Live foods for Corals?

[blondetang]

I have a somewhat new tank, 6 months old, 350G and am populating it with many types of coral. I've got my dosing under control and am using and kalwasswer. It took some time to dial in the doses, but ALK and Ca are steady and at good levels.

Water parameters and lighting is also under control, and nitrates undetectable.

When I was at FMAS frag swap, I picked up an orange, non photosynthetic coral, and was told it needs phytoplankton. Given phyto is about $10 in the LFS, and I really never know if the are alive, I started a phytoplankton culture and plan on dosing it directly into my DT.

Along with this, I am starting to culture Rotifers, amphipods, mysids, and copepods, and dose these into the DT. I want to get some mandarin gobies and know they usually on eat live copepods/amphipods.

I'm looking for advice, and specifically needing to know dosing rates, any experience, both good and bad...

 

[knukles55]

Can you post a picture of the coral they sold you sounds like a sun coral or gargonia to me. The Phyto should help the sun coral open up but not satisfy it as a meal.

 

[blondetang]

I have both a sun coral and something similar looking, a non photosynthetic.

Pics below.

I've had the sun coral for about a month, and finally got him to open up. Had to adjust the flow, seems to like a heavy flow. I feed my corals currently with LFS phyto and a store bought LPS mixture.

The non photosynthetic hasn't opened up yet, had it about two weeks, and I recently put it in a low flow area. The Cheekspot clowns will hopefully be laying eggs in the flower pot.

 

[knukles55]

Yeah that's another sun coral I would take it out the pot for now the clowns are probably bumping into it and keeping it closed if that pot is there home. And for that other one I would try target feeding it mysis, brine shrimp, or cyclopeese

 

[billsreef]

Sun corals (Tubastrea sp.) need meaty foods. Copepods would be on the small side (but still acceptable), bits of larger shrimp such as krill, small chunks of fish, etc. will make them quite happy.

 

[lu9103]

Sun corals (Tubastrea sp.) need meaty foods. Copepods would be on the small side (but still acceptable), bits of larger shrimp such as krill, small chunks of fish, etc. will make them quite happy.

Thank you for the feed back, I thought about getting one but didnt know that they demand meaty foods.