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Coral Vue Hydros

When is the best time to feed corals


Lifer

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I have started stocking a biocube I started back in January with mostly sps corals and a few lps. I only have 2 fish, and I'm running a JNS HOB skimmer and a phosban reactor with gfo, media rack and some macro algae on the second chamber. Water quality is very good and I have been doing weekly w/c. Nitrates measure 0 with red sea test kits and phosphates at 0.02.

I have begun a feeding regimen for my corals that include weekly dosing of acropower, marine snow, and mysis shrimp that I target feed right to the corals. Does anyone have a similar feeding cycle? Would you recommend feeding the day before a water change to clean up any residual waste? Or after a water change to supply nutrients to the water for corals to feed on? I don't have any water quality issues, but trying to keep it that way.

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fishfreak0114

I feed my corals almost every day now. They get whatever frozen food my fish are eating that day. Some eat during the day and other (like the Favia, brain and acan) eat at night. I do however feed very heavy right before a water change.

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I do reef chilli and live phyto. Reef chilli I do every 3 days when I feed the fish. The live phyto I do in the morning before lights come on. Im running the Aquaforest program so that includes Amino, Vitamins and other things. That I do every other day. And then I dose component 1+2+3+ as well from Aquaforest. I have primarily SPS with 2 LPS and some zoanthids.

 

It's been my philosophy to feed and monitor my no3 and po4. If they stay at low levels then increase feeding. I only pull back feeding when I see those levels increase.

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I feed my corals almost every day now. They get whatever frozen food my fish are eating that day. Some eat during the day and other (like the Favia, brain and acan) eat at night. I do however feed very heavy right before a water change.

I notice that as soon as I start putting this mix of foods into the water column, my favia, candy canes and acans start to polyp up and want to feed. I'm still afraid to feed the corals every day, but the fish will eat daily.

I do reef chilli and live phyto. Reef chilli I do every 3 days when I feed the fish. The live phyto I do in the morning before lights come on. Im running the Aquaforest program so that includes Amino, Vitamins and other things. That I do every other day. And then I dose component 1+2+3+ as well from Aquaforest. I have primarily SPS with 2 LPS and some zoanthids.

 

It's been my philosophy to feed and monitor my no3 and po4. If they stay at low levels then increase feeding. I only pull back feeding when I see those levels increase.

I'm not familiar with the aquaforest program, but thats a good suggestion to to monitor my nitrates while I find that sweet spot. I was at a lfs yesterday and they run their coral display tanks at around 2.5ppm nitrates and 0.40ppm phosphates. I guess I can afford to feed a little more to ensure I'm not running my system too clean

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the best time to feed coral is when they start holding up a sign saying "will symbiotically photosynthesize for food". i usually just go by feel sometimes i feed once or twice a week, other times i wont feed for a couple weeks

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fishfreak0114

I've only been feeding every day for a little while, because a couple of my corals are recovering and I'm trying to get a walking dendro to take food. It's starting to catch up with the tank though, I've noticed a bit of cyano.

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Best time is just after light off for the day ... Say around 30 mins after light off ... Most corals have maximum polyp extension that time...

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SarlinDescent

I target feed mine about an hour before lights out, granted my lights ramp from 60% at 12k down to 15% at 20k. My corals have learned(after 2-3 times), when lights are down and flow stops, most fully extend feeder tentacles. For the ones that don't, a very small bit of water from the food cup in their direction will open them up. Give it like 1 minute and all are ready to be fed.

 

My only issue is my cleaner shrimp taking their food... So for that I spray so food in his direction and keep him occupied.

 

After the corals have all been spot feed, I give them a few minutes to close on the food before I start pumps back up. I first pulse my PH or return to make sure they wont lose the food, them turn on one. Five minutes later I turn on the other. 30 minutes after both pumps have been running, I remove and replace the filter floss. This greatly helps to reduce nutrient issues in a Nuvo 10.

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