Your thoughts?

Agreed. I also will always have a wrasse species for flatworm control as well as pod control. Mine always go nuts feeding when I turn the lights on and they see pods. They can bother corals, as well as be food for corals. They are simply another link in the food chain that is so difficult to recreate in a small closed system. But you gotta have something to eat them in my opinion as well. Good point Jerry. I forgot to mention that.

 

maybe thats why I've never had a problem with them. 3 wrasse and a mandarin. good points

 

could be the reason hahahaha

 

However, there are also a many good studies that show that corals can receive enough photosynthetic materials from their algae that their basic energy needs can be met by photosynthesis (see, for example, Muscatine, 1973).

It is becoming evident that the coral symbiosis of animal and alga is one that provides the maximum flexibility in obtaining nutrition in environments that might otherwise be marginal for either the alga or the cnidarian. In areas where there is significant runoff from terrestrial or island sources, and this includes lagoons around a central island, corals particularly appear to gain significant amounts of their nutrient from this runoff (Risk and Sammarco, 1991; Risk et al. 1994). This nutrient is either in the form of bacteria or in the form of microplankton that eat the bacteria. In these environments, the zooxanthellae appear to provide supplemental nutrition and some critical materials necessary for coral skeletal production.

On the other hand, on oceanic reefs far from sources of terrestrial material, the corals appear to gain significant amounts or most of their nutrition from their zooxanthellae. Here the animals appear to be able to collect plankton to supplement their algal sources with the nitrogenous food sources necessary for protein production.

Most corals appear to be able to get about 100 percent of their basic energy or caloric needs from EITHER zooxanthellae photosynthesis OR by feeding and absorption. However, animals need MORE than 100 percent of their basic needs; the excess goes for the production of additional tissues (growth or repair of injuries) or the production of gametes (reproduction). Additionally, they need more than basic energy, they need to obtain structural material that cannot be produced by photosynthesis. To grow, the coral-algal symbiosis needs to obtain significant material from non-symbiont sources (Szmant-Froelich, and Pilson, 1984)

-Conclusions and Recommendations
Somewhere about the time that the view that corals and sea anemones didn't need food was prevalent in some of the popular environmental literature, many reef aquarium guides and "how-to" books were written. And they repeated the idea that corals didn't need food over and over in new editions. So now one often reads that corals don't need to be fed, but can exist just on photosynthetic products produced by their zooxanthellae. This is simply not the case. And following such instructions to the letter will result in dead corals.




FEED YOUR CORALS IT IS THE NATURAL WAY

By Ronald L. Shimek



It seems I did not adequately make my point in the previous post. The above author makes the point much better.

The diversity in coral types is such that treating each coral in a system as though they all have the same nutritional requirements seems inadequate to meet all their needs.

 

I was going to do some digging to find this article but you beat me to it Cheryl. Lol

 

Well, I guess I DO feed my corals, I just don't call it that!

I do have good lights.

I DO 'turn over' my massive chaeto basket every 2-3 days at night, when many of my corals are WAY opened up with tentacles. This releases a white snow of pods, that go to my return puimp, and to the DT, etc.

I did day I don't however 'FEED' anything else besides the above.

For ME and my corals, things are great, the multiply well, etc.

So in a way, my corals are feed.

I never seeded pods either. Only an occasional small piece of LR or soft softies on LR, and now, Whaam- every time I hand turn my chaeto basket, it's pod city!

 

How does everyone feel about feeding rotifers? I have been feeding my extra to the DTs in the house and the corals seem to love it.

 

In regards to Cheryl's last post...

If this is so, how long would you say it would take to reach this point?

I've had a 6" diameter orange monti cap in my 10g reef tank for 3 months now. Before that it was in a 29 gallon for 7 months (which I did not do water changes on, I only topped off). I've not had fish in either of these tanks, and am seeing excellent growth and colour now. I don't currently feed corals or even dose supplements, but instead rely solely on my par30s for photosynthesis and new tissue/skeletal production. I have plenty of pods in my tank from the live rock, but I don't run a fuge or any macro algae of sorts.

While I do agree I might see an increase in these two categories (growth/colour) if I were to feed, all my corals seem to be getting along just great from what I've seen so far.

 

You should read my thread http://www.3reef.com/forums/general-reef-topics/feeding-survey-what-do-you-feed-117529.html

And that will give you a broad idea of how people are feeding there tanks.

IMO, you should feed to your filtration. Food for corals is a great thing, but not at the cost of clean water. So you feed as much as you can without causing phosphate trouble.

 

Every tank is different so proper additional feeding of corals, if even needed, is a difficult thing to determine. I recently constructed a SPS grow out setup and I supplement feed a variety of foods including Reef Roids, Coral Frenzy, Oyster-Feast, and Roti-Feast (two Reef Nutrition products, which I am a huge fan of their entire product line)… This sounds like a ridiculously over kill on variety of feeds, but I like to test different feeds in combination or separately to determine if it makes a difference. So far I have noticed little difference between any of the above foods, all my SPS frags a growing great…

As noted by “Thatgrimguy” feed to your filtration, and I usually feed as little as 1/10 the recommended amount!