We are asked a few times a month the benefits of dosing phytoplankton and copepods to a reef tank. We respond with the same basic info as follows:
copepods feed fish and coral but are also part of a hidden community (micro clean up crew) that feeds on detritus/waste and film algae that if left unmanaged can become a problem in any reef tank. Copepods provide high nutritional value to fish and coral, especially if they are fed live phytoplankton. Also, best part is you can NEVER have too many copepods, so dose often as they will have jobs they can perform or feed fish and coral!
Phytoplankton feeds coral and copepod populations but also out competes nuisance algae and consumes nitrates and phosphates. Phytoplankton also consumes C02 so your PH will be higher and more stable (in the 8's) which in turn keeps your reef tank happier!
In our real world test we dosed a 90 gallon tank (120 gallon system with sump) 8oz of copepods weekly (every Friday night and a mixed variety of tigger/tig, apocyclops/apex, tisbie/tisbee, even l-strain rotifers) as well as 2 oz of phytoplankton every Monday, Wednesday and Friday (that's 5ml phyto per 10gal per dosing). We started dosing this new system in January 2023 and colors and growth has been amazing! We knew this was the case as we always do this BUT we wanted to share before and after on our brand new display tank in our office just to show the affects of dosing these items!
Pictures below are every 2 months from December 2023 - June 2023
Updated: Added December 2023 by request...
Here is December 2022 (tank stabilizing before any coral, there were some damsels)
Note: we did start tank with live sand and 30 gallons of established reef tank water plus 80 gallons fresh salt water...
Here is February 2023 (coral alive and well but small and not very colorful).
We added Chaeto (a MacroAlgae/macro algae also known as chaetomorpha), 1 cup to sump once tank started to get going.
Here is April 2023 (notice some growth over 2 months)
Here is June 2023 (2 months later, things exploded!!!).
Check out torches, hammer, leather, neon green candy cane, GSP, Hollywood stunner chalice, even rainbow bubble tip anemone went from 2 to 5, absolutely amazing!!!!)
Also, no new coral was added to the tank since February, just moved some GSP that fell of glass it was glued on to bottom sand and move the purple tip torch from middle of tank to right corner as it was not getting the flow it liked (this was done around April). We did add 4 more fish in April/May.
Here is December 2023 (Updated).
You can see growth across the board as well as polyp extension and colors increasing as well as coralline algae really making its mark. This tank still to this day gets only, fish pellets, phytoplankton, copepods and nothing else! This system has yet to see an algae outbreak of any kind and has only needed 20 gallon water changes every 3-4 months to restore trace elements. Nitrates and Phosphates are not tracked, just calcium / alkalinity / magnesium and PH are monitored.
Updated:
Moral of the story, dosing really does make a huge difference. Also note, we ONLY dosed and fed the following and did not use reef-roids or other products to produce these results. We will not discount what products like reef-roids can do, we have tried them in the past with great results but also with hidden headaches. We have found natural live items like that in the ocean are the best and easiest to control and manage.
Phytoplankton
copepods
regular fish pellets
also we only have done 1 water change from initial setup in December 2022 and then again in May 2023, August 2023, December 2023, so roughly every 3-4 months vs monthly...
We hope this information helps and shows you what these products can do and the benefits they have overall in your reef tank!!!
Happy Reefing!
Florida Reef Labs
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