Proper way to fee Corals?

[itz frank]

My tank includes:
-Flowerpot
-Gold Polyps
-Leather Coral
-Mushrooms(red, green, and bubble)
-Trumpet Coral
-Carnation

I would've searched this instead of posting it but the search feature is down. Target feeding? How to target feed? Which to target feed? How to feed other then that? thanx. Just trying to see if i'm doing this right.

 

[ANNIESREEF]

I do not see anything you need to target feed. I feed frozen(thawed) cyclop-eeze, DT's phytoplankton, and zooplex by Kent Marine. I only do this once sometimes twice a week and let the powerheads circulate the cyclop-eeze and phyto then cut off all flow including skimmer for about an hour.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

-Flowerpots (Goniopora species) can be difficult to feed. I recommend looking for various threads by JenNKerry and visiting www.goniopora.org
-I'm not 100% sure what Gold Polyps are. I'm guessing an Anthelia. If so, don't worry about feeding them
-Leather Coral there are many genus and species of Leather Corals. Most likely it will pick up really tiny food such as Cyclopeeze if is a Capnella, Sinularia, or Nepthea and so on. Some others like Sarcophytons tend to eat stuff a little moaller
-Corallimorphs like mushrooms and Ricordea will eat just about anything they feel like. Some times big stuff, sometimes little stuff, some times nothing at all
-Your Trumpet Coral (Caulastrea species most likely) will benefit from additional feedings but isn't necessary. They enjoy a meaty fare. Mysis shrimp and coral food mush made from blended shrimp, octopus, squid, and fish will do well
-Carnation Corals are non-photosynthetic, filter feeding corals. You will definitely need to spot feed these. You can do this with a turkey baster. If you have the chance, you can cut the bottom out of a 2 litre pop bottle and place it over the coral to help keep the food inside and near it. This is a similar method used for feeding Sun Corals (Tubastrea species)

 

[Recife]

I also disagree that the flowerpot doesn't need to be target fed.
Actually, this is one of the main reasons why they die soon in aquaria.
I use a combination of two methods for feeding mine and it has been doing great. In fact, it had a baby recently

Anyway, depending on how much time I have, I use a squirt to feed each polyp individually, squirting gently over it. In the second method I use a cilinder section that I cut off a coke plastic bottle and put it over the coral, then I put drops of food inside the cilinder. That way the cilinder will stop the food from going away and fish from eating it.

 

[itz frank]

ok well it seems that i'm not doing the correct things to feed them.

I purchased a Kent Marine mineral kit and was told this would help Coralline grow as well as feed my corals.

-Liquid Calcium
-Strontium & Molybdenum
-Iodine

These are the three that i'm been adding to my tank water as directed.

I haven't noticed anything but growth from all of my corals and I really didn't think I was doing anythig wrong untill now. I'm really uspet that I may have been mislead seeing as how this isn't the first thing my LFS has misdirected me on.

The only casualty I've had in my tank was that I lost some Green zoo's, but that was due to Antipasia(sp?) stinging. Which I'm currently trying to work out of my tank still.

Any more direction would be greatly appreciated and i'm going to look into more on feeding corals. I'm about 3 months into my tank and even my Flowerpot, which I haven't recently found out are hard to keep, is flourishing. Thanx for the help again.

 

[itz frank]

also, my tank size is 20 gal. very small reef tank.

 

[itz frank]

and yes, i know. the Red Sea Desjardin Tang has to go. She's being removed. That's where my LFS misguided me.. along with telling me Flowerpots are easy to take care of.

 

[itz frank]

:reading: help

 

[graveyardworm]

Here's a whole list of articles related to feeding corals.

Coral Feeding

and Goniopora aka flowerpot.