Recommendations on Coral Food

[UnderseaOddities]

@Anubisxii there are some nitrogen fixing/liquid nitrifiers on the market ,comparable to buffering product for home hobbiest aswell if the following options dont pan out for you i hope you figure it out buddy

 

[living_tribunal]

Ok so dumb question how do you spot feed pellets to corals. I have em but can't figure out a way to get them to the corals. My larger syringe they just fall out onto the sand. Others are too small.

I use a Turkey baster and only suck up maybe 20 at a time. Then just hover it above the corals until they fall out. Don’t try to do anymore or feed multiple corals as you’re going to drop most of them.

 

[living_tribunal]

Thank you for your feedback and thorough response! Definitely going to trying out those LPS coral pellets.

No problem.

Us sophisticated reefers put our coral poops on proud display here if you’re interested:https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/show-me-your-best-coral-poops-of-2019-competition.681133/page-10

 

[BigSkyRich]

What size is your system @Anubisxii ?maybe something to consider is to reefroid before weekly water change then do15%after

Thats what I do. Straight RR the day before scheduled water change. Target feed.. No pellets. Sometimes I'll do a light broadcast when I'm fedfing fish with power heads on and return pump off for about 30-45 minutes. All my corals seem to be fine, happy and growing

 

[Reefer37]

No problem.

Us sophisticated reefers put our coral poops on proud display here if you’re interested:https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/show-me-your-best-coral-poops-of-2019-competition.681133/page-10

Thanks for sharing this gem. Definitely going to follow it. ;Hilarious

 

[drblakjak55]

Coral diet is one of the absolute most important things to get right when starting in the hobby. You can always tell the finesse of one’s marine husbandry by the size of their coral’s poop.

That said, the firmer the stool, the better the health and vitality of the corals, so it’s important to get nutrition right.

What you keep dictates what you feed but the one thing in common is of course a balanced diet.

I maintain an all lps tank with many lobos, scolys, trachys, wellsos, bowerbankis, wilsonis, favias, acans, blastos, pectinia, echinata, gonis, etc, about 70 or so at this point. They eat far more than my fish do.

My go to is coral frenzy .5mm pellets. I feed pellets to any corals that accept it and essentially feed them until they can’t digest anymore. For example, I will feed each favia about 5 pellets per head. My trachy gets about 40 pellets (he eats everything including a couple hermits and other corals). The reason I utilize pellets over reef roids is I’ve noticed that corals cannot maintain a good grasp on the small granules and reef roids, so they only actually eat about 20-30%. With pellets, you ensure the corals receive 80%+ of the food you feed without making a mess as well. I noticed a substantial increase in growth after shifting to pellet feeding.

Now, I obviously mix the pellets in with reef roids and another custom made rotifer blend I whip up every week to ensure they aren’t deficient in anything.

Smaller corals: chalices, zoas, leptastrea, cyphastrea, leptoseris, etc all get the rotifer blend and a bi-weekly serving of reef roids.

I also mix it up with once a week frozen feedings. I mix frozen cyclops and mysis with reef chili and sometimes reef snow and target feed. The larger corals really love this. The fiber results in a browner, more hardier, stool.

Now we all know how important food is to bone density as well as tissue. There is a limit however! Do you want your kid being another obesity statistic? Good, don’t make your corals look like the people you see at schlitterbahn either. Bi-weekly is the limit on feeding, that’s the optimal frequency, don’t push it.

That doesn’t mean you can’t provide ancillary nutrition which is also very important. My tank receives live phyto every night. It feeds everything and is the very foundation my tank stands on. Phyto feeds my pods, my amphipods, everything else north on the food chain.

Additionally, I do a once weekly amino/carbohydrate dose for the color and sps corals. Any a+b blend will do. Do not listen to the vaccine conspiracy theorists, this will not make the corals poops runny!

Hope this helps.

That’s quite a list there. Btw, I’ve never seen corals poop, other than my eight inch Welso. Lol

 

[KorD]

Red Sea AB+, and reefroids every three days.

 

[rcillig]

I use AB+ & benepets with Amino Acids every other or third day and every 3 weeks ill do a reef roids or coral frenzy on Sunday... but both of them if I use too much I get phosphate spikes.

 

[Kennya]

Ok so dumb question how do you spot feed pellets to corals. I have em but can't figure out a way to get them to the corals. My larger syringe they just fall out onto the sand. Others are too small.

I use a 20mm diameter acrylic tube that’s longer than the depth of my water. With the pumps off I position the tube vertically just above the coral I want to feed and drop just a few pellets into the top of the tube and they slowly sink along the tube directly to the coral.