What’s your take on coral feeding...?

[Reefaddiction]

I was searching different forums on NR and didn’t find much on coral feeding. I thought it would be interesting to hear the experience of others when it comes to coral feeding. There are numerous food brands, methods of feeding, feeding schedules, feeding tactics etc. and it would be nice to consolidate other reefers experiences to see what they have had experience with and what created success with coral growth and health.  

     So share with the NR community your thoughts/practice regarding coral feeding. 

1. Do you feed or not

2. What type of foods do you use. ( reef roids, reef chili, rods food, reef nutrition products, make your own etc)

3. Do you spot feed or broadcast feed or do both.

4. How often do you feed/ what is your feeding schedule.

5. What kind of success/failures have you experienced? 

 

This is just a general format to make things easier to read, but by no means do you HAVE to respond in this format... whatever works for you is great! The idea is not to say someone is right or wrong, it’s to share ideas about improving our coral growth and health and creating a thriving reef environment! Your posts/experience is greatly appreciated and valued by members of NR as well as myself! And here we....go

[Clown79]

It's interesting, everyone does something different when it comes to feeding corals. There are so many products on the market, it's hard to know which ones are great and which are just a gimmick.

 

1. yes I feed my corals

 

2. I feed reef roids, vitalis lps pellets, aquaforest amino acids

 

3. I spot feed and broadcast. I spot feed my lps with the lps pellets(they love them) and I broadcast the reef roids

 

4. I feed 2 times a week the most because I have fish. I do one before my waterchange and one in the middle of the week.

 

5. the only failure I have experienced was when I used zooplankton, i had an algae bloom.

    Limiting feeding to 2 times a week has prevented issues. Success, I have helped "saver" corals bloom from feeding.

[Mark1313]

Newer small tank. 

LPS, Softies, couple sps. 

I went coral happy early in the build.

 

1. Yes

2. Oyster-feast, Reef-roids 

3. Only spot now

4. Every 3 days

5. Broadcast feed hurt everything in my small tank. WC couldn't keep up with the waste. (yes I fed per instruction) 

 

Basically I learned my coral. Most of mine had no need of what I broadcast so it hurt my overall. Now I spot and everything in my tank is better off for it.  I don't need/want to frag a 60 foot coral, they can grow slow, but they do grow. 

[CronicReefer]

I do not feed any specifically designed coral foods. I only feed LRS Frenzy for my fish every day and sometimes I will spray some in the direction of my LPS but there is no regular schedule. From what I've noticed, most coral farmers and people who have been in this hobby since the 90s or earlier do not feed their corals any specific coral foods. I have yet to have anyone show me any scientific study that concludes a certain type of coral food yields any measurable benefits.

[Melfy77]

Too lazy to bother plus with my 8g reef tank I don't want them to grow too fast

[Thrassian Atoll]

I feed my corals fish poop mostly.  Once in a great while I will put a tiny pinch of reef roids in the tank.

[TheRope]

I feed everything in my tank except for my discosoma mushrooms as they dont respond to any kind of food haha

 

I feed acans, hammers, favias and rhodactis mushrooms lps pellets (on wednesday) and they all take them readily. 

 

I feed everyone ( except discosomas ) reef roids on sunday, and i spot feed this as well i just turn off flow for a bit so it is able to be grabbed by the coral 

[Clown79]

1 hour ago, TheRope said:

I feed everything in my tank except for my discosoma mushrooms as they dont respond to any kind of food haha

 

I feed acans, hammers, favias and rhodactis mushrooms lps pellets (on wednesday) and they all take them readily. 

 

I feed everyone ( except discosomas ) reef roids on sunday, and i spot feed this as well i just turn off flow for a bit so it is able to be grabbed by the coral 

I was surprised how much the lps would enjoy the pellets but wow, they gobble them right up

[TheRope]

24 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I was surprised how much the lps would enjoy the pellets but wow, they gobble them right up

I dont even drop them into the coral mouths anymore, they extend their feeders and pull them off the tongs... its incredible to watch (this started when i was having trouble getting food to the ones who are not facing up)

[TheKleinReef]

1. Do you feed or not

Yep.

2. What type of foods do you use. ( reef roids, reef chili, rods food, reef nutrition products, make your own etc)

Reef roids, BRS reef chili, mysis, silversides (for the nem/plate), amino acids, Acropower, KZ coral vitalizer, KZ sponge power, KZ pohl's xtra, KZ B balance, KZ K balance, cyclopeeze

3. Do you spot feed or broadcast feed or do both.

Depends on my mood. If I'm super motivated I'll spot feed each coral, if not I just turn the return pump off and set the vortechs to feed mode and broadcast feed the whole tank.

4. How often do you feed/ what is your feeding schedule.

2-3x per week

5. What kind of success/failures have you experienced? 

Initially I over fed the KZ products and got a nasty slime algae goop that would grow everywhere, once I honed everything in I saw improvements in color and polyp extension. 

[Reefaddiction]

This is a great start to the forum everyone! Thank you for your replies, and I know everyone’s advice will certainly hep others. 

   I too do feed my corals. My go to for awhile has been oyster feast and reef roids about 2x a week, and i also feed a green mandarin, blue spotted jaw fish, green clown goby and a starry night blenny which is a mix of mysis, cylopods, pellets and capelin row ( mandarin absolutely loves these Haha) which also helps feed the corals. I typically spot and broadcast. I think the only failure/learning point is that you do have to be careful if you have hermits or other crabs as these will go for food on the corals and sometimes injure them in the process.

      I like the idea of using lps pellet food. I have some gorgeous rainbow blastos that I got a great deal on because they weren’t doing so hot, so I’m hoping these pellets might help! 

   Again thank you all for the replies, it will certainly help others who are getting into this great hobby! 

    For others out there please post your thoughts, maybe we can all learn some new stuff.