Amino Acids

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8591369#post8591369 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rutz81
I would love to have the color of some of those zeovit systems, and if all it takes is adding 3 drops a day of any bottle.
Or save your money, make your own seafood feed and get the same benefits [IMO] for much less money - with greater control over dosing [when one drop makes an algae problem - that can be difficult to subdivide ... where IMO subdividing food is easy].

Seems like quite a few folks in this thread are suggesting this ...
 
Agreed. In general most people I've talked with that keep so-called "sps" have a really hard time accepting that these corals normally catch and eat food in nature, even if they accept that corals with long tentacles and larger polyps do this (ironically, on average branching corals with smallish polyps catch more prey than corals with larger polyps or massive growth forms, though the variability along species lines is very high). For whatever reason these same hobbyists seem prone to believing in magic bullets or supplements. Thus, dosing a solution of amino acids accomplishes nothing more than feeding the corals (even if it isn't the most ideal way to do that). However, since the idea of putting food in the tank (food = nutrients which are considered bad always and in any amount) is frowned on but the idea of using myriad supplements with who-knows-what in them is very accepted the idea that AA supplements can do some great things for the corals has caught on. Yes, feeding a coral with AAs works, but it is a much more expensive way to do something anyone can do with some seafood and a blender.

Chris
 
When you guys are mentioning seafood, you're saying just go to the supermarket and get some fish? What kinds? Mark, I saw your recipe, but, I don't recall seeing mysis and brine shrimp at any store except the fish store.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8595173#post8595173 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MCsaxmaster
these corals normally catch and eat food in nature
I think the indirect nature of their methods can sometimes throw folks off, IMO.

Among the other `appetizing' methods ... slime webs aren't exactly the way I prefer dinner :D

28196messenteries0.jpg


Nor do I think `Bacteria ... it's what's for dinner'
 
Ha, good point. Often people might assume that feeding comes only in the form of catching a prey item with a tentacle, immobilizing it, and taking it into the mouth. Direct absorption and the use of mucus nets are almost as important for many corals (more important for some) yet this is often not visible or not easily so in a tank. Additionally, most of the prey available and eaten in nature is difficult to see (or impossible to see) without magnification. It is easy to see a Trachyphyllia eat a piece of krill placed into its tentacles in a tank. It is difficult to see an Acropora using a mucus net to catch a bunch of fish waste and bacteria, to catch veligers from a snail, and to catch minute hunks of krill accidentally introduced, even though the Acropora might be collecting more food than that Trachyphyllia is able to.

p.s. Great photo Mark. Acropora are one of those genera known to rely heavily on the capture of particles with mucus nets.
 
I don't think algae would "eat" any amino acids either. They make their own - basically why you feed your plants K, N and P - and not a steak. But, I am no botanist or whatever you call a scientist that studies algae.
 
Actually, many algae can absorb free amino acids and use them directly. Additionally, heterotrophic bacteria and other sorts of bacteria will use the FAAs as an energy source and strip off the amine groups, dumping NH3 into the water in the process, which algae can then use.

Chris
 

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