Reef Roids - Is it worth it to Feed SPS - Or will it just Pollute the Tank and Raise Phosphates?

[kidtango]

I feed daily with a combo of reef chilli, coral frenzy, and oysterfeast. There's no way of telling if the corals actually eat the food, but I am doing it to ensure that I have plenty of nutrients in the tank. If anything, it certainly feeds other organism in the tank. I have no issue with algae growing out of control. I use prodibio, refugium, and skimmer for nutrient export.

I also feed my fish alot... Like 4-5 times per day. I think a healthy tank is a tank that have high capacity for nutrient export and always have food running in the system.

Kid

 

[JFrar]

i use a zooplankton mix powder that i use i forgot the name of it , it's in a different container now.... I honestly am not sure if its successful or not. In the past months though since i realized my nitrates are undetectable ive been feeding my fish much more. I actually started using a LPS coral feed(i think DR G's) and just feed for everything in the tank to eat( i sometimes spotfeed the LPS with it too). I DO think all this over feeding has been beneficial for my LPS... not sure about my SPS. My LPS had been suffering for several months now(probably the low nutrients) and i think all the over feeding has bounced them back.... Which is COOL because i was considering selling off my LPS for a SPS/softy dominant tank

 

[dankreef]

I never saw a difference in SPS from those red powdery foods such as reef roids, chill, or cyclopeeze. IMO that stuff is good to adding to you nutrient level but not to actually fed coral. I like reef nutrition ROE. It is a larger particle size (cod eggs I believe). You can actually watch certain SPS hold and consume the eggs.

I would have to agree 100%. Good if you feed once a day.

 

[kacrocorals581]

only thing I dose is tlf acro power and not all the time and the only reason I do so is amino acids are removed via skimming ,so if your goal is to just make nutrient levels higher by dossing this powder stuff which is what it mostly dose you could just feed your fish the food they miss and when they poop it dose the same so I just feed my acros fish poop and Amino's every once and awhile but to each there own what works in one aquarium may not work in the next, and yes I've tried oyster feast live phyto and zooton power and a few more never saw a difference but money spent and more feather dusters

 

[Mark426]

Several of the commercial SPS vendors swear that feeding their corals in necessary for good health and growth. Of the few that will say what they are feeding, meaty foods like oyster eggs is one of the things they all have in common. Haven't seen one mention feeding any of the dried foods (doesn't mean they dont).

From the hundreds of postings by successful SPS hobbyist, the majority appear to suggest heavy stocking/feeding with fish and supplementing with something similar to oyster eggs/pappone/coral frenzy, etc. Dry/processed coral foods are in the minority or not used at all.

 

[Mark426]

Whoops...didnt mean to type "coral frenzy"...should have typed "reef frenzy"...a frozen coral food.

 

[scardall]

does food size matter etc.?

What is the particle size range for SPS? Acro/milli/monti etc. Then What???

 

[mcarroll]

Light and fish poop are all my SPS get and I am not displeased with their growth; I have several stomatella snails that breed regularly which also gets some food into the water column; have never tried any products to feed SPS.

Well said. I suspect "marine snow" and (e.g.) nitrates form a much larger segment of nutrient intake than we generally presume.

Sure seems to be the case.

FWIW, I feed my low-bioload 100-gallon system up to three mini-spoons of ESV dried phytoplankton per day....as far as I know, only the fish eat it, but it was obvious that all the coral heads' growth took off after I started regular feedings. (I also partly attribute the change to phytoplankton being a so-called whole food, neither processed or fortified.)

I do think regularity of feeding is more important than we think too.....at least having a baseline quantity and frequency. Too much or too little both seem to generate conditions for cyano to bloom.

 

[swhobbie1]

What is the particle size range for SPS? Acro/milli/monti etc.

That is what I would like to know... Can corals eat the smaller frozen type foods (rotifers, baby brine, prawn roe) that you can buy ? Everything seems to like food far as I have observed. So since I only have two fish, bought a bunch of equipment to help me keep nutrients close to 0 ... I feed corals once a day ... either dry (reef chill, coral frenzy, ...) or frozen (rotifers, prawn roe, baby brine). With occasional live brine I hatch. No idea if they can eat the frozen/live but I thought I read an article that said they could so I add it. I also also dose amino daily. I don't have GHA, cyano but get some bryosis on one of my frag racks I have to keep on top of. Otherwise... corals are colorful and growing. In fact recently they are consuming an increased amount of cal + alk and I manually dose so this is becoming a challenge for me to keep on top of.

I feed fish 2x day bc they seem to like food as much as i do :angel: Fish get either frozen (oyster eggs, mysis, brine+spriulina, reef frenzy) or flake at meal time.