What should I be feeding my corals?

[Admonition]

So I currently have a few zoas, a frogspawn, a duncan, two birdsnests, a candy cane, an acan, and a hammer coral in my 30 gallon tank. I've kept similar corals in a 16 gallon for years before upgrading to my current setup/corals. I've been taking a look at my feeding regiment and I want to make sure I'm doing right by my corals.

 

So far I have been feeding Mysis to my tank every other day. I spot feed the mysis to each acan and duncan head, and as well as my six line and shrimp. On the reverse days I feed Thera +A pellets for my six line and shrimp. I have seen significant growth in my duncan (whose six baby heads are almost full sized after a month), and my birdsnest has sprouted new 'limbs'. Everything appears to be thriving, but is it a good thing to only feed the Mysis to the LPS? Is there something more I can or should be doing for everything else? A little research seems to show that people use cyclopeeze to feed the entire tank. Should I use something like that instead of target feeding the LPS Mysis every other day?

 

Thanks for the help!

 

 

 

[SheriffTang638]

Hey there!

 

I'd say that what you've been doing is fine, and honestly, u really don't need to feed your corals that often. Unless you want a little more growth (and if u r not careful, explosive algae growth), I'd say feeding corals should only be once or twice a week. In fact, excess food from feeding your fish even becomes coral food! However, if u r fine with what u r doing and haven't seen any negative results, then go for it. I'd only use specialized foods and feed often if u have NPS corals like gonipora.

[atrox]

Goni's aren't non photosynthetic. Everything needs to eat. Get some coral frenzy or reef roids and broadcast feed you're tank every couple of days. Do not feed what the amount it suggests, a little goes a long way. These foods will cloud you're tank up, but it will clear in an hour or two. Continue to target feed with the mysis in addition to broadcast feeding. You will shortly see sponges and other oddballs in the tank that you never knew were there because they are getting food that wasnt there before.

[Admonition]

So I should 'broadcast feed' with something ever few days and still continue to target feed?

[atrox]

Yes, the lps benefit greatly from larger meaty foods. I bought two acans frags from the same colony each started with 2 or 3 heads and I wanted to see how much of a diff target feeding had on growth. Over three months the target fed acan went from 2 heads to 9 and the non target fed still had same three.

[Admonition]

Okay, how much 'broadcast feed' do you feed, and do you leave your pumps on? I don't want an algea bloom from over feeding

[atrox]

I've got close to 70 gallons with my sump and I just tap a little out into the return chamber. Amount is basically an 1/8 of a teaspoon. The return pump mixed it up pretty good and I leave all the pumps on.

[Chadf]

Fish poop. Turkey baste your rock work and everything else that you can everyday or every other day and your corals will have all the food they need. I never once fed this tank anything except flakes for the fish, turkey basted daily.

 

[Admonition]

Thats actually a seperate problem I'm having. It may be because the BRS reef saver dry rock I added to my tank a month ago is new, but it's becoming covered in detritus. I tried blowing it off with a turkey baster, but it clouds up the tank and all my corals close up

[Lynaea]

I had that problem when I started my tank. I recently bought a magnum HOT 250, I run it once a week for a few hours and blow the crap off the rocks several times. Then I do a water change

 

You could also just blow it off right before a water change to remove a lot of it. Once you get in the habit of doing it there is less each time, I need to start blowing the stuff off several times a week as suggested, my gorgs love it.