What to feed your Acanthastrea

[RandyO]

I thought it would be better to start a new thread about feeding Acanthastrea, then to search through the huge, Acanthastrea, let's see them, thread.

Anyone that has these beautiful corals, please input what your feed, how often, and any other techniques you'd like to share.

Thanks

 

[RandyO]

Here's what I feed them.
I feed a mixture of mysis, brine, and cyclopseeze, all together. I let it soak for 10 minutes or so, to try and enrich the mysis and brine. I then such it up with the turkey baster, and baste the coral polyps. I do this at night, or in the morning. The polyps eat a little better that way. For a while, I was feeding them a few times a day. If you introduce food while the lights are on, the feeding tentacles will come out. You can feed them then, but then you bring more attention to fish, if you have them. Also, I didn't want to teach my corals to always have their tentacles out, begging for food.

I also try to make sure each polyp gets a piece of food. I'll sit there for an hour, re-sucking up any floating brine and mysis one by one, and feed to missed polyps. Sometimes, I'm there doing this long enough for the polyps to completely ingest the food, and I feed them seconds, and thirds to the really big polyps.

 

[dbrown]

When you say soak it do you mean in some kind of vitamin or AA mix or just in tank water?

 

[RandyO]

Randy what do you soak the food in? Sorry if it was already stated but this thread really needs some organization links on page one. Finding information is near impossible at this point.

Although you feed each polyp do they have a sharing mechanism underneath all that fluff or is each polyp on its own? I've been feeding at night but the GD snails and stars come and rob the smaller polyps.

Also, my micromussa seems to be too small to grab the mysids before they float off. Is brine and eeze sufficient for it?

I let them soak in with the cyclopseeze. I try to let some of the nutrition pass to the brine and mysis. I'm not even sure if that works. But I know the cyclops are full of nutrition, and were already soaked in powders, and vitamins, and other things.

Some people soak their food with Selcon, and other products. I'm sure that will help too.

You've brought up a good question about the polyps having a sharing mechanisms.
I'm not a Biologist, so I can't give you a definite answer. What I can do is give some of my experiences and my opinion.
I believe they do share some nutrition. I've grown out some frags that started with just a couple polyps. I would feed these polyps, and they would get bigger, and produce a ring of baby polyps. Now, since the bigger polyps are making the babys, and the babys continue to grow, even without light or food, they must be getting the energy to grow from the bigger mother polyps. Does this connection of nutrition eventually get broken? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I continue to feed larger polyps, while the babies cannot accept food. After a while, the babies start looking like a polyp, and not just a clear blob. I've also seen a row of baby polyps, still very tiny, keep encrusting on the rock, and producing more baby polyps. Where are they getting all this energy from to grow like this? I'll try to dig up a photo of babies making babies.

 

[dbrown]

excellent thank you for your help

 

[JenDub]

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.

 

[RandyO]

As Jen does, I used to hand feed each large polyp with tongs a small piece of freeze dried krill. I had to squeeze all the air out first. I stopped feeding this way, mainly because I've got too many of them now. Also, with just target feeding, all the critters in the tank are looking for that piece of food that smells so good, and they didn't get any.
With broadcast feeding, and basting, it keeps the critter ocupied. Before, I would have to sit guard, and pull off any hermits that came close to my frags. Starfish are worse, beacause they hang out under the frags, and only send their arms up to smother the frag and steal the food. I would also feed a big chunk of krill to my one peppermint shrimp, so he would be busy for a while.

BTW, if you can avoid putting these critters in your tanks with your acan frags, the better off you'll be.
My big colonies are large enough that only the shrimp can climb up and steal food. I even had a probelm with the litttle live mysis shrimps, or what ever they are in our aquariums, trying to pull brine shimp out of the mouth of a polyp. Bristle worms will do the same thing.

 

[yoshiod9]

i have a nano so feeding my acans isn't as difficult as it is for others. i feed cyclopeeze, mysis, enriched brine, and squid if i have it. basically any meaty food is game for the lord polyps. i've only had a problem with my bristle worm(huge sucker...around 8 inches!) stealing from the acans. now i feed each polyp such a huge amount of food that it doesn't really matter if the bristle worm gets a bit. lol. any leftovers from the feeding the fish and hermits pick up.

 

[coralite]

I dont have fish so I dont really worry about when I feed although I do try to feed mostly when the lights are out. My main food for my acans and lps is fine to medium chopped frozen shrimp. I target feed with a pipette. I'll add a little shrimp juice about 10 minutes before feeding. I also use frozen cyclopeeze which I just add to the current about half the time and I target feed with a pipette the other half of the time. I'll turn off the circulation pump when target feeding.

My echinata needs morsels approximately half the size of those i use for lg lord polyps. The lord polyp's appetite is also about twice that the echinata.

 

[^CelticReefer^]

I was wondering about this too, I feed my echinata a mixture of cyclopeeze and brine soaked in selcon for 10 minutes or so, same mix I feed my suncorals. I spot feed all the polyps a couple times over the course of an hour or so every night. They also open up and catch a good amount of golden pearls which I feed the fish every morning.

Brian

 

[dbrown]

JenDub is that a feeding box that you use or is that a permanent residence? I'm thinking of making a slotted or screened box so the acans can eat without harrassment.

 

[mufflerguy]

Ya Jen, that seems to be a great idea. if you leave them in all the time, how close are they to your lights?
My tank is almost 30" deep, so I get soaked every time I feed.
I have been doing nightly feedings about an hour after the lights go out, & then I put an eggcrate box over them to keep the others out. I have excellent growth on the 3 red/ green and red/blue original frags I got 2 months ago, but the 2 greens I got show no new growth.
What do you guys think about that? any comments.....
Matt

 

[JenDub]

JenDub is that a feeding box that you use or is that a permanent residence?

For now, a while back, I had my $10 tang eat my $400 acan polyps. I almost passed out from it...so I decided to protect them until I remove all the fish from my tank. I like them in the breeder box, nothing bugs them while they eat and I get nice over the top shots. This weekend all the fish are gone and my acans will have a 75 gallon tank to them selfs.

 

[JenDub]

Ya Jen, that seems to be a great idea. if you leave them in all the time, how close are they to your lights?
Matt

They are at the very top of my tank. I have 2x175watt mh 14K, and 4x55watt PC 50/50. I thought putting them this close to this wattage would make them turn colors but they haven't really. It is super easy to feed them too. Here is a pic...

 

[mufflerguy]

Nice tank Jen!!!
I was asking because that colony I got a week or so ago from PB died on me today. Didnt know if it had something to do with my 400 watt MH's.
It slimed up completely out of the blue! I was able to save a couple polyps that werent covered in slime. Last night I fed my lords & they all looked great. Then at 11 am today, I noticed this one had a thick film on it. I pulled it out & it stunk awful. I had that box over it all night so nothing stung it. Tried the coral dip, & fragged off the 3 polyps that werent covered in slime. Tonight, the polyps are peeling off the rock. All my other acans are doing super, along with all my other corals.
Maybe its lights or because its a new wild colony. I have no problem with PB, they packed it well & did the best they could.
$800 down the drain,Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Matt

 

[RandyO]

Matt,
Did you say you had a box over the coral all night? Was it able to get flow? Maybe it suffocated.

 

[mufflerguy]

No Randy , a box made out of eggcrate, keeps the critters away from the lords while they eat. If anything, I think it slows the flow a little bit, which is good.
I have alot of sps up top, so I have a wavemaker & powerheads along with 2 returns run on seaswirls. Heres a pic of what I'm talking about, along with a pic of the colony before I lost it.
Matt

 

[mufflerguy]

Heres the colony, when it was alive..

 

[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.

 

[va_reefman]

Oh man....That was a nice colony wasted away there Matt. I feel for ya on the cost.

John