feeding corals?

[nemo1991]

i dont feed my corals, am i doing something wrong?
i have a hammer coral, kenya tree, frogspawn, and a couple zoas

[missionsix66]

Why wouldn't you feed your corals nemo?

[nemo1991]

i thought that the light would take care of everything, the person who i got my first corals for said i didnt have to

[nemo1991]

what do i feed them???

[missionsix66]

Some corals require regular feedings , some benefit from feeding and some require alot of feeding. The light will take care of some of the feeding depending on the corals you keep and the light you have.

[phoenixhieghts]

To be fair Nemo - the corals you have will live on light alone no problem.
The Hammer and frogspawn would benefit from feeding, but its not essential

[omard]

Feeding your corals not really necessary. Most get enough to live on from light and what is naturally floating around in water column.

But if you really want to see them explode in growth, do some judicious target feeding with either some phyto or zoo plankton.

Never fed mine for years because somebody told me I did not have to. But very significant change in growth once I started to.

FWIW

[inwall75]

No coral gets 100% of it's daily Carbon budget from photosynthesis alone....not in the wild, not in your tank.

However, many corals do quite fine in our tanks utilizing;

Zooplankton
Bacterioplankton
DOM...Dissolved Organic Materials
POM...Particulate Organic Materials

Very few corals ingest phytoplankton.....most of the ones that will are azooxanthellate corals

We cannot set up an entire food web in our tanks. With that said, our tanks are loaded with most of the above. I recommend periodic additional feeding but that's just me. A good rule of thumb would be to look at the size of the mouth and how much tissue that mouth has to support.

Example:

Frogspawn....large mouth, lots of tissue. I target feed mine frozen mysis shrimp.
SPS corals.....many very tiny mouths, hardly any tissue. If you scraped off all the tissue of a large colony, you couldn't even fill a thimble. I feed this with good lighting and good flow to get bacterioplankton and POM to them.

I would read this series of articles
Reef Food by Eric Borneman - Reefkeeping.com

(there are links to each new article at the bottom of each one)

[omard]

Feeding corals, much like feeding fish. No way of telling what is exactly best for each species in tank, so think variety is best way to go.

With no nuisance algae or nitrate problems, I am mostly concerned with underfeeding then overfeeding. (other tank creatures need food also to stay healthy and happy...and when combined with skimmer/filter sock use, excess nutriants in water column kept at minimum)

Couple times a week I target feed corals, using baster, with a mixture of dried plankton food (Two Little Fishes "PhytoPlan" & "ZoPlan" - which I soak well before using to rehydrate) --- mixture also gets squirt of Kent Marine "Zooplex" and a cap full of "MarineSnow"...all mixted together and well diluted and hydrated in cup of water


My hope is that again, by feeding a variety of foods will address the different needs of animals in tank.

And always keep eye out for any signs of overfeeding.

Can see distinct difference in health and growth in corals since doing this...am really clueless in knowing which particular food works best, and I don't feel like experimenting over long period of time.

Am certain some here will say completely unneeded and ridicules, or complete overkill...but, as stated above, I am much more concerned about underfeeding rather then overfeeding...

Works well for me and my corals (which are doing fantastic compared to time when not feeding at all).


PhytoPlan (Two Little Fishies)
Advanced Plankton Diet

"...PhytoPlan is a spray dried blend of several strains of phytoplankton. PhytoPlan is a food for filter feeding invertebrates and a great supplement to enrich the nutritional value of dried and frozen fish foods, or live Artemia. Rich in vitamins, trace elements, amino acids, and highly unsaturated fatty acids..."




ZoPlan (Two Little Fishies)
Advanced ZooPlankton Diet

"...ZoPlan is a blend of dried crustaceans and other sea creatures in a size range that makes an ideal food for marine invertebrates such as soft and stony corals, seafans, anemones, zoanthids, clams, scallops, featherduster worms, and other filter feeders. Also for plankton eating fishes. Rich in vitamins, trace elements, amino acids, and lipids..."



MarineSnow Plankton Diet (Two Little Fishies)

"...MarineSnow Plankton Diet is a first of its kind product that reproduces the special biogenic suspended matter found in natural seawater, including “marine snow” aggregates. A food for filter-feeding marine invertebrates that feed on particulate and dissolved organic matter, phytoplankton and zooplankton...."



Kent Marine ZooPlex

"...ZooPlex is a suspension of whole bio-engineered marine zooplankton raised in a remote area of the world • Animal size is approximately 800 microns, ideal for filter-feeding marine invertebrates as well as planktivorous fish • Provides incredibly high concentrations of Omega-3 fatty acids and carotenoid pigments • Contains essential amino acids, fiber, and high levels of color-enhancing compounds • Surpasses brine shrimp nauplii in nutritional profile; may be used as a complete brine shrimp nauplii replacement..."