Coral feeding
- Thread starter mike007
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Travis Dragan
Community Member
Yes and no, depends on what you have for coral. Generally people tend to "feed" with frozen rotifers by just placing the food in the water, and some coral are much more agressave feeders and will take target feeding mysis to whole fish like silverside's. Other coral are completely photosynthetic. some only eat and do not grow with light, they would do just fine in the dark as long as you feed.
180galreef
Active Member
I personally think its not required but some feedings would be beneficial, this also depends on the type of coral you have.
PaulKreider
Valuable Member
I feed chalices, acans, favia, sometimes palys, and when I had my RBTA I fed it twice a week. Ushualy just fed Mysis or brine shrimp, broadcasting baby brine shrimp is great too.
Flameback Pair
started reefing 1999
Mushroom corals, zoanthids, and most soft corals can get by with moderate to strong lighting and DOCs (dissolved organic compounds) from fish poop and left over fish food. Most LPS corals need feedings. SPS need feedings too but I don't know what, haven't got that far with mine.
Maybe someone can help me out here. I have 2 sps stylophora frags from liveaquaria.com. Other than AI Sols for lighting, I've been putting in Red Sea Reef Energy A&B liquids in. They are made up of carbohydrates, vitamins and amino acids. They are absorbed right out of the water column. I also have medium sized colonies of gsp, zoas, and mushrooms. The reef energy food is supposed to be fed every day but I know that I don't have a big enough bio-load for that much and I'm seeing some algae growth from it. One of my sps was bleaching but since the reef energy it looks like it's growing over the bleached out area. Does anyone know what solid foods I could feed to this 50 gallon lightly stocked tank?
Maybe someone can help me out here. I have 2 sps stylophora frags from liveaquaria.com. Other than AI Sols for lighting, I've been putting in Red Sea Reef Energy A&B liquids in. They are made up of carbohydrates, vitamins and amino acids. They are absorbed right out of the water column. I also have medium sized colonies of gsp, zoas, and mushrooms. The reef energy food is supposed to be fed every day but I know that I don't have a big enough bio-load for that much and I'm seeing some algae growth from it. One of my sps was bleaching but since the reef energy it looks like it's growing over the bleached out area. Does anyone know what solid foods I could feed to this 50 gallon lightly stocked tank?
PaulKreider
Valuable Member
SPS do not require feeding, that's why the can be kept in ULNS. And if your getting algae growing than you should stop dosing the amino acids and vitamins.
Flameback Pair
started reefing 1999
SPS can benefit greatly from feedings. That's why they have food catching abilities of their polyps. I'm feeding supplements to reverse bleaching and the algae outbreak is very minimal. Nothing my fireball angel can't take care of in the short term. Come to think of it, the algae could be entirely from the fact my emerald crab died and not the supplements. He continuously scoured the rockwork.
afamousjohnson
Valuable Member
I have loads of different types of feeding made for your sps-reef nutrition has a great line of live foods. I wont say I do it or worry about them feeding often though and use it maybe twice a month. They seem to do fine without and what gets put in for the fish and other more aggressive feeders. It seems logical that if you feed something that eats it will grow bigger faster. Be carefull feeding if your planning on a bunch of sps-theyre sensitive lil buggers. Lps could benefit greatly from feedings I would think though I gave up spot feeding a long time ago and everyone seems to be doing fine with what the current brings. If your sps is growing back over the bleached areas it might of rtn/what the heck and died instead of bleaching.?.
Reefermadness73
Active Member
I have to admit I feed my SPS/LPS tank a lot ....every night with live phyto that I'm fortunate to have a local source and I target feed everything at least twice a week. Chalice grow like crazy and I have no complaints on how my SPS are doing
Liquid360
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Well mike.... with the responses you've received this far I think we've all got this figured out. In summation, when it comes to feeding coral it's important to feed our SPS and LPS twice a day, twice a week, or whenever you feel like it... or not at all. Glad we got this straightened out.
Mike J.
2500 Club Member
My thoughts exactly. Wow, what a wide range of answers. There are correct answers and I suggest all those who responded to this post should look them up.
Liquid360
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That's the thing. There isn't a correct answer. What's "correct" is what works for you. Each of our tiny micro ecosystems is so unique and so dependent upon so many factors. These animals are opportunistic feeders. They'll eat should the opportunity present itself and do fine if it doesn't. I think the closest we'll come to a correct answer is occasional feeding. How often is your call. Even the "experts" will tell you that there are only opinions here.
For those who need a more concise answer, find someone with a tank very similar to yours or that your striving for and ask what they do. If there were right and wrong answers we'd all have the exact same setups with only variants being size/content.
For those who need a more concise answer, find someone with a tank very similar to yours or that your striving for and ask what they do. If there were right and wrong answers we'd all have the exact same setups with only variants being size/content.
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If your water is dirty enough than no...I think corals that can eat huge portions can still thrive on the water column given it has a ton of nutrients. Enough nutrients to kill a fish most likely but some people only have coral.
I read on GARF's site about their experiments with protein skimming that their corals went nuts without but they could not keep a fish without running one constantly...thus causing their coral to grow more slowly.
I have experienced this myself but substituted the skimmer with a turf scrubber which I recently had to take down to redesign due to my obsessive modification disorder lol.
"Live like tomorrow already happened. Yesterday is only 3 days ahead. Today will be here soon."
I read on GARF's site about their experiments with protein skimming that their corals went nuts without but they could not keep a fish without running one constantly...thus causing their coral to grow more slowly.
I have experienced this myself but substituted the skimmer with a turf scrubber which I recently had to take down to redesign due to my obsessive modification disorder lol.
"Live like tomorrow already happened. Yesterday is only 3 days ahead. Today will be here soon."
I am a big believer in feeding my corals well fed. I feed 2 times per week in the evenings when the feeding tentacles are out. For my SPS corals I alternate with frozen oyster eggs, Tropic Marin Pro-Coral Phyton and TM Pro-Coral Zooton. I have noticed greater polyp extension and more pods etc. in my tank since I started feeding the Pro Coral foods a couple of years ago. For my LPS I use thawed and rinsed PE Mysis Shrimp and New Era marine pellets which they love.
There are tons of articles on this subject, a quick google search will get some good hits.
Studies of sps corals suggest that they must ingest food. They are only able to create 16 of the 20 common amino acids and the symbiotic zoxanthelae only pass three amino acids to the coral from photosynthesis, the coral then uses these amino acids to create other amino acids. Therefor, sps must intake food to get all necessary supplementation.
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Studies of sps corals suggest that they must ingest food. They are only able to create 16 of the 20 common amino acids and the symbiotic zoxanthelae only pass three amino acids to the coral from photosynthesis, the coral then uses these amino acids to create other amino acids. Therefor, sps must intake food to get all necessary supplementation.
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Liquid360
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I don't think we're discussing if corals need food... at least I hope we're not. I thought we were discussing whether or not they needed additional food beyond what you feed the system. So far as references to scientific articles... until I read a scientific article concerning a specific species within my specific micro environment I don't believe it's useful. I've kept coral for over 30yrs. I'm confident in what I do yet don't believe there are specific rules here, only vague general guidelines
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I believe the op question states "...do you have to feed your corals?". The answer is yes, whether you want to put extra food specifically for the coral, or they catch extra food from fish feed time is irrelevant. They must acquire food. The original question does not say target feed or directly feed...
You will never see a scientific article about you specific Microsystem because I doubt you'll let scientists into your home to run tests. I can tell you this though, if the coral require food in nature they will not magically not require food in a fish tank. I have seen several studies of coral done on encrusted frag plugs in aquarium environments, and those coral still need food...infact over half the studies are performed in a controlled environment (aquarium).
Like you said, there is no concrete rules. The subject is dependent on several factors, species in question, water quality, available food supply in system, along with other things. Anybody who says they never ever feed their corals is mis-speaking, they actually mean they never ever target feed their corals. Everybody feeds their corals whether directly or indirectly.
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