get the Rockfish populations back up there was a 3 year moratorium put on harvesting them. They caught a guy who happened to be the brother of one of my customers. They got him with 50 fillets in a truck. The idiot said if you think that's a lot you should see my freezer at home, so they did. They got a warrant, searched his house and found another 1500kg of fillets there. When it was all said and done he lost his truck, boat, and house in fines which were $185,000. I wanted people to be aware that there are consequences for their actions and to be careful and respectful of the daily bag limits and size requirements if they're going to go catch their own foods.

Then there was the idiot who stood up on the reef crest in Looe Key marine park. His day went from bad to worse. Why in the hell someone who didn't swim well would go snorkeling is beyond me. He said he got tired and needed a place to rest. His rest on the coral cost him a cool $1500. Just an FYI, touching the corals is a VERY bad thing to do if you come here and go to the Florida Keys. Collecting there is worse, the fines for collecting start at $5,000 and go up from there, touching the corals or damaging the reef is $1500.

If there weren't such stiff fines and penalties for collecting on The Great Barrier Reef or any marine sanctuary they would be picked clean like a Christmas turkey.