Feeding a Ric

[RiverOtter]

Yesterday I bought a shrimp from the market (eating shrimp not pet). I had read about spot feeding corals and I knew that my ric had never been spot fed, just what ever it may have lucked out getting and MH lighting.

I got home and gave it a hunk. Looking at it I decided it was way to big and went to take it away. All ready it was opening up wide and trying to stuff it in. So I sat back to see what would happen. Over the next hour it managed to stuff that hunk into its maw!

LOL Once in the foot was over a inch long, it had never rasied up before so I know it was the food. This morning it is much brighter and not so floppy as it has been.

I also spot feed a big polyp next to it and this morning it looks to be budding out 3 new heads!

I know a lot of folks never feed, they think there lights are enough. But after watching it feed, I will always spot feed my corals. Yes they can live on light but they where also made to eat real food.

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

they certainly do love to be fed. caribbean bubble mushrooms like to be fed even more than ricordea, they will actually cup up and surround food particles that land on them.

corals need more than light to survive....

 

[Tallinu]

Amen, pass the message along. I feed mine constantly. Although I've never fed one single large item, I do drop a mass of food the size of a nickel on my big ones. It's fun to watch them. All of my Yuma's draw the food in slightly different. One of them I swear is a magician. He will draw together all the piles of mysid shrimp I place on him. And put them in one huge ball. And mysteriously hold it all together and draw it in as if they were all glued with static electricity. Others will draw close around the food like a vampire drawing his cloak around the victim. When they release, all the food is gone and nothing is left but a gaping mouth which then does a slow motion burp. I have one super neon orange Yuma that telescopes it's oral cone into a probiscus. Then he slowly picks off all the food one by one by stretching his mouth only to each piece. Most Yuma's tend to try to meet halfway by tilting the oral cone and the location to each other. All my florida's feed in one style only. The food mysteriously moves along to a slowly widening mouth and down in as if drawn by invisible strings. I've seen baby rics with a death grip on a piece of food almost as big as they are.

 

[reef321]

i've tried to feed my ric, and sometimes it will close up a bit like it's trying to eat, but never ends up eating anything and it all just rolls off.

 

[tuumi]

Glad I found this thread. I just fed mine some larger pieces and that was pretty cool. It will be interesting to see how the growth rate changes.

 

[tuumi]

Should have added this question. How often can I get away with feeding them bit pieces?

 

[KeysSeaCritters]

not too often, maybe once every three weeks. think of how often that polyp would have a meal like that in the wild.

you also dont want to spike the amonia in your tank by adding to much. they certainly like being fed but you dont want to overfeed them.

a fine particle, filter feeding food is the best. i use a turkey baster and gently squirt the filter food and h20 into the ric colony.

 

[ScooterBlenny]

I mix mysis, H20 Coral Food and cyclopeez and spot-feed my frag tank almost every day. I make sure that each ricordea gets some mysis directly on them...if they're not hungry, they can let it go and something else will eat it