Discussion of the Week ~ Coral Feeding~

[mojoreef]

All right this week's topic is coral feeding. What exacty do they eat? What don't they eat? With testing done of commercially available foods do we want to feed that stuff to our corals? What do you folks feed your corals? What have you had success with?

Let's hear it folks, let's get the skinny on what is really going on out there.


Mike

[Silas]

I been using DTs every other day and newly hatch brine every three days on mine. I "think" I can see the brine being suck into the Xenia and basically that's why I have the brine for.

Off course, that is with the standard cocktail of bottles from Kents. So far so good (knocking on wood).

s

[Geoff]

mike, getting a little worried there. i thought you may have fallen in.

so far i feed my SPS lots of light, the few that i have. i do have this flourescent yellow acro that seems to like the flake food i feed the green cromis. several of the polyps have small pieces in them. go figure a flake eating acro.

G~

[RWD]

Nothing directly. I do feed the fish a lot though. I have a sailfin, purple tang, yellow tang, blue hepatus tang and a foxface in my 300 so there is a lot of food floating around in there.

[mojoreef]

LOL geoff I slacked off a bit, to much time in the Think tank I guess, heheh
I use a home made Blender mush, made up of a variety of seafood, nori and vitamins. Basically design for what is in the tank. I made the mush so that it consists of alot of differing sized particles, so that it feeds the whole tank, from fish to corals and all else inbetween.

As per Phytoplankton, its kind of a pet peeve for me. Unless you have a coral or clam that directly needs it, I find it to be just an expensive way to reduced you water quality. Also wasnt it brine shrimp that was found to have no nutritional value what so ever?? I think it was but I will have to do some digging

[cath]

Mike- I heard that too about brine shrimp.....

My water is so nutrient rich already, that I feed very very lightly. But I think Wynton (my trumpet coral) needs a meaty substance. What say you?

[mojoreef]

Yep Trumpets will take meat, hehehe. Thats another reason to feed the mush, smaller chucks will become available for corals such as a trumpet, in sizes that it can use.

Mike

[StellaMN]

I feed my tank DTs, golden pearls (two smallest sizes) and Weiss's Combo Vital (she said as she ducked from flames).....on a rotating schedule. I also feed thawed frozen mysis, Emerald Entree and brine shrimp soaked in Selcon every third day or so to supplement my Omega-One Marine flake daily feeding. Anenomes and LPSs get krill and silversides soaked in Selcon one to two times weekly.

A comment on the Weiss Combo Vital. I ordered this on a whim. While I have seen an increase in diatom growth on the glass (wondering if it is coincidental with the Spring algae bloom), I have noticed increased growth and color in all corals and an increase in numbers of mini feather dusters, pods, etc. I know his products are regarded as "snake oil", but I'm not seeing any harm from using it....

Oh yeah....and I use the usual plethora of Kent products. I started using the Liquid Reactor a couple of months ago and am pleased with it.

Jodi

[wildthings44]

I feed my corals directly rather sporatically... and then I just mix what ever looks good and throw it at them... my frogspawns and hammers are regularly fed by the clarkii clown, who things the whole mass is just one happy anemone
I used to feed them more often, but then cyno caught up with me, so now we just do it every so often and nobody complaines (at least not where I can hear it...)

[JustDavidP]

I use Marine Snow or DTs in a small cup to melt my formula one, mysis or whatever I'm feeding my fish. This way everyone gets something.

I have a 20 gallon with a BakPak 2R on it and am forced to shut down the venturi when I feed (too many bubbles) so the snow or phyto stays in the water for some time. My clams are happy, my SPS and softies are growing and my polyps are multiplying. They grab meatier foods once in a while as well.

Every two weeks, I give a small cube 1 cm of fresh tiger shrimp meat to my open brain. It devours it in 2 minutes and hangs on tight for the whole time. If not, my bug (lysmata a. cleaner)steals from it.

My Frogspawn also gets hand me downs from my false percs.

David

[Piero]

I use freeze-dried ESV phytroplankyon occasionally. Recently I've begun feeding Cyclop-eeze... which I'm really pleased with.
www.cyclop-eeze.com

[MontanaRocknReefer]

I feed my tank a home made "mush" which consists pretty much what Mike has said. Also some green water every so often and some spirulina flakes and discs!

[gumhead]

Originally posted by StellaMN
I feed my tank DTs, golden pearls (two smallest sizes) and Weiss's Combo Vital (she said as she ducked from flames).....on a rotating schedule.

have noticed increased growth and color in all corals and an increase in numbers of mini feather dusters, pods, etc. I know his products are regarded as "snake oil", but I'm not seeing any harm from using it...

I would say that the increase in freathers and pods are from the DT's not the snaik oil

I feed "mush" and DT's. I feed DT's cause I have 4 clams.
Here is the latest batch of food I made...
Fish Mush

[Krux]

microvert, phytoplex, and one other i can not remember... 3 kent products i cant tell apart really from reading the back of the bottle....

anyone know the difference between the 3 kent foods, and which of them might be more appropriate for my system?

i have gsp, devils hand, kenya tree, finger leather, a yellow leather, and 2 varieties of xenia.

thanks!

at the moment i use spectra vital and microvert... however after a few new additions i am wondering if i should switch to something else.

[Piero]

krux, I wouldn't sweat feeding much with those softies. But if you do, i suggest keepin it simple and going with a less "jazzy" food like blender mush, dt's, esv, cyclop-eeze. In my exp you'll get more bang for the buck.

I used to add Kent Phytoplex for a while on my sps dominated community reef, but have since switched to occasional feedings of a variety of the stuff listed above. I've actually just recently began using the Cyclop-eeze product, but I've witnessed plenty of direct ingestion throughout the food chain when i add it. it also seems to be "cleaner" than some of the other stuuf i use because it doesn't affect the skimmer as much. hope this helps.

Always lookin for more opinions though, so let us know your observations if you try out any Kent foods. good luck.