How many of you feed your acros?

[BuckeyeTodd]

Do you feed specifically your acro's? I'm talking coral frenzy, reef chili, etc(Not Rod's or Roggers).

 

[JG1]

I feed cyclopeeze which my SPS catch

 

[Spek]

Reef bugs

 

[M007]

I feed cyclopeeze which my SPS catch

+1 on the cyclopeeze + oyster feast :thumbsup:

 

[Treed]

phytoplaton and oyster feast for me

 

[mordibv]

cyclopeeze , zooplanktos and oyster feast .

 

[Larz_1]

Reef Chili, Cyclopeeze, Phytoplankton & Zooplex

 

[Tron_954]

Oyster feast in the return column

 

[flamron]

Fish poop....

Nothing else needed

IMO

 

[JG1]

What actually feeds them though, the fish poop or the NO3 it creates?

 

[BuckeyeTodd]

I'm surprised by the results so far. What coral food is a daily topic in this forum, and 2/3's of us apparently don't feed at all.

 

[Lynnmw1208]

I feed cyclopeeze which my SPS catch

+1 it's fun to watch and I'm feeding my LPS anyway so I shoot them some food too

 

[Hookup]

I dose a bunch of the FaunaMarin foods... and some Oysterfeast too...

I think it's an important thing.

 

[kaserpick]

Cyclopeeze, Oyster-feast, and Roti-feast

 

[sullyfish]

reef chili & marine snow ...... 2x per week

I have noticed better color since started target feeding

 

[A.Rodriguez]

Oyster feast and marine snow

 

[flamron]

The goal is a low nutrient tank.

Feeding (for me) just adds nutrients that don't benefit my coral.

 

[lolgranny]

+1 on the cyclopeeze + oyster feast :thumbsup:

+2 on the cyclopeeze / oyster +roti feast.... all 2x's a week

otherwise lots of fish turds:fun5:

 

[dzhuo]

What actually feeds them though, the fish poop or the NO3 it creates?

It's both. Study have shown that corals take up both POM and NO3 directly. The nutritional value of POM probably is a combination of undigested food or bacteria coating these organic matter.

How corals feed

- particulate organic matter (POM)

This group of particles usually describes detritus; the small remnants of feces and decayed organisms. In the aquarium, food which is not consumed and removed also becomes detritus. Detritus eventually precipitates on the ocean floor or aquarium bottom as sediment. This layer of organic material is partially degraded by bacteria, and converted into inorganic molecules such as nitrate and phosphate. This process is called mineralization.

The sediment which is present on coral reefs contains bacteria, protozoa and their excrements, microscopic invertebrates, microalgae and organics29. These sedimentary sources can all serve as coral nutrients, especially for colonies which grow in turbid waters15,30. Experiments during which sedimentary carbon was radioactively labeled showed that corals such as Fungia horrida and Acropora millepora readily took up sediment31,32. The more sediment present, the more uptake is measured; 50-80% of this material is converted into biomass by several species. This has also been found for the Caribbean species Montastrea franksi, Diploria strigosa and Madracis mirabilis; detritus is taken up by the polyps, and the available nitrogen is converted into biomass.

The findings also reveal corals take up urea from the fish:

Figure 5: Nitrogen budget for Stylophora pistillata colonies in their natural environment. It is clear that ammonia and nitrate provide the bulk of the nitrogen, and that organic nitrogen in the form of amino acids provides 21%. The balance between dissolved molecules and particles such as plankton however depends on what is available to the coral (Renaud Grover et al, Journal of Experimental biology 2008).

It is intriguing that many corals also take up urea from the water, and they can do this in even greater quantities compared to nitrate (at least in nature). This indicates these animals may have adapted to the presence of higher animals on the reef, such as fish, which collectively produce large amounts of this nitrogen-rich compound on a daily basis27.

Scientists also found that urea, similar to amino acids, is more actively taken up during the day. These molecules may be important for building the organic matrix, the 'protein-scaffold' around which calcium carbonate is deposited. It was shown that this matrix is mainly produced at night, whereas calcification mainly takes place during the day34 (see archive). The organic matrix helps the formation of aragonite crystals, increasing both the density and strength of the coral skeleton35-37.

Although corals would ingest POM, the majority of their daily nitrogen source is from various plankton:

Figure 13: Daily nitrogen budget for Stylophora pistillata. For these estimations, scientists took an average of 50 polyps per cm2. When this species is fed with natural zooplankton at a concentration of 1500 prey/l, this provides the coral with 1.8 μg nitrogen/cm2/day. The uptake of pico- and nanoplankton provides up to 1.4 μg N/cm2/day. Dissolved organic nitrogen, at the lowest concentrations found in seawater, contributes 0.5 μg N/cm2/day. In total, this yields 3.7 μg N/cm2/day. Although these values may fluctuate under various conditions, they provide a unique insight into the balance between different nutrient sources. Plankton may deliver over six times the amount of nitrogen compared to dissolved organic nitrogen (Houlbrèque & Ferrier-Pagès, Biological Reviews, 2009).

I personally do not feed corals given the potential danger of mis-using these types of liquid food and not knowing the concentration of such food is high enough to trigger feeding response.

 

[JG1]

It's both. Study have shown that corals take up both POM and NO3 directly. The nutritional value of POM probably is a combination of undigested food or bacteria coating these organic matter.

How corals feed



The findings also reveal corals take up urea from the fish:

Although corals would ingest POM, the majority of their daily nitrogen source is from various plankton:

I personally do not feed corals given the potential danger of mis-using these types of liquid food and not knowing the concentration of such food is high enough to trigger feeding response.

:thumbsup: