[optical]

Anyone ever try cyclop-eeze before? its a type of zooplankton that comes in a frozen bar. just curious.

[Reefland]

Yup, a great additional food source for the aquarium.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by optical

Anyone ever try cyclop-eeze before? its a type of zooplankton that comes in a frozen bar. just curious.

I use it all the time to feed my fish prior to adding anything meaty and corals do like it as well.
I have a picture that I took today of my Elegance coral catching them.


and a bit closer look, where you can see those orange spot that would be the little crustaceans zooming by in the currents.


and here's a picture of fish going bonkers for it...

[vtec si]

Originally Posted by optical

Anyone ever try cyclop-eeze before? its a type of zooplankton that comes in a frozen bar. just curious.

Its GREAT stuff!

[optical]

how much should i feed? as of now i just stick the package by a powerhead for about four seconds and let the current disperse the food. i do that every other day. is that enough...too much...any thoughts?
i only have three LPS and a softie, all medium size.

[BubbaWPB]

It comes freeze dried and in flakes, too! It got my anthias eating when they wouldn't even go for live brine.

[dougc]

I use it, but mostly for larger-polyped corals. For that reason, I usually use it at night, when most LPS have their polyps extended. I don't have any anthias, but I do hear that they love the stuff.

I know that the public aquarium at Riverhead on Long Island, NY uses it in their huge reef tank, which is swarming with anthias. In fact, that is the first place that I saw cyclopeeze, but I didn't know what it was at the time. I watched them feed the fish this bright orange stuff that made the fish go nuts. I think they just dumped it in frozen and let it melt in the tank.

[Penguin]

It's great stuff. My fish love it, especially my Kole tang who eats it directly from a plastic pipette, much like a baby sucking on a bottle.

Many of my corals will respond to it within minutes by extending polyps.

A little bit of this stuff goes a long way. However, I would recommend slicing off a tiny sliver from the main bar and using that to feed, rather than placing the end of the bar in your tank and letting it melt.

[golfish]

Gene,
How much did you start out adding at one time?

[BubbaWPB]

I started with about 1/8 tsp of the freeze dried stuff. I put about a (small) pea-sized piece of the frozen when I use that.

[zhenya]

Originally Posted by golfish

Gene,
How much did you start out adding at one time?

Mark,

I usually shave off couple of slices and disolve that in a small shot glass and pour it in the tank with pumps running at first. I then turn off pumps and let fish take their fair bit. As far as exact amount, if I would have to guess, about half the teaspoon. I do take some over to the anemone tank, though, as I have two fish in there as well.

[charlie]

I usually feed my own mush recipe, could I add this when I feed?

[fishgeeksrus]

you could add it when you feed, or add it to your recipe next time you make it. We add ours (with frozen rotifers) just after our Metal halides go out. It seems that the polyp extension is greater at that time and hopefully the sps corals are feeding on it as well as the fish/clam/inverts/lps.

[optical]

you guys always say the polyps extend more when the lights go out, but in my case the corals retract when the lights go out. in fact almost immediately. are you talking about sps only?
i only have LPS like torch, bubble, and frogspawn, as well as a small leather. are they supposed to extend at night?

another thing, which may not be so good, is that ever since i started using
cyclopeeze my zoos are multiplying like insane crazy. i started out with 6 polyps, in one month of using it, i now have 18 !?!?!?! and i still see a few more tiny baby ones comming out. at that rate, they will totally consume the tank in a few years! man thats good stuff.
maybe i should have kept that emerald crab, who i caught eating some other buttons while the lights were out. he was poppin em off like little dandy lions and chowin em down! little @#$%. i never knew they would do that. anyway.....you guys are really helpful, im surprised there isnt a fee to use this forum.

[fishgeeksrus]

Our tank is 99% sps, but we used to have a tank that was LPS, Softies, and zoos. Most of the lps that we had would extend their sweeper tentacles and such as soon as the daylights went out. I don't know if they grew accustom to feeding at that time and extended knowing the food was comming or not. I've heard of a lot of people that target feed their zoos with just about any food available. They claim it makes them grow like crazy (good idea if you want to start propagating)

[BubbaWPB]

Certain corals are nocturnal and wake up when the lights go out... others are diurnal, and shrivel a bit when the lights go out... depends on the type of coral. Most of mine sorta shrivel up some when the lights go out... I do have two that wake up and put out their feeding tentacles after dark.