Feedin Corals

[Zeoth]

It just occured to me...how do you guys feed your corals. I mean like are there special fertilizers or flakes that sink to thier mouths or what?

 

[Demm]

depending on what corals you have, some might be 100% photosynthetic, so they dont need any feeding at all. most of them however are photosynthetic about 80%, so they need filter feeder food. i feed mine some micro plankton. i dont have alot of corals yet so i put mine in every weekend or every 4 days or so.

now if your talking about anemones then you get a turkey baster or an eye dropper, and you squeeze some food into their tenticles (not directly into their mouth as that might damage the anemone) and it should grab the food and eat it, usually like frozen brine shrimp or mysis.

 

[Musho3210]

nope, most home aquaria corals are photosynthetic and dont NEED any intervention with our food, but many of them have the option. Most lps eat similarly to anemones, aka bigger particles, true soft corals eat micro foods, shrooms and zoas eat big particles on terms of the size of the shroom and zoa, so the smaller the zoa, the smaller the particle etc. Sps eat microscopic foods. Feeding helps them grow faster etc but is pretty bad for the water quality.

 

[Demm]

ahh ok, i stand corrected. most of the one that i have looked at i have read that they like plankton as well. dont listen to me i'm just a newb lol

 

[Musho3210]

they like it, and they benefit, but most dont NEED it

 

[Adrinal]

If you feed your fish well and keep the water clean that will do it for most corals.
Large polyped corals can benefit from direct feedings... if your fish and crabs and the like don't just pull it out, lol.

Be careful of over feeding. I can easily feed my rics a half a dozen mysis, but that doesn't = a good thing. Once an animal gets more food than they can benefit from they are actually expending more energy to take it in and spit it out again. Very easy to do with an anemone! Also the extra food just becomes water fouling material.

It is proven with optimum light, most of the corals we keep can get more than 100% of their energy needs from their symbiotic light lovers. Still, a huge percentage of their bodies are... mouth and gut for feeding. In the ocean... who knows how many days a year are going to be cloudy!

For the display tank I only direct feed large brains... and rarely. Frag tank, where growth is main concern... different story.