What to feed your Acanthastrea

[mufflerguy]

Ya , I know. That was the only peice I had with more than 7 polyps too!!!Arrrrrghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
All the rest of my stuff is doing great, so it had to be some sort of infection.
I have a couple small frags that I saved right before the whole thing was slimed, they look OK, but the polyps are smaller than average.
Hopefully they will survive & grow.
Matt

 

[RandyO]

Hey Matt. That sure is a bummer about that piece. I see what your talking about now with the box.

How long did you have that colony for? And was it recently fragged or cut before it was shipped? Did you try to frag it before it was losing flesh? I'm just trying to understand what would cause something like that.

 

[sbluscombe]

I feed mine mysis soaked in cyclops

 

[mufflerguy]

Randy,
It looked like it was fragged off of a larger colony, It had maybe 18-22 polyps. I managed to save a couple polyps that are doing OK so far, they are just alot smaller than the average lord polyps that you & others propogate.
When you originally got yours, were they propogated from someone elses colony , or harvested from the ocean?
Thanks for the help, Matt

 

[RandyO]

Mine is about 3 generations from the Mother colony from the wild. It came into captivity about 5 years ago. A friend of mine got a frag off it and have been growing them ever since. I was lucky enough to get a frag of it 2 years ago, and turn it into a nice big colony. Some of the frags my friend has made are in the 5th and 6th generation. Each time he completely cuts up a colony, he keeps a couple frags and grows them into new colonies. It only takes 6 months for him to have to cut them up again.

How long did you have that piece before it got stressed, and how much time did the person that fragged it give it, before it was shipped out? That's really what I'm tryng to figure out.

 

[mufflerguy]

I had it a little over a week, got it from phishy business,
It looks like a big frag off of a large colony,. It was packaged excellent, & opened within hours after I placed it in my tank, it looked as healthy as the rest of my lords, then within 12 hours, it slimed up & died. Like I said 2/3rds of the polyps were covered, I
managed to save a couple that werent infected.
I do believe that it was fragged right before I got it, the break was fresh on the rock.
Matt

 

[shane 1111]

do acans like DT'S Oyster Eggs?
i am thinking of trying them.

 

[shane 1111]

I feed similar to Randy's method, cyclopseez(freezer bar), mysis, small krill, and squid. I mix it all in the same cup with Marineland Deluxe and turkey baster it to the acans. I hand feed small pieces of squid with tongs to each head everyday and sometimes more. The pic below is just a quick feeding with mysis.

jen what brand is that breeder box?
wear did you get it?

 

[RandyO]

I don't think oyster eggs or Cyclopseeze are ideal foods for Acanthastrea. Larger prey foods like mysis, brine, and chopped up squid, clam, krill, and other thick meaty foods are best.

I do add a small amount of Cyclopseeze to my frozen mix that I feed the Acans. I used to feed much more of it. I would give them a lot, like in the pic above, and the Acanthastrea would slime up, and I could see that they would not ingest the cyclops, but instead, create a long stringy slime filled with the little red cyclops that would eventually blow off the coral.

 

[marillion]

Do you mix up the food each time, or can you mix up a bunch in a small tupperware container and stick it in the fridge for a week?

Peace,

Chip

 

[RandyO]

Once you defrost it, you want to feed it right away. The second it gets defrosted, bacteria will start attack the food. I wouldn't even feed frozen brine that was sitting out for more than a couple hours. When I was working at the LFS and we would thaw out the frozen, if we did not feed it right away you could start to smell it fouling.

I wouldn't defrost a bag of cooked shrimp and leave them in the fridge for a week.

 

[asnatlas]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=4106478#post4106478 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dgasmd
I know of someone in the area that has a 2L bottle of coke. He cut the bottom out and puts it over the coral for about 30 min. Then, he feeds from the top of the bottle with a couple of squirts of his home made food for the fish. In 30 min, he takes the bottle off and it is back to normal. He used this first with sun polyps and worked great.

I have read about people doing this before, it seems like it would work very well... I am going to try it here soon...

Thanks RandyO, JenDub, and everyone else for all the info

 

[MiddletonMark]

Great thread, it's great to read advice from those much more experienced with Acan's than I am.
[Some of you, wildly so ]

Seems like mysis to brine size pieces are readily accepted [esp during night] by these guys. And that they sure like feeding ... both mysis and my mush seem to work well.

How big of pieces work?

Thanks!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=5345526#post5345526 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by marillion
Do you mix up the food each time, or can you mix up a bunch in a small tupperware container and stick it in the fridge for a week?

Frozen,
Fridge = slowly rotting IMO.

Normally in the middle of frigid winter, I will make up a batch of fish/coral `mush' ... which is frozen for re-use - but that's the only time I like to let my food thaw [and then, barely].
[It's handy to have it zero degrees outside, so when done I can very quickly get stuff frozen About the only time [beyond buying warm beer for a party] that there's much use of the cold IMO.]

I work loosely based on Eric B's recipe - but it's nice as you can somewhat control particle size [shrimp, other fresh seafood] and IMO it's fairly cheap to do a batch. I add mysis, cyclopseeze, and some other aquarium foods/vits/aa's ... variety.

You gotta keep a tight eye on what seafood you're buying, being sure it's not been soaked/`treated'.

But I'll make up a batch, put a thin layer in a ziploc which is frozen solid outside ... just break a chunk, thaw ... ready to go mix.
IMO as mentioned above, you don't want this stuff sitting unfrozen for long at all. When making it last time - it was more like a frozen smoothie than fish food - the frozen/LFS-type food didn't have much time to degrade - if to melt.
Corals might eat semi-rotting food too ... but I prefer to avoid the smell at very least.

But it works for most things - and IMO if you made one of just target-feeding-appropriate size chunks ... might be what you're looking for. Break off a chunk, thaw ... nice `mix' taken care of.

Next time, I'll probably make a `LPS target feeding' mini-batch too - all pieces just about the perfect size. I'll have to report back - but given how the tank has done well with the mush-food I made last batch, I think I'll make a special one to make feeding my well-loved corals a bit easier.

 

[Mattw2190]

Hi,
I will be getting my first acanthastrea colony tommorow. In the LFS its colorful and well fed. I've seen it with its feeders out and its about 30 polyps or more. I'm paying $80 for it even though there are cheaper ones there because this is the only really nice looking one. I was wondering where I should place it in my tank. I have a 65 and theres a metal halide over only 1/2 of the tank. The LFS tank has pc's and its been in there a while so I was wondering if I would have to acclimate it to the light and what is the best way to go about doing this? Also, do I have to feed this coral for it to thrive? How often should I feed this and what kind of growth does this coral get? Any other tips or methods of keeping this coral that you have found beneficial would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt.

 

[RandyO]

I would recommend placing it on the bottom of your aquarium at first. Some wild Acans are sensitive to bright light at first.

Most LPS will let you know if they need more light by expanding very long, stretching up to the light. But if you give them too much light at first, they let you know by bleaching, not opening, or start to recede. So you would much rather have them stretch up then to bleach out.

You can slowly work your way up the rocks over the next few months if you think it needs more light. It's amazing how different their colors can look just from moving them up a little.

As for feeding, you don't need to feed it for it to survive. But to thrive means to have vigorous growth. If you want that, I would say feed it. I have stopped feeding my Acans and I can say their growth has significantly slowed down. I can still notice new growth, but nothing like when I was feeding. Also, cutting them helps them grow too, just like sps. They more you cut them, the faster they grow.


Hope that helps.

 

[Mattw2190]

Thanks for the advice, I've chosen where I am going to place the coral. My tank has strong lighting but only over the right side and the live rock is at a even level all the way across. I decided to put the acan in the middle where it gets a lot of light but not nearly as intense as the right side does. Thanks for the help Randy I'm definitely going to feed my new acans.