Food.....for thought

[ccCapt]

Do you feed your corals.....and do you know what you are feeding them? An interesting topic Eric Borneman discussed was feeding your corals. I feed my fish heavy....at least 2x/day with homemade frozen food from my LFS mixed with some Rods Food. They both have tiny food for coral, but I don't specifically feed the coral.
A study was done, and I wish I paid more attention to the #'s, but here's the general idea. I think it was 4 identical tanks that were setup. 1 tank they didn't feed. 1 they kept a low concentration of nauplii (larval brine shrimp) maybe around 500/litre. 1 was at around 1000/litre and 1 at about 5,000/litre. The bottom line was, in the tank with the highest concentration of nauplii, the coral grew 80% more than the coral that wasn't fed.
Now in our home systems, keeping concentrations that high is virtually impossible. But what are your thoughts........

 

[dustin_P74]

my thoughts are its good to feed the coral, which is what i always thought, just too lazy to do it

 

[ccCapt]

.....just too lazy to do it

Aren't you trying to running some type of ULN (ultra low nutrient) system? That was discussed and likened to coral anorexia. You are starving the coral so the concentration of zooxanthalae diminishes and the color pigment stands out more. Heavy feeding goes against your method.

 

[dustin_P74]

Heavy feeding goes against your method.

but in a UNLS system you are afforded the ability to the stock heavier and feed heavier while maintaining the ULNS state. also dosing amino acids keep the corals feed and dark

 

[d2mini]

I use Rod's Food and sometimes I mix in some Coral Frenzy... and I hope for the best. :D

 

[ndepratt]

but in a UNLS system you are afforded the ability to the stock heavier and feed heavier while maintaining the ULNS state. also dosing amino acids keep the corals feed and dark

if you're feeding you tank heavy then you shouldn't have to dose amino acids

 

[yote]

I've always fed my corals.Not by spot feeding,but by just generally feeding the tank with zooplankton.I just turn my return pump off before I add the plankton and leave it off for an hour to an hour and half after.

 

[Reefrookie]

I've always fed my corals.Not by spot feeding,but by just generally feeding the tank with zooplankton.I just turn my return pump off before I add the plankton and leave it off for an hour to an hour and half after.

Do you turn the skimmer off when you feed also?

 

[dustin_P74]

no need to turn the skimmer off since the return pump is off, no food is falling down to the sump

 

[yote]

Dustins right.I just leave my skimmer running in the sump.

 

[RyanG]

What exacctly should I be feeding my corals? I occasionally spot feed mysis to my lps anything else I should be doing?

 

[yote]

What exacctly should I be feeding my corals? I occasionally spot feed mysis to my lps anything else I should be doing?

I like to broadcast feed with Brightwell Aquatics Reef Snow (Monday night) then Brightwells Zooplanktos-M ( Thursday night).Sometimes I'll use the Zooplanktos-L.Dont really spot feed anything.I do however wait untill my lights have been off for about 30 minutes before feeding,since thats when most corals actively feed on prey and particulate matter.

 

[JAG107]

For the past month, I have been feeding my frag tank Kent Microvert and alternately, Reef Nutrition Oyster Feast 2-3 times per week, right before lights out. I'm getting better coloration and growth than the display tank, but that may be partially due to the frag tank's T5's instead of the cheapo 250w halides in the DT.

 

[dustin_P74]

ive heard a ton of good things about oysterfeast and SPS tanks

 

[JAG107]

Got my live rotifers today from ebay. Shipped in a plastic bag w/ phyto to keep them fed. Says they last 2 weeks in the fridge, 1 week at room temp. I put a bunch in the fuge, hopefully they will reproduce, but without love phyto, I doubt it. $10 for 2 weeks of live SPS food is kinda expensive I guess, I don't know if I'll buy them again. I probably won't see much results-wise in 2 weeks time anyway, especially since I have really poor PE in the display. All I can hope for is better growth in the frag tank I guess...

 

[ccCapt]

What exacctly should I be feeding my corals? I occasionally spot feed mysis to my lps anything else I should be doing?

That's the $1,000,000 question and that's what I 1st asked. In the study I referred to, corals were fed larval brine shrimp (nauplii). I don't know of anyone who has the time/space to constantly have that type of live food available and keep in it such high concentrations with no ill affect in the tank.
I personally never directly fed my corals, but the food (Rods Food) I use for my fish has small sized coral food in it too.

 

[mng777777]

I target feed a few of my corals that I want to encourage some big growth from (Acans, Dendros, trumpet, and cabbage) with a mixture of Rods, brine, and Cyclopeez, but everything eats when I feed the same mix to the tank. I feed into a power head and it suspends all the food in the water column long enough for eveyone to get some.