This is how I do my mushroom and
colt coral suttings, along with good lighting and a refugium for non-feed periods... the biggest problem is still that residual food is in the system, especially if you use a fairly concentrated (rotifers, prepared phytoplankton, wild caught zooplankton, etc) to feed them, even if you all but drain the system (to low tide...) Part of what may affect the use of such methods is where the broodstock came from, and from what microcosm the broodstock originated. so far, for mushrooms, colts and toadstools (all from similar microcosms) this method works well, but not as well as heavy overflow from an established refugium. I am tempted to place a shallow dish of seagrasses in the tank (15 inches deep less 4 inches of coarse sand/crushed coral in a 90 gal breeder, shallow wide and long) to see if this will speed up grow out time. So far, for these spp., the effect from the refugeum has been the best at speeding up growout, I will be altering alk levels to see how this affects them. Although these spp. do not use a lot of Ca, high Ca and Alk seems to speed up the growout as well. Unfortunately I do not have a lot of supportive data, nor are these controlled evaluations of the growth, it just seems that it happens this way. I would think that
sps corals would benefit more so from this idea, as the foods they thrive on have a diurnal pattern in the ocean (mostly at light changes daily, ie sunrise and sunset). Good Idea, just adding my 2cents worth...
later!
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Tom <"{{{{>(
(TDWyatt)
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. -Plato
