Too feed or not too feed that is the question

[Dougefresh35]

I know this is going to be a very controversial topic and I will probably catch alot of heat from this but oh well.

 

How many of you out there believe that you must feed your corals to keep them alive well I am here to tell you that is simply not true in most cases.

 

Now there are a few exceptions there are non photosynthesis corals out there I just choose not to keep those in my tank so I do not follow that rule of thumb and haven't for years. I for one do not feed my corals and my corals grow just fine and have great color I keep mainly sps with a few softies like zoas and some ricordea. My corals get everything they need from dosing, water changes, and most important of all a good light and nothing else.

 

I used to believe that I had to feed my corals until once I was having a nutrient issue and this was before the internet message boards like this one and you had to actually go to the shop and ask questions so I went to the coral shop with a water sample and this was the first Coral propagation shop in our area at that time and those guys were extremely knowledgeable and still are and very friendly they would always try to help you out if they can.They asked me what I was feeding and how often and so forth. I told them and then I asked them what do they feed and they kinda smiled at me and said nothing and I was like HUH WHAT! And then they explained to me about photosynthesis and that they never saw any difference in there corals whether they fed or not. So if you dont need to feed them why add extra nutrients to your tank if you really dont need to. When I did feed I ran into more problems than it was worth so I stopped and everything still kept growing and looking great.

 

Now I know some of you reading this won't believe me or think I am full of crap and thats ok but I will never give you hear say information everything I have learned over the years has been the hardway and I have probably made just about every mistake that you can think of in the past but I have learned from them and all you can do is not make the same mistake twice.

[Thrassian Atoll]

I don't really feed my corals.  I use reef roids once in a great while.  Like a tiny bit every 2 weeks.

 

 I think if you can feed your fish a lot and export a lot of the nutrients, your corals will do well enough without feeding them.  If I didn't have any fish or like 1, I would feed my corals more often.  But with fish poop and tiny bits of frozen food from feeding them, I think corals will be good.

[CronicReefer]

The only photosynthetic corals I've ever seen benefit directly from feeding are a few LPS varieties and that is it. Two of the fish stores in my area have their own coral farms and neither bother with coral feeding. Adam at Battlecorals has a great write up on how feeding corals is just a waste of time, money, and water pollution. I always find it strange how many people are now feeding corals and so willing to ignore the evidence that shows it is completely unnecessary to use coral specific foods. If you want more coral food, remove your filter sock/poly fiber.

[Dougefresh35]

51 minutes ago, CronicReefer said:

The only photosynthetic corals I've ever seen benefit directly from feeding are a few LPS varieties and that is it. Two of the fish stores in my area have their own coral farms and neither bother with coral feeding. Adam at Battlecorals has a great write up on how feeding corals is just a waste of time, money, and water pollution. I always find it strange how many people are now feeding corals and so willing to ignore the evidence that shows it is completely unnecessary to use coral specific foods. If you want more coral food, remove your filter sock/poly fiber.

Yes so true I read on these boards all the time all these people having GHA and other algae problems and I can almost guareentee you that you can trace it back to over feeding over feeding their corals,fish etc. And it kills me. But thats what is awesome about these boards for new people or people that just dont know to hear things that other people have gone through so maybe they can get some info and not make the mistakes that I made or anyone else.

[BulkRate]

Like Tilton, I have a couple fish (and in my case a buncha rock flower anemones & hermits/shrimp/porcelains).  I feed THEM daily but in very very small amounts and let the corals grab what they can/want + the lighting cycle.  Seems to have worked well for the bulk of the last 6 years. 

 

And as a result there's a couple 1/2" patches of hair algae that some enterprising hermit prunes down to the holdfasts every week or two.  Nothing more other than a glass scraping every week or two as well.  Film forms on the water surface if I don't skim it off during the weekly water change, but I wouldn't regard it as much of a time-suck by any stretch. 

[Clown79]

On 25/10/2017 at 3:57 PM, Dougefresh35 said:

Yes so true I read on these boards all the time all these people having GHA and other algae problems and I can almost guareentee you that you can trace it back to over feeding over feeding their corals,fish etc. And it kills me. But thats what is awesome about these boards for new people or people that just dont know to hear things that other people have gone through so maybe they can get some info and not make the mistakes that I made or anyone else.

I feed my corals weekly and have no algae issues.

 

My personal experience- I've saved corals from stores and the ones I fed repaired and grew better than the ones not fed.

 

My acans that are fed weekly in my 25g have grown double the size than the one in my 10g which isn't fed as often (its a higher nutrient tank) otherwise the tanks are maintained the exact same with the same parameters.

 

I personally like feeding them and the response from them.

 

 

[Dougefresh35]

Hey if you have a system that works for you thats awesome I would tell anyone asking if you want to feed or like to feed just make sure you invest in a lot of scavengers, that greatly reduces the possibility of leaving any uneaten food behind.

[Clown79]

3 hours ago, Dougefresh35 said:

Hey if you have a system that works for you thats awesome I would tell anyone asking if you want to feed or like to feed just make sure you invest in a lot of scavengers, that greatly reduces the possibility of leaving any uneaten food behind.

Oh definitely.

Over feeding or feeding the wrong type of food will be an issue.

 

I had issues using zooplankton

[Sjadet]

 Some corals need a low nutrient system, but you might also want to keep corals that want higher nutrient levels.. for example mixing Acroporas and Gonioporas. You can make them both happy by running low nitrates and also spot feeding the "hungrier" corals individually. If it makes any sense.

[Thrassian Atoll]

My montis faded drastically after my nitrates hit 1 and phosphates hit 0 recently. Trying to bring my numbers up to 3-4 nitrates and .02-.03 phosphates.

[brandon429]

A trophic division already exists to define whether they have to be fed protein for actual digestion in addition to photosynthesis

 

Autotrophic vs heterotrophic

 

Are corals autotrophic?

 

How'd they get mouths? Do organisms develop and sustain for millennia unused organs for digestion?

 

For sure corals must be fed. Whether that's happening willingly or unwillingly, by design or not, it's happening. For side confirmation an easy experiment would confirm or deny:

 

Cycle up a tiny sponge filter

 

Take three healthy growing frags and transplant them into just a vase reef with a frag rack, no rock, and that sponge filter squeezed clean so that no organics are provided to the system

 

Try and raise those frags without feed, they'll go a while and then bleach out.

 

You may have been meaning -direct-feeding not required, but I didn't see that in your post. by adaptation and by rule they must be fed in order to photosynthesize. Any decent chunk of live rock will feed some coral in a system as it degrades slowly over time, live rock and coralline follow the same trophic rules as any other organism already classed.

[Lula_Mae]

When I started in the hobby, few people were feeding corals at all because of fears of too-high nutrients and the belief that they needed photosynthesis alone to thrive.  In the years since, we've learned that corals do better and grow faster with direct feeding to supplement the photosynthesis.  Ailing corals also tend to recover faster when fed regularly.  If you do feed, it's a good idea to maintain regular water changes within a day or two of a heavy feeding to help export the excess nutrients.  That is how some of our picos do so well.