best sps food?

[kevensquint]

Hi, I have acropora's , montiporas, milleporas, stylophora and a pink birds nest. I try to target feed DT oyster eggs a few times a week and only the montis, bird nest and millepora react to the food. What do I feed the stylophora and acroporas?

 

[ek9vboi]

Tagging along.

 

[A.VOID]

fish dookie works well, but i like using rod's once a day too.
I would worry about target feeding sps.

 

[Allmost]

how do you know that birds nest and monti are reacting to food, but your stylo isnt ? how can you tell ?

if anything, Stylos are the ones that react to particle feeding the most, and can use it the most.

you need to figure out what your corals are missing, then that would be the best food ! amino acids ? or particle foods ? or ...

 

[blakers82]

Specifically, I feel I've been getting good results (best polyp extension during feeding, good colors) with Oysterfeast. I also dose phyto, but this isn't directed at the sps. Neither food is targeted. I kill the return pump and let my in-tank pumps blow that lovely tissue around. Yum. I do this only a few nights a week find it's good to time feedings after the lights have been out and corals are extending themselves into the water column already.

 

[kevensquint]

how do you know that birds nest and monti are reacting to food, but your stylo isnt ? how can you tell ?

Its not hard....first, some of my corals have better PE at night and some during the day. So I try to feed the coral when it has good PE. When I blow the food into he coral its easy to see that the polyps catch tye food....if the polyps don't react.....I consider the coral does'nt want that type of food.

 

[Allmost]

Its not hard....first, some of my corals have better PE at night and some during the day. So I try to feed the coral when it has good PE. When I blow the food into he coral its easy to see that the polyps catch tye food....if the polyps don't react.....I consider the coral does'nt want that type of food.

that shows nothing.

SPS polyps are not selective eaters. food comes in contact, it will be eaten. that's how they are evolved.

and you can not see sps eat with human eyes. its hard to see it with macro lens alone ...

lastly blowing food into SPS polyps will make them retract polyps, not EAT.

 

[dzhuo]

Keep in mind that PE is often not a good indication of capturing food or even trying to capture food. For example, Dr. Feldman has demonstrated that carbon dosing frequently encourage PE but the reason is because the heavier bacteria coating on the corals. The extra coating is causing the corals a harder time to "breath" and could cause tissue necrosis. The visual improvement of PE is simply a result the corals trying to capture more flow to get rid of the bacteria. I suspect certain coral foods or chemical addictives could cause similar result which we mistaken as a positive sign when it's not.

 

[MammothReefer]

There was a study done on target feeding I think I've posted it a few times. Found it on a blog.

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~cbird/files/Download/Forsman et al 2011 Coral farming.pdf

The just of it is, they saw improvement in growth when feeding Reef Roids, and Reef Chili.

 

[Bugger]

reef chili won but using nothing also works right

 

[MammothReefer]

reef chili won but using nothing also works right

Not sure how you read that, but for the majority of corals reef roids proved to show the largest gain, only 1 coral did reef chili come out on top if I remember correctly. Sure you corals can grow without the addition of supplemental food (depending on how you keep your tank), but are you getting the most bang for you buck in terms of growth and coloration vs cost and time spent by NOT feeding your corals?

Edit:

If you look at the graph Reef Chilli had a greater growth for Montipora capitata, but with Reef roids only a small bit behind, however Reef Roids showed must better growth for both types of porcillpora.

 

[kevensquint]

Thanks for answering my question mammothreefer.

 

[Bugger]

but are you getting the most bang for you buck in terms of growth and coloration vs cost and time spent by NOT feeding your corals?

iTS free. remember

 

[MammothReefer]

iTS free. remember

No it's not. To grow my corals. I have to pay for my lights, heaters, return pump, powerheads, controller, dosers, fitler socks (washing machine to clean the socks), salt, top off system, top off water, power heads to mix and heat my water change water, gfo, carbon, test kits, dosing chemicals, and the list goes on and on. We spend anywhere between 50-300$ a month (some people more), to run our tanks and grow our corals. If I can increase my growth & coloration by buying a little thing of coral food for 20$ that will last me 6 months, why would I not want to get the most Bang for my buck considering everything else I'm spending my money and time on?

 

[ReefWreak]

Keep in mind that PE is often not a good indication of capturing food or even trying to capture food. For example, Dr. Feldman has demonstrated that carbon dosing frequently encourage PE but the reason is because the heavier bacteria coating on the corals.

I used to dose carbon when my tank was set up, but never had much polyp extension. Can you point me in the direction of a source for this information? I'd be interested in seeing the study or observations. I also skimmed relatively heavily, and had strong random flow, so that might have had something to do with why I never saw much PE. I also had fish that could potentially pick at SPS. I also had excellent SPS growth.

 

[dzhuo]

I used to dose carbon when my tank was set up, but never had much polyp extension. Can you point me in the direction of a source for this information?

I am not sure if the information is available online or not since Dr. Feldman is a speaker at one of our local club (MARS) meeting. If you are interested in the notes Brian Prestwood took during the event, I am happy to PM you the link to find it. Let me know.

 

[Bugger]

I dont beleive that corals or sps take up much from those foods. The article only talks about wieght not what the corals consumed also corals grow only because they have to. I know this that they only lay down aragonite to lower the ph in there tissue from what the zoo's produce which thins out the population. I dont fully beleive the article really proves much. There can be a million other unknown facters involved. the red sea program seems to understand this issue.
food dosent have a ppositive effect on all corals and the study states that
The fastest growing fragment according to weight increase
was a fragment of M. capitata which had a 24% increase in a
tank being treated with Reef Chili.

 

[dixiedog]

Sure wish they'd used Acropora in that study!

 

[Bugger]

Yeah excatly they need top re-do the study with all kinds of coral not just three and not kill the speciem like they did

 

[MammothReefer]

Eh, you don't think measuring weight is a good way to tell growth in corals? You don't "believe" corals eat this food. K, I'm going to bow out here. No point in arguing over speculation. I do wish they had done the study with acros as well, but I don't just have acros in my tank. I have many different montis, birdsnest, portities etc. Which is why I also don't feed exclusively 1 thing. Either way I am very happy with my growth rate, and if lightly feeding my tank just helps a few species grow faster it's worth it for me.