Should I feed my corals something special?

[Mattyice008]

Hey guys, this will be my first post on this forum.
My question is, should I get some sort of special food for my corals to improve their health/growth?

My reef/corals are: Duncan/Red Blasto/Different polyps/Frogspawn/Birds nest/Xenias/Star polyps

My buddy who got me into saltwater tanks has some sort of calcium carbonates and zooplankton stuff that he feeds his corals.

Any ideas? Thanks. I love this new hobby and will appreciate any feedback.
Everything in my tank is doing awesome at the moment, just wondering if I should do this.

 

[john0087]

Some people do and some don't.

I feed my corals but do it very sparingly. My sps birdsnest I feed oyster feast, .5 ml mixed with tank water. I spot feed only with a dropper once a week. When I had lps corals in my original tank, I would feed mysis shrimp to them, but that was every other week or so. I had alcans, a hammer and a frogspan. I do not feed my zoas.

IMHO, feeding does benefit corals but it's easy to overdue it and foul up the water. Also, corals have pretty simple digestive systems, so I try to keep it small and simple.

Others will have opinions and there are many successful reef tanks where people do not feed, but like I said I personally feel that there is a benefit to the corals to feed.

Good luck.

John

 

[john0087]

Sorry, I just re-read your post and I don't think I answered your question, well in a round about way I did.

For sps corals, I feed oysterfeast, which I guess your would call special. For lps, I feed left over food for my fish, which is a marine blend including mysis shrimp, so nothing special there. I don't like the coral foods, ie filter feeder foods that you just dump into the tank and hope that the corals and others get it. I think its wasteful as a lot of it gets filtered out by your filters and it's too easy to foul up your water. I prefer to spot feed, which I think is more fun anyways

Good luck

John

 

[Mattyice008]

Sorry, I just re-read your post and I don't think I answered your question, well in a round about way I did.

For sps corals, I feed oysterfeast, which I guess your would call special. For lps, I feed left over food for my fish, which is a marine blend including mysis shrimp, so nothing special there. I don't like the coral foods, ie filter feeder foods that you just dump into the tank and hope that the corals and others get it. I think its wasteful as a lot of it gets filtered out by your filters and it's too easy to foul up your water. I prefer to spot feed, which I think is more fun anyways

Good luck

John

Thanks John. I forgot to mention that I already to direct-feeding with the corals that need it. I just use a turkey baster and give him some pieces of brine shrimp and they eat it right up

 

[john0087]

Most people consider brine shrimp nutritionally useless for fish, not sure about it for corals. Many people call it candy for fish! Hopefully someone else can chime in on this

 

[Bifferwine]

If you are already target feeding your LPS corals (duncans, blastos, frogspawn) with whatever you feed your fish, those are the only ones that will benefit from feeding.

 

[Smitty]

+1 Biff...you can also try cyclop-eeze(sp) to feed your corals. Also, welcome to the site, glad to have you aboard.