What are you feeding your corals

[sgtbilko]

I was wonder what you all have been feeding you corals?
What has been successful for you?

For me I:

Brain - silverside & micovert
Leather- microvert
Flowerpot- microvet
SPF- microvert
frogspawn- microvert


I have read that some people will feed a frogspawn some silverside or shrimp.

Let me know

 

[Zoa]

I have given frogspawn small meaty pieces once in a while. they seem to like it.

 

[imlocke]

My friend's frogspawn seems to like shrimp, but he said mine wouldn't take it, so i dunno..

 

[Spracklcat]

anemone--minced "goop" (recipe below)
scolymia--goop and mysid
Euphyllia-mysid
Sarcophyton, Sinularia, Tubipora--Coral Frenzy (zooplankton substitute)

Goop=
person-shrimp, clams/oysters, silversides if I have, some flake or other dry food, spirulina powder (don't know if it helps the corals but the fish enjoy it), little bit of squid, some fish oil, minced with a hand blender and frozen into sheets.

The only guys I consistently target feed are the Scoly, the anemones, and Tubastrea if I have any--everything else gets fed indirectly.

 

[jgiordano]

I feed my corals once a week whatever I am feeding on that day; reef plankton, cyclopeeze, brine, mysis, pellets

phyto every couple of days.

Candy Canes, mushrooms, rics, yuma, torch, hammer, blasto merletti

 

[Reef Junkie]

I am soooo asking for it by posting this, but here it goes...

I am against feeding corals a lot.
The reasons are many, but here's the main one.

What happens to these corals and your fish tank when you stop feeding? You can all say what you'd like, but just about everyone that has a reef tank at one point or another does not have time to prepare the food and feed the corals.

So, what happens? These big beautiful and growing corals begin to recede. The huge population of pods, worms and other micro-verts begin to starve. They will and have even been shown to turn on the corals. It gets ugly.

In the wild we have explosions of certain organisms due to an over abundance of their food source, when that food source deminished, almost the entire population crashes.

So keep this in mind when you take your mortar and pestle to grind up a big pile of slop to put in your tank. Are you really willing to have to do this 2-3-7 times a week? (edit) "For the rest of your Aquariums life?"

Don't even get me started on the incredible amount of maintenance you're going to have to do to help keep that tank of yours clean.

I say this because I have done this. I had a 180 gallon reef tank running for years and I put the most vile crap in that tank as per advice from one of our former "experts".

They forgot to mention that I needed an entire sea wave to come in every month or so to clean out the amount of dirt I put in.

IMO, feed your corals, but target feed and only do it sparingly. For instance, I will still feed my corals, but with a pipette and only occassionaly. There is minimal waste because I target the animals with the pumps off.

Experts will disagree, but usually these experts have these tanks setup in a university and have slave labor to help do the work that needs to get done.

FYI, I am making no comparison to anyone on this post or currently a member of this Bulletin Board.

Cheers!

 

[Spracklcat]

Bill, actually FWIW I completely agree--I don't know anyone who would take the "sea meat blend" and just dump it in the tank and let the corals pick what they like. I had always thought it was for target feeding only. Otherwise, what a nutrient waste and what a superb way to "get your algae on". In my tanks, things with mouths I can see get fed meat, and the rest get what the fish pull out of the mouths of the corals I am trying to feed

 

[Reef Junkie]

I hears ya Chris.
I think for noobs and even people that have been here a while and don't know the super secret to growing 1000lb Euphyllias, it could be a little confusing.

Dumping lots of food in your tank is bad, bad! Target feeding small amount to individual corals is good, but my god does it ever kill your back!

Plus, if you do target feed, you have to remember that if you stop your coral might not award you with another polyp. Especially solitary corals that share a stomach. Like Scolymia, Euphyllia, Cataphyllia, Billsmakinghimselfsoundsimportantyllia... You get the idea.

They usually grow according to their available food source and if that should stop, it'll be like a holiday in Cambodia.

Anyway, when feeding proceed with caution!:eek1:

 

[Spracklcat]

See, and when I didn't feed my Scoly, it faaaaded away to almost nothing until someone smarter than me said "eh, it has a mouth, you might try feeding it" and lo and behold, a beauty of a coral came back from the brink.
Now that I think of it, it is quite remarkable how little I feed my fishes--like almost never. Some nori occasionally, but they must be finding something good in there, they're all pretty beefy.

 

[Reef Junkie]

Wait that person wouldn't have been one of those "expert" people, would (eh hem) "he"?
Duh! You have to feed them wo-man! :lol:

 

[Spracklcat]

Yes, one of those "experts" indeed, and yes, feeding animals is usually a good idea.

 

[Zoa]

While I agree that overfeeding has bad effects, I hate looking at a tank that looks all beautiful and clean with Ethiopian fish that have been utterly starved so the tank owner has less upkeep.

 

[Zoa]

I forgot to add...this is typical of some restaurant tanks.

 

[Reef Junkie]

Yep, that's plain abuse.
It's finding a happy medium, a middle ground, a sort of balance between two halfs, meeting half way, ying yang, vise versa. That way you can keep your animals happy and healthy without polluting your tank.

 

[Zoa]

amen