Lucas Thompson

I can't see it being feasible, especially considering the amount of rinsing and straining that is necessary with most frozen fish/coral foods to avoid adding the preservatives (which are usually phosphate-based) to your tank. Even if the rinsing & straining steps were done manually before stocking the unit you probably wouldn't want to keep more than 2 or 3 days worth of food in there at a time. Here's an idea if you're mostly feeding zooplankton-type stuff (rotifers, various pods, mysis shrimp) that I think is probably cheaper to rig up: a Live Food auto feeder. A simple "dark" refugium can be had by filling a 5g tank/rubbermaid/bucket/whatever with live rock rubble and keeping it upstream, so it gravity feeds into the tank. To encourage the infauna into the gravity feed you can keep a small LED (moonlight or book light) near the bulkhead or drain, put it on a timer and have it power on for a few hours, starting at an hour or so after your last display lights go out. When the various pods, mysis, and other infauna investigate the light many of them will get swept into your display tank. I'd post a pic of such a unit made from one of those cheap Walmart acrylic 5g tanks fitted with a simple 3/4" bulkhead and PVC return but I just finished moving and haven't set anything back up yet... heck, I can barely see the floor in my living room because most of my system is still in rubbermaids running with powerheads and precariously balanced lights. -- Lucas Thompson