The New Planctondose of Planctontech is a zooplankton dosing station for marine aquarium, aimed to the benthic organisms that eat it, to all the different types of corals and fishes that can be hosted in the aquarium.
(italian version of this article here)
But testing such an object like the New Planctondose of Planctontech is not a simple affair.
This is because, beyond the technical aspects of our review, one of the key points is the actual need to feed live zooplankton in the marine aquarium.
Roberto Ferri, owner of Planctontech and lover of life in the aquarium, said for years that the alive feeding in the aquarium is absolutely necessary. This position is also supported, however, and especially by Ronald Shimek, Eric Bornemann and almost all aquarists of international renown.
As we mentioned in our article on the feeding of corals in the aquarium (only in Italian), Ronald Shimek, marine zoologist, has conducted several experiments have shown that to keep an average 300 liters aquarium populated by corals the same planktonic levels as found in nature, we should provide about 270 grams of wet feed per day, such quantity would put our system in great trouble. From this it follows directly that our corals are strongly underfed from the heterotrophic point of view.
From my personal point of view I believe that the direct feeding with live food, zooplankton in this case, is the best we can dosed in the aquarium, and the New Planctondose is an excellent reactor that allows us to do that with not too much intervention from on our part. But we will develop this and other topics in the following text.
Contents
The package is the most comprehensive one might expect. The outer casing of the classic company green, brings it inside a large number of useful accessories. There is of course the reactor, the dosing pump, the aerator, all the pipes we’re going to use, a fine mesh strainer to retain zooplankton, one cleaning brush and a manual about the use of New Planctondose.
The reactor of zooplankton, or the New Planctondose is constructed entirely of acrylic and has a diameter of 8 cm and a total height of 35 cm. The glass is approximately 12 cm high while the main body about 24 cm. This brings us to a capacity of approximately 1200ml.
Needless to say, the construction is virtually perfect.
Zooplankton
The recommended Zooplankton to use within the New Planctondose is composed by rotifers of the Brachionus plicatilis species, practically the only rotifer marketed in great numbers, often used for weaning of fish larvae in aquaculture.
