How often (and what) do you feed your SPS?

inktomi · Nov 28, 2019

I'm curious how you all feed your SPS, if you do at all. I try to feed mine at least twice a week - I have an apex feed mode set to turn of my sump for an hour and that's when I add food. I feed a mix of foods, oyster eggs, NLS micro feeder, and reef roids - though I'm going to be adding newly hatched brine shrimp in the near future to this mix. I also add AcroPower at the same time, but I don't really consider that good.

How often do you feed your SPS? Do you actually see them capturing food?

Flippers4pups · Nov 28, 2019

I've never fed SPS, just the tank. I just broadcast LRS reef frenzy to the tank.

inktomi · Nov 28, 2019

I think LRS has some fine particles in it, so you might be feeding them without even doing it specifically.

Brian W · Nov 28, 2019

I feed the fish LRS reef Frenzy which Fred's the coral. I also target feed all corals Reef Roids a few times a month.

inktomi · Nov 28, 2019

I've sort of been looking for a new food to add in - hence looking at Artemia hatching - after reading this paper on Acropora foods.

This study evaluated the efficacy of three exogenous diets: Artemia nauplii (ART), a commercially available coral diet (Reef Roids) (RR), and a novel, micro-bound diet (ATF), against a comparatively natural, unfiltered seawater treatment (RAW), and an unfed, ultra-filtered seawater treatment (CTL), in adult Acropora millepora and Pocillopora acuta nubbins. After 90 days, both species showed significantly positive weight gain in response to one treatment (A. millepora–RAW, P. acuta–ART), and comparatively low growth in response to another (A. millepora–ATF, P. acuta–RR).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207956

It's interesting that they found, at least in these corals, Reef Roids not doing so well. Since it's different for different species I do think that variety is important so each can eat what it likes best.

Graffiti Spot · Nov 28, 2019

Cool study but I am not suprised the corals showed these results while feeding live nauplii. I would wonder if corals raised in a tank would give the same results, they should have used tank raised corals if they are doing the study to benefit the aquarium trade. We already know acropora feed in the wild but I don’t think anyone has proved tank raised acropora benefit from taking in these foods. Also feeding live foods like that benifits the corals in other ways. I don’t believe feeding foods to acropora specifically is really needed at all.

inktomi · Nov 28, 2019

What would you think could be different about tank raised corals? I'm curious - not trying to pick a fight

I'd think, sure - they're adapted to captivity over time - but they're still the same animal you'd find in the wild.

TheShrimpNibbler · Nov 28, 2019

inktomi said:
What would you think could be different about tank raised corals? I'm curious - not trying to pick a fight

I'd think, sure - they're adapted to captivity over time - but they're still the same animal you'd find in the wild.

I agree. If anything, I would think that Aquacultured would be more willing to eat foods from us. I would be interested in hearing what the concerns were.

Graffiti Spot · Nov 28, 2019

We just don’t know much about acropora in our tanks and if they benefit from us feeding them. So doing the study on tank raised corals would have been nice for us, especially if it proved our tank adapted acropora will eat and benifit from it.
You would think Aquacultured would be more willing to eat, but maybe they adapt to tanks and don’t need to anymore? I don’t know and I would like to see more studies like this on Aquacultured corals instead of wild cought. We do know corals adapt over time so who knows.
I didn’t read the whole study yet either but will once I get home.