coral feeding?

cwb_reeftank · Feb 26, 2016

I know some people feed and some people don't feed their corals but I was wondering who here feed theirs and what effects have you seen from feeding. also how often do you feed and what do you feed them and what type of corals do you feed?

cwb_reeftank · Feb 26, 2016

also if you don't feed why don't you?

thedru13 · Feb 26, 2016

Not an expert but I feed. I feed at night 2-3 times per week. I use coral Frenzy and Coral Smoothie and spot feed each coral. I don't have any SPS all LPS and softies.. I have 4 Chalices that are always hungry and they are growing like weeds right now after I got my lighting situated. In the past 6 weeks my Acan probably has got 6 new heads on it.. So not right answer here I think its a combo of things. Your water, lighting, and feeding..

cwb_reeftank · Feb 26, 2016

I try to feed my LPS with pellet food I just wasn't sure if that was good or if there was something better

DeniseAndy · Feb 26, 2016

It really will depend on the corals you have to types of food needed. Many sps can have minimal feeding or very fine feeds such as phyto, lps needs on average more feeding and larger size food. Softies are usually fed by accident as fish are fed. NPs of course need almost constant food. Similar to many gorgs.

Through my many stages of keeping. I would say I fed the sps tanks less and smaller foods. I fed my lps tank regularly and larger food. My gorg tank is fed over 20 times a day with fine foods from a doser and then I also feed fish.

If your system can handle the excess food, then feeding is a good idea. However, if your system cannot handle the excess, less is better for system, but maybe not the corals. Remember, most corals have access to foods continuously besides the algae given food from zooxanthellae.

thedru13 · Feb 26, 2016

Depends on what type of coral. I never use pellets... Either the 2 mentioned above or Reef Frenzy chopped up. Corals really like the reef frenzy..

cwb_reeftank said:
I try to feed my LPS with pellet food I just wasn't sure if that was good or if there was something better

cwb_reeftank · Feb 26, 2016

I have frogspawn, 3 hammers, a plate, jingle bell cyphastrea, and echinata

MermaidTail · Feb 26, 2016

thedru13 said:
Not an expert but I feed. I feed at night 2-3 times per week. I use coral Frenzy and Coral Smoothie and spot feed each coral. I don't have any SPS all LPS and softies.. I have 4 Chalices that are always hungry and they are growing like weeds right now after I got my lighting situated. In the past 6 weeks my Acan probably has got 6 new heads on it.. So not right answer here I think its a combo of things. Your water, lighting, and feeding..

Can you offer more about how you got your lighting situated? I'm curious to learn more!

thedru13 · Feb 26, 2016

I have a custom LED setup.. I was torching my chalices due to to much white. I literally almost have all blue green and purple now. Almost no white.. Not saying this is the right way to go but since I have changed my settings to that I have had great growth and corals are very happy.

MermaidTail said:
Can you offer more about how you got your lighting situated? I'm curious to learn more!

DeniseAndy · Feb 26, 2016

Forgot to mention food fed, sorry.

I use a mixture of varying sizes of foods for my autofeeded. From LPS and SPS foods (Dr. T, reef roids, coral chili, sps/lps powders) and I grow phyto (nonnochloropsis), rotifers, and artemia nauplii. I feed my fish homemade food of scallops, white fish, oysters, clams, squid, vitamins.

All Delight · Feb 26, 2016

I don't see much improvement in colors. Growth yes.

KSReefing · Feb 26, 2016

I feed my corals Reef Roids 2 times a week and my corals love it. I will spot feed everyone then sprinkle the rest into the tank after done. My corals have never looked better and my acans are always looking for food with their feeder arms now.

Tommy's Reef · Feb 26, 2016

You got 6 new heads on an acan in 6 weeks??

nervousmonkey · Feb 26, 2016

cwb_reeftank said:
I try to feed my LPS with pellet food I just wasn't sure if that was good or if there was something better

I feed acans sometimes with small pellets, Formula Two, just hand feed the heads and they like it. Mostly I feed Coral Frenzy and a mixture of small pieces of meaty foods, different each time. I definitely see growth with it, and over time, colors come out more brightly. *edit, wrong thread for the cyphastrea comment unless you have one... LOL Your cyphastrea will need some really fine food, but you'll definitely see growth from it if you feed it; just turn off pumps and use a turkey baster or really large 60mL syringe and let it float over the polyps. Haven't seen my hammers or euphyllia eat like acans or others do, but the tentacles definitely grab onto the Frenzy...