Acan Care: Food Lighting Flow

[jamirlima]

I am beginning to get Acans and wanted to know how to feed them. I was told that target feeding is best and makes them grow faster. Is that true?
OR should I just pour it into the tank water?

What is the best food for Acans? Cyclopez? Phytoplankton? Mysis shrimp? Some people even use silver fish?

 

[subielover]

Yes, feeding acans will make them grow faster. I feed them my homemade food which consists of mysis, cyclo-peeze, shrimp, scallops, clams, and white fish. They love it all. I feed them once or twice a week. They don't need to be fed as they are photosynthetic, but it certainly helps them grow much quicker. HTH

 

[jamirlima]

Yes, feeding acans will make them grow faster. I feed them my homemade food which consists of mysis, cyclo-peeze, shrimp, scallops, clams, and white fish. They love it all. I feed them once or twice a week. They don't need to be fed as they are photosynthetic, but it certainly helps them grow much quicker. HTH

Do you target feed them or just put in straight into the tank water?

 

[JuniorMC8704]

a good target feeding every couple weeks is plenty.

light should be very low.

flow can be really anything other than very low. I have some in low-medium flow, and i have some that are being belted directly from a vortech.

 

[jamirlima]

Cool. Thanks. Do they also hurt each other if you leave them close to each other? I heard that all acans are same species and they do not hurt each other.

 

[JuniorMC8704]

no they wont do anything to each other. The only thing is, one will expand its polyps over the other and after time will block the light and food from the polyps below and they will eventually wither away. Not really a big deal if you are trying to grow them all together anyways.

Also, dont over feed them. If you over feed them, the polyps will grow faster than its skeleton and eventually cause problems. You would need to feed a ton to do it though. Just a heads up.

 

[Bio-nut]

I actually built a small tank 15 gallon that I am keeping my acans in. it is only filtered by a refugium.

lighting: 4 24watt T5 three blue spectra and one actinic.
food : live phyto, rod's food target feed every two weeks.
flow is approx 100 gph max

They love this and the verigated morphs I have gotten under this lighting ridiculous.

 

[jamirlima]

Would 250 watts metal halide be too much lights for acan? Tank is 18" tall and the metal halide is 12" above the water surface.

 

[RaysReef]

I actually have my acan tank with 250w MH 14k Lumen reflector, I'd say they are about 12-14 in. from each other and doing well.

 

[bushh23]

I have mine under a 250w 14k also and they don't mind different types of flow. I feed them directly once a week and they catch whats left in the column the other 6 days from the fish. Haven't had any problems so far but if you see yours don't like the light as much put them under a overhang and see if it helps.