Attention All Anthia Owners

[MAreefer]

I am going to be getting 7-9 Bartlett Anthias and want to make sure they get enough food. I plan to feed them 3-5x a day but I am not sure what they eat. I heard they are picky (Bartletts are less picky) ... so Anthias owners, what do you feed and how often?

I was thinking of,

-Auto Fed-
Spectrum/Formula 1 + 2 Pellets
Prime Reef/Formula 1 + 2 Flake
Cyclop-Eeze
Golden Pearls

-Manualy Fed-
Artic Pods from Reef Nutrition
Mysid Shrimp

I am trying to aviod using frozen food becuase I want to administer all food via a digital timer but I will be able to feed frozen food atleast once a day but from my understand Anthias should be fed atleast 3x a day but the more the better. I am also feeding 2 Percula Clowns so the Flake and Pellets also are Clown Food.

 

[steve-s]

I would really suggest reading this <<Anthias>> by Scott Michael and <<Anthiinae - the Fancy Basses>> by Anthony Calfo. Both have great resources for these fish.

As for your food choices, I would try to stick with fresh/frozen foods as much as possible. Formula/Prime reef are good meat choices and will offer vegetable matter as well. Except for the spectrum pellets, most dried foods are poor choices. Especially where Anthias are concerned.

I think you will have problems with this feeding schedule/regime. From a nutritional stand point, you will not be able to properly augment the foods with HUFA and vitamin additives that are very important with these fish. Also, the health of the tank and highly possible contamination of the food itself should be considered. You can feed in the morning before work, use the timer to feed midday (if needed at all) and then feed again when you get home. They can also be fed a hour or so before lights out. In all honesty, Bartletts should do fine with 2 regular feedings a day plus mabye the occasional 3rd. You'll have to play that by ear.

Cheers
Steve

 

[MAreefer]

Thanks for the links ... they were very helpful and stuff that I hadnt seen before.

 

[MAreefer]

After reading both those articles I had to rethink my auto-feed idea ... I plan to hook up 3 dosing pumps and dose diluted food from a minifridge next to my tank.

I plan to use

Arctic Pods,
3,000 - 6,000 microns in size
Incredible Omega 3 / Omega 6 nutritional profile

Roti-Feast,
5 million rotifers 150-275 microns and 2.5 million eggs 40-75 microns
gut-packed with Phyto-Feast

Mysid-Feast,
comes out this summer

Will also feed Prime Reef flake and Spectrum pellets but not specificly for the Anthias although after asking around alot of people are feeding these two products specificly to there Anthias.

Thanks agian for the links. It gave me some great ideas.