Coral Feeding

[Salty Cracker]

What do you guys feed, how do you spot feed, schedule, etc?  It might be neat to compare notes.

I'm feeding flake, pellets and dried seaweed once a day to the fish. 

I'm spot feeding frozen mysis and cyclopeeze two to three times a week to the lps.

At night I'm carpet bombing reef roids and AZOX Macro Diet, however I'm thinking of getting a pipette system to gently target feed (food just falls out of a turkey baster).

Bad side effect of this schedule is the filter socks fill up about twice a week, so a lot of food is wasted.  It's a pain to shut off the return pumps just to feed, it might be something I would look into when I upgrade. 

So what do you guys do, and what have your results been?

 

[Krazykarl]

Flake, pellet and nori daily. Frozen cyclops and brine once a week. When I feed the frozen I turn on a couple extra power heads along with my wave box and kill the return pump. Let it rock my tank for about half hour. Then I turn on the return and let my filter sock clean up the mess

 

[nitro069]

currently I am feeding my fish tetra marine saltwater flakes once a day and every third day I feed San Francisco Bay Brand® Sally's Frozen Marine Cuisine and spot feed my corals reef cleaners filter feeder food every 3-5 days. All my fish are healthy and corals are doing good. I don't have a filter sock but I'm sure if I did I would have to clean it near as often looking at the input of my sump.

I posted something similar to this a few weeks back and some of the things used were pretty neat. like the floating ring food holder.

 

[spyd]

I feed mysis to my corals twice a week. Target feed with a turkey baster. I also broadcast feed cyclopeez once a week. I have 1 micromusa where I am target feeding it reef chili but thats it. Also, Darryl showed me that lps will eat NLS pellets as well. I am going to try that for a few corals as well.

 

[Darryl_V]

If its one thing I have learned about LPS it's that they love to be fed......and some of them NEED to be fed.

 

[nitro069]

If its one thing I have learned about LPS it's that they love to be fed......and some of them NEED to be fed.

Sooooo.......Fend for your self mentality is not always the way to go....hmmm..its so easy though~!

 

[Salty Cracker]

I do agree, I can completely stop the growth of lps by not feeding.  They don't recede, they just don't grow.  I wish palys and zoas were like that. 

 

[Darryl_V]

[quote author=Darryl_V link=topic=4030.msg36025#msg36025 date=1358125308]
If its one thing I have learned about LPS it's that they love to be fed......and some of them NEED to be fed.

Sooooo.......Fend for your self mentality is not always the way to go....hmmm..its so easy though~!
[/quote]That has always been my attitude with SPS...feed the tank only and dont worry about the corals.  But my success with LPS increased greatly when I started feeding them.

 

[davesolo29]

I have been target feeding a lot of my corals lately.  my frogspawn, dendros and hammer seem to be really responding to it.  I have never seen them fuller.
Granted, i have only had them for a short time, but i still see quite the improvment.

Now if only i could find a way to starve my green palys.  would love to seem them fade away.

 

[spyd]

I have been target feeding a lot of my corals lately.  my frogspawn, dendros and hammer seem to be really responding to it.  I have never seen them fuller.
Granted, i have only had them for a short time, but i still see quite the improvment.

Now if only i could find a way to starve my green palys.  would love to seem them fade away.

I was thinking about that Dave. What if you setup 2 seperate bins of water. One station, you use kalk paste and melt the palys off and the other, you just soak the rock to clean it up, then you can put it back in your system. It would be time consuming for sure but could prevent any serious accidents from the toxins. Just a thought.

 

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=davesolo29 link=topic=4030.msg36037#msg36037 date=1358135840]
I have been target feeding a lot of my corals lately.  my frogspawn, dendros and hammer seem to be really responding to it.  I have never seen them fuller.
Granted, i have only had them for a short time, but i still see quite the improvment.

Now if only i could find a way to starve my green palys.  would love to seem them fade away.

I was thinking about that Dave. What if you setup 2 seperate bins of water. One station, you use kalk paste and melt the palys off and the other, you just soak the rock to clean it up, then you can put it back in your system. It would be time consuming for sure but could prevent any serious accidents from the toxins. Just a thought.
[/quote]

I use putty.  I flatten it out and just smoosh it on top of the palys.  Some actually grow around them, but it starves them of light and they slooooowly recede in the dark.  It can take 2 months of darkness to get rid of a paly though, those mothers are tough.  If you want to be neat you can stick a rock on top of the putty before it sets

 

[Krazykarl]

Someone enlighten me on how to feed lps. I have hammer and frogspawn Md a maxima clam. I've attempted to drop pellet in my clams mouth but he collapses so hard he shoots the food out of his mantel.

 

[TORX]

Someone enlighten me on how to feed lps. I have hammer and frogspawn Md a maxima clam. I've attempted to drop pellet in my clams mouth but he collapses so hard he shoots the food out of his mantel.

Turkey baster. I just suck up the mys in the baster and slowly squirt it at the LPS. They grab it and pull it into their own mouth.

 

[Darryl_V]

Clams wont take food.  Also I think euphillyia (hammer,frog,torch) are one of the LPS that are fine with out being fed but will probably grow faster if fed. 

Chalices, trachy and favia seem to love to be fed.  Some do fine with out but others seem to need it to survive.  I especially find that small chalice frags do much much better when fed.  In my frag tank I actually stick mysis to each chalice colony or frag right before lights out.  I also drop NLS pellets on some favia and chalice as well.

In the display where its harder to get to each piece I just broadcast feed at night.....

 

[Salty Cracker]

The cleaner shrimp makes it tough to feed the lps.  I drop the tiny pellets and it comes along and like the cookie monster, stuffs it in its mouth just to have it drop on the ground (he fills up quick).

I have never fed chalice though, I've never seen any polyps that say they will hold in the food.  Are they like acans and just slowly close around it?  I ask because I've got a couple that are just slow as hell to grow, I thought they fed mostly on light. 

 

[Duke]

i feed the chalice, they hold food really good imo . i also have been using nls pellets for them specifically.. i can drop 1 pellet per eye and that way i can get the whole chalice fed, i also occupy my cleaner shrimp with a small peice of raw table shrimp.. about 1/4 the size i feed my anemones.. my shrimp takes about 20 minutes to finish it off.

 

[nitro069]

The cleaner shrimp makes it tough to feed the lps.  I drop the tiny pellets and it comes along and like the cookie monster, stuffs it in its mouth just to have it drop on the ground (he fills up quick).

I have never fed chalice though, I've never seen any polyps that say they will hold in the food.  Are they like acans and just slowly close around it?  I ask because I've got a couple that are just slow as hell to grow, I thought they fed mostly on light.

Mines a little bastard when i'm feeding my candycanes, i hit the candycane with a little food and then use the baster to shoot the shrimp with water while my coral eats.

 

[Petercar (RIP Dec 2017)]

I use pellets. Every day. ..but every other day or so. Ir im home. Ill open up the bag of seafood medley i got from no frills. Amd dump a couple peices in the magic bullet. And some freeze dried cyclopeeze    And some saltwater and blend it up.  And pour it into a small fish net. And  strain it and dump it into a cup. And use a turkey baster with saltwater from the tank and feed everything like fish and every coral  some days ill use reef chili or coral frenzy  The odd day the anemone will get a peice of frozen shrimp from the bag of seafood medley

 

[spyd]

Easy fix. The shrimp has got to go! 

Chalices are generally slow growers. Feeding them will definitely speed up the growth though. If you're not seeing any tentacles sround the eyes, then that is generally not a good sign. They should have a feeding response. My Hollywood Stunner has crazy 4" tentacles but it is not technically a chalice. My others though, have small tentacles that come out during lights out. To feed them, all I do is broacast feed Cyclopeeze in my tank. They will take NLS pellets and mysis as well if the mouths are big enough.

 

[Hayes]

Late night are the secret for me, I have to wait until an hour after lights out. By then everyone is open for business lol
Acans, Chalice, war corals, lobo, scoly's, even SPS will grab L pieces of food but I doubt they get any nourishment from it.

Problem is all the above pieces are slow eaters and need zero flow or food will be pushed away so it take an hour most nights I do it

I try to do it twice a week if possible

I mix Fauna marin LPS grow, PE Mysis and brine, thaw and squirt into as many open mouths as possible. SOme like the meaty foods others like the pellets.
It definitely works but you have to have good export because its messy and all the fish are sleeping so left over food just sits if you dont have really good flow and skimming to get it out