SPS Feeding

[cornerjag]

I am new to the SPS community and was curious what everyone's feeding routines are for your SPS tanks? What kind of foods do you prefer to use, how often you feed and your bio load? I currently have a Birdsnest and an Acro along with some mushrooms and zoa's. I want to feed them on a regular basis in my 90G tank but also want to be careful not to overfeed the system as well.

Currently, I have a 90G display with roughly 90 lbs of liverock. 2x 250W 15k XM's with some supplemental LED's, I was using dosing a capful of Marine Snow 3-4 times a week when I only had the Birdsnest which showed good growth. I then for about 2 months cut the feedings back to once a week and added the Acro. I started to notice some STN and increased my feedings to twice a week.

My major concern is learning how to gauge how much and how often to feed my corals since I want to obviously add more SPS. I don't want to dive in to fast and kill off all my corals.

Any kind of advice of feeding SPS and corals in general would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Mike.

 

[cornerjag]

I suppose I need to get a Hanna phosphate checker so I can monitor my phosphates. Also if I am overfeeding would my nitrates or phosphates increase first?

 

[Arkayology]

I would suggest you get the Hanna Phosphorus meter- it is a bit more accurate than the phosphate meter.

As for what kinds of foods, I would suggest you look into oyster feast and urchin eggs as good ways to provide your SPS with nutrition other than fish poop. However, unless you are running a system with low nutrients, you might not even need to feed the SPS. Common ways to tell if your SPS need to be feed are if they are pale or RTN/STN from the base up or at the tips. Polyp extension may/not not be a way to tell as well. Maybe others could chime in with their experiences. There are many threads about the need to feed your corals/how to do it.

Posting your params would help us also.

 

[jda]

I don't feed my corals anything. They get some trace N and P from me feeding the fish.

If you have a established sand bed, then the nitrate levels should never rise if the bacteria are doing their job. The sand bed should also be able to handle the phosphate if you skim well and don't overfeed too much.

 

[UTCReefer]

Its a common perception that SPS get most of their nutrition from strong light and fish poop. LPS on the otherhand love to be spot fed, especially blasto's, Acans, and duncan's or basically anything that has a mouth.

 

[cornerjag]

Water Parameters

Water Parameters

Temp: 78
Salinity: 1.026
pH: 8
Calcium 480
Alkalinity: dKH 9.6/ 3.4
Magnesium: 1335

 

[cornerjag]

Another thread

Another thread

If anyone knows of a thread with more info regarding this could you please point me to it.

 

[UTCReefer]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=805659&highlight=feeding+sps