Does it make any sense to dose phyto and other fine fish food?

[BrokeColoReefer]

So here is what im thinking, I have a extra litermeter dosing pump, and a spare little dorm sized 100 watt refrigerator.

Im thinking if taking a 3 gallon jug, filling it with DT's, Mysis, oyster eggs, and anything else that will fit through the 1/4" hose.

I would stick a micro power head in the jug for circulation, drill a hole in the side of the fridge, running my feed line and power cord through the hole and set the dosing pump to . 42 gallons a day. I think i would stick the business end of the dosing hose somehwere towards the bottom of the tank display... is this silly?

[agoutihead]

I could easily be wrong, but techinically you are taking dead meat and adding it into something live.

I could see it spoiling/going bad, even if you kept it as cold as can be, particles are going to leach off of the mysis, brine etc into the DT's and perhaps effect the life rate of the phytoplankton.

I could be wrong, but it's something to seriously consider.

[elzool]

I don't think this is silly.

Seems like I read a question about automatic feeders that can feed frozen foods every month, yet I've never seen an answer.

I just saw another (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1210904) post today about it and thought about it a few seconds and came up with this (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=10808152#post10808152) idea similar to yours, but using a controller with logic so I could tell it when to feed, then clean out the line so room temp food isn't sitting around waiting to be fed again.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/117015fishfood.gif

I'm just not sure what I can fit through the 1/4 tube.

[gh0st]

Hmm... this is a very interesting idea.

If the live DT's Phyto doesn't do the trick, you could always use a dried phyto product instead...

I'm also wondering about the mixing powerhead getting gunked up... maybe something along the lines of a Hydor Koralia or Nano Tunze, or better yet, just run a pretty strong air pump through a bubble wand to keep everything moving.

For some reason I'm picturing something along the lines of a DIY Brine Hatchery made out of a two liter bottle or something similar with a inverted cone bottom, with a strong air pump pumping through an air stone in the bottom, should keep everything suspended with out worrying about a clogged pump.

I'm curious how well this would work, if you pull it off, let me know the next time you swing by D&G.

[elzool]

I'm not sure of the reasoning of automatically stirring the 'mush'. Once you put it in a container and stir it up I can't imagine it separating too much.

Maybe another solution if you were to use a mixing method would be a magnetic stirrer type device? Then there aren't any pumps to clog.