NOW OUR JELLYFISH CAN FEED 24/7!
Recently, we set up an auto-feeding system for our main jellyfish grow-out racks so our jellyfish can feed continuously throughout the day. Previously, we were feeding twice daily, in the morning and evening. There are a few reasons that we changed the feeding method to auto-feeding.
- More natural
In the wild, jellyfish catch and eat plankton continuously throughout the day. They may hit dense blooms of plankton occasionally and feed until they are full, but this would be more of a special occasion. So by setting up an auto-feeding system with a dosing pump (we set it to dose the food every hour for 24 hours), we can imitate more the natural feeding behaviour of jellyfish. We hope this will help their growth and health.
- Feeding efficiency
Because jellyfish cannot feed very fast and the water turnover rate of jellyfish aquariums is usually high, a high portion of food will end up in the filtration systems without getting fed by jellyfish when you feed a large amount of food at one time. By feeding jellyfish a bit by bit every hour, they have a better chance to catch all food and there will be much less food waste.
3. Water quality
Actually, the main reason we decided to set up an auto-feeding system is to keep the better water quality in the systems. When we feed twice daily, the bag filters in the sumps catch and hold uneaten brine shrimps. The dead brine shrimp bodies held in the bag filters deteriorate in the system and pollute the water. With the auto-feeding system, the food waste will be less, therefore the bag filters will stay clean, and that keeps the water quality good for a longer time!
4. Simply easy!
Rather than go around and feed jellyfish in each tank with a baster and a jug of brine shrimps in your hands, you can simply pour the Artemia into the tank connected to the dosing pump. You only need to do it once a day as the dosing pump will feed the jellies in all tanks every hour!
We just started testing this method recently. We are expecting improvements in jellyfish growth and health, and water quality, with less maintenance work! We will keep updating you guys on how this trial goes!