Reef Discussion

[potatocouch]

I know that this has been mentioned thousand times in Aussie forum, Reef tank, reef sanctuary et al but I still am not sure if there's a real evident of growth or better coloration when LPS corals are fed.

People are feeding these LPSs with reef roids, chopped frozen mysis, brine, coral frenzy , cyclopeeze and some even mentioned that they may benefit from the food that we feed to the fish (by luck it might drop at them).

But things that am questioning is do they eat? it's fair enough that you either broadcast or target and they may grab the food by their tentacles , but do they really eat them?

Some don't even feed and some even keep their system ULNS and their LPSs are still growing hence contradict the above concept of feeding.

Let's focus on the subject of food and with the assumption that all the water elements & lightings are acceptable.

What's your thoughts on this, folks?

 

[RobbieMVFC]

This is almost a contradiction in terms ,
personally I feed my fish a lot (not LPS) a lot 2 times a day .
My tank parameters are Po4 0.06 Nitrate about 2-5ppm.
So as low as I would like a ULNS to go (IMO)
I Have a lot of SPS but only a few LPS, However I have had them for years.

So to answer your question , we tend to forget that corals are animals and need to eat.
How much and how often is more to the point.
If you want the best out of your LPS I would target feed very small amounts once a week , In doing so you need to keep an eye on your parameters.

Just my 2 cents......

 

[Franklin Dattein]

I can give you some examples that I see in my ULNS, with high flow and roughly 60%LPS/sofites and 40% SPS:
. A lobo that is a bit shaded, will go dark or pale if I don't target feed.
. Gonis and and Alveos won't live more than 1y unless I target feed reefroids.
. Same for my favias an challices, I never had much luc with those unless fed.
. Acans never show full color and full inflation, unless fed.
. Zoas will grow very slowly with random sudden colony deaths, unless I dose aminacids.
. Hammers don't show much interest nor change color when fed.

Most of these LPS corals were in a nutrient rich tank years before, design for LPS, and I had a chance to watch them in two different environments. The hard ones did well without any feeding, but the small mounth ones, such as Gonis, still had to be feed.

So, in my experience, feeding LPS is helpful and sometimes a must and it will depend on many variables, other than if it is a LPS.

 

[somethingfishy76]

My acan's are huge and its because I feed them. My orange Lobo is also fat and happy and again that's because I feed him.

 

[MagicJ]

I have found that hammers, torches etc wouldn't touch larger foods - whether or not they benefit from smaller foods, I'm not sure.

But, the feeding response exhibited by some of the larger LPS polyp corals i.e. acans, plate corals, scoly's etc tells me that they do require larger food particles. To get this sort of response from a few pellets must mean something

 

[potatocouch]

@MagicJ that is the sort of feeding response that I got from my scolly too (other than your scolly looks much better in color than mine .. envy).

And that is the response that I like because I know that they're doing something with it ... food in and food doesn't get out. .... means food get eaten.

But when I feed my other LPSs such as torch, frogspawn, hammer with thawed frozen brine shrimp or reef roids ... this is with all the pumps OFF .. so zero flow/circulation, ensuring they can enjoy their dinner ... the food/roids will stick to the tentacles ... however I don't see that food get pushed to their mouth (I can tell my hammer got mouth, but the frogspawn doesn't) ... waited for 15 mins, don't see anything change ... turn back the flow .. all I am seeing is mucus along with those brine shrimp or reef roids flying all over the place. This sort of feeding response is what makes me think: do you (hammer, torch, frogspawn) really appreciate what I fed you with?

Another different story with zoanthids and morphs and gonies .. they closed up when they catch that reef roids ....seems like they eating it but to be honest, I have zero idea if they really do consume it hahahahhaa

 

[MagicJ]

I have had a similar experience to you with the Euphyllia sp. but I'm not sure if they don't catch/eat floating food particles or we are just not giving them what the want - I suspect the latter.

I do believe that the secret to success with gon'is over the past 10 years or so has been the availability of foods of the correct size.

 

[suta42]

Yeah, I have a slightly different take on feeding response. When a coral is comparatively weak and has not been fed for months on end, it doesn't respond to feeding normally.

Most evident here are those emaciated half dead scolys you see plenty of these days. But it can also happen to eurphyllia, and definitely to various sun corals. So when they're really weak, you can put the coral in a container in the tank, turn off flow at night, and squirt some liquid mysis or brine. There won't be any response at all (except from local bristleworms!)...maybe an hour later the tentacles expand a little. With these, particulate food is all they can handle and they have to actually work up to eating frozen brine, much less DIY stuff. It can take weeks of training for this to happen. Even a well fed coral eventually does some kind of poop.

But you won't know that it's holding food down for many hours, sometimes even the next night you can see it being regurgitated.

In short, there's definitely value in feeding LPS as well fed healthy coral may suffer badly in a tank crash but will bounce back very fast compared to unfed ones or new purchases. Different genera definitely have different food preferences, too.

Just saying, I think theres more to this than meets the eye. :rolleyes

HTH

Angie

 

[Savage Henry]

I haven't seen my hammers or my frogspawn eat anything, even frozen brine shrimp gets rejected. I have never seen my Hydnophora eat either. But, when I had a Tracky and a Fungia they would eat loads of food. They ate more than the BTA I had at the time. And, the Tracky especially responded very well to food. A Duncan I had ate a lot too.