Are you "direct" feeding your corals in 2021 and is it worth it?

[Treefer32]

I took to feeding my Acans heavily twice a week to try to get them to grow. A combination of reef roids, pelets, and red sea AB+ aminos.

They kept doing crappy, they'd feed, but, their flesh never looked good. Then a person I buy my corals from mentioned checking my phosphates. So I had an ICP test last week. . . Phosphates came back at .55692... Feeding would never have helped them and probably contributed to their health or lack thereof. I have been doing daily water changes along with one larger 30% water change, and since then, they're now opening at night. Saw tentacles out last night for the first time ever from them. So, I think they'll recover, but it's going to be an excruciatingly slow process. These were the same size and look as when I got them 1.5 years ago...

 

[Doglips56]

We make our own very high quality frozen food. I’m thinking the fish and corals eat better than we do because we buy top quality seafood then grind it after it’s frozen. We add all kinds of goodies both wet and dry to appeal to our herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. After it’s all mixed we run a portion of it through the food processor so there are tiny pieces of everything suitable for smaller mouthed fish and corals. If you look at the pictures on my build thread you will see the results for yourself. Our tank is only 10 months old

 

[Vette67]

If it doesn't eat light, I don't want it in my tank. So no NPS coral for me. SPS and most LPS eat light and don't need to be directly fed. I have a volleyball sized miyagi tort that has never been directly fed, and a branching hammer that is the size of a basketball, plus a volleyball sized branching frogspawn colony that has never been fed. They all seem to grow just fine without any "roids" being added. Coral food in a bottle didn't exist 20 years ago, and we kept reef tanks just fine. My corals are fed a strict diet of metal halide and fish poop.

 

[Strangewaterchange]

I have a favia frag that I started feeding mysis and reef roids and it's been growing like gsp

 

[SirReefa]

I took to feeding my Acans heavily twice a week to try to get them to grow. A combination of reef roids, pelets, and red sea AB+ aminos.

They kept doing crappy, they'd feed, but, their flesh never looked good. Then a person I buy my corals from mentioned checking my phosphates. So I had an ICP test last week. . . Phosphates came back at .55692... Feeding would never have helped them and probably contributed to their health or lack thereof. I have been doing daily water changes along with one larger 30% water change, and since then, they're now opening at night. Saw tentacles out last night for the first time ever from them. So, I think they'll recover, but it's going to be an excruciatingly slow process. These were the same size and look as when I got them 1.5 years ago...

Although NOW (HERE) isn't a time to even consider THIS... But, it may be(?) Something (someone) could spend a Li'l more time with if the situation presents itself..
Prior to a heavy spring rain one year, I had been a bizzy drillin' fool.. trying to meet a deadline on a new quarantine building & all that takes an(especially when you know THERES NOT ONE 'OFF THE SHELF' ITEM THALL MEET YOUR CRITERIA (cept some plumbing parts) ...
I'd been drilling several large glass tanks... The rainwater which had managed to get caught here & there was apparently the ideal breeding ground for mosquito larvae...
On a whim one morning I collected a jarfulbofvthrir wiggly lil bodies.. took them with me to the coral showroom...
Ibs NB snagged a tiny netful.. rinsed em' in a quickie fw bath..b& proceeded to 'dose a few here & there directly over screw 'le$$er' corals.. on second look.. even the few corals that had been somewhat lethargic.. were literally coming to life.. right in front of me!!... I became more aggressive.. and before I knew it.. there were corals begging FOR MORE.. MORE.. MORE... I WATCHED OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS.. TO the point of DAILY measurements.. I Witnessed a phenomenal Growth EXPLOSION.. I just didn't have the time to go into Mosquito breeding.. (I already had (regular as clockwork) African Clowns was overun with.
But. Incredible ALL positive results.. some slightly damaged corals reach full (or near full) recoveries..(??)

 

[Mical]

yes I do but am more interested in what everyone feed torches, hammers and frogspawn, I am having no luck keep the frogspawn happy in my tank while others are growing great, have to be careful with the nutrient load on the tank as its only 40 gallons.

Try CoralVues Easy SPS (regardless if you have SPS) My frogspawn & hammer literally bloomed when I started dosing 3ml per day EasySPS. Attached frogspawn started as a 2 head frag just about 2 years ago, it's now 30+

 

[Metcho]

I don’t directly feed my corals o broadcast feed when lights go off 3ml of acropower 3ml fuel and two scoops of Reef roids. In morning 4ml acropower and 4ml fuel and two scoops reef roids. Po4 stays at 0.03-0.08 nitrates I have set up on a dosing pump I dose ME Corals nitrates 8ml a day they stay at 20. All acros and monti tank. Tanks 4yrs old

 

[hds4216]

I recently got a fathead dendro, which I have to feed as it's NPS.

 

[Nick Steele]

yes I do but am more interested in what everyone feed torches, hammers and frogspawn, I am having no luck keep the frogspawn happy in my tank while others are growing great, have to be careful with the nutrient load on the tank as its only 40 gallons.

I feed my frogspawn reef roids. I tried mysis and some cut up shrimp from rods blend food but it wouldn’t eat anything but reef roids.

 

[sfin52]

I've only target feed the two of the 3 bta. My clown hosts all three but only feeds one.

 

[VAFish]

If you consider dosing acropower daily, then yes I feed my corals. Otherwise I have stopped feeding my corals. I used to feed reef roids 2x a week. All I got was algae.

 

[adtravels]

I think responses 2 and 5 are too similar, if you pool them together and apply the electoral college you can see its too close to call!

 

[Laith]

EasyReef EasySPS (zooplankton) 24x a day via doser and Reef Chili once a week.

The EasySPS has definitely improved coral growth... have had to increase carbonate dosing significantly.

 

[Timfish]

I considered it a few years ago when one of the products was getting a lot of attention locally and looked at the science. Like most everything else in with reef systems there's a lot of species specific variables. What works for one species doesn't work for another and might be detrimental. Variables we can't easily test or can't test for at all may be a factor. Fast growth rates, unfortunately, isn't necesarily an indicator of health so why try to achieve it. So for now the idea is on hold for me.

Fast Growth May Impair Regeneration Capacity in the Branching Coral Acropora muricata

Regeneration of artificially induced lesions was monitored in nubbins of the branching coral Acropora muricata at two reef-flat sites representing contrasting environments at Réunion Island (21°07′S, 55°32′E). Growth ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.4319/lo.2008.53.6.2702

Comparing the capacity of five different dietary treatments to optimise growth and nutritional composition in two scleractinian corals

Developing an optimal heterotrophic feeding regime has the potential to improve captive coral growth and health. This study evaluated the efficacy of three exogenous diets: Artemia nauplii (ART), a commercially available coral diet (Reef Roids) (RR), and a novel, micro-bound diet (ATF), against...

journals.plos.org

Influence of different feeding regimes on the survival, growth, and biochemical composition of Acropora coral recruits

Heterotrophic feeding in newly-settled coral planulae can potentially improve survivorship and accelerate early development in some species; however, an optimal diet to facilitate this does not currently exist. This study evaluated the efficacy of three heterotrophic feeding regimes (enriched...

journals.plos.org

Elucidating an optimal diet for captive Acropora corals

Developing an optimal heterotrophic feeding regime has the potential to improve the growth and overall health of captive corals. This study evaluated …

www.sciencedirect.com

Coral farming: effects of light, water motion and artificial foods

Improved coral cultivation will facilitate the reduction of wild harvesting, reef restoration, preservation of biodiversity, and the use of corals as model experimental organisms. In this study, we examine species-specific responses in growth and

www.academia.edu

Decreased growth of Stylophora pistillata with nutrient-driven elevated zooxanthellae density is largely explained by DIC limitation

High nutrient concentrations are generally known to adversely affect coral calcification. This reduction in calcification rate is often associated with increased zooxanthellae densities, but little is known about the mechanism underlying calcification inhibition. In this study, we assessed the...

reefs.com

Effects of phosphate on growth and skeletal density in the scleractinian coral Acropora muricata: A controlled experimental approach

Phosphate contamination can negatively affect corals, modifying growth rates, skeletal density, reproduction, mortality, and zooxanthellae. We determi…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[Chobits]

I feed my lps twice a week with a pipette. Soak lps pellets and rotifers in Acropower when the lights go out. I have a big skimmer, chaeto and Gfo in a reactor so the nutrient levels are taken care of. Since I have a mixed reef the only option was to keep nutrients low and feed directly at the same time. Now all the corals are thriving.

 

[William Morris]

Try CoralVues Easy SPS (regardless if you have SPS) My frogspawn & hammer literally bloomed when I started dosing 3ml per day EasySPS. Attached frogspawn started as a 2 head frag just about 2 years ago, it's now 30+

Did the dosing impact your nutrient levels?

 

[Alex Cataldo]

I direct fed some trumpet corals awhile ago and the growth increased so much to the point that I stopped. More of an experiment than anything. Now I would rather focus on suplementing amino acids and phytoplankton for SPS corals. And if you can keep chemistry solid for these corals, you will be granted with growth and coloration.

 

[kaceyo]

I target feed Reef Roids Twice a week with a Two Little Fishies coral feeder. It works great for getting the food to corals way down in the back and the rest are a breeze. Started seeing better color in a week or two and growth improved some too. I also fed frozen foods with the R.R.'s but recently started feeding frozen daily. Roids are still twice a week but when the sps grows out a bit more I'll increase that too. Hair algae started to rear it's ugly threads but that was taken care of with GFO and NoPox.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

new to corals so I'm trying this myself for the first time ever so TBD??? Using reef roids for better or for worse supplements by red sea AB+ once a week. Reef roids target feeding 3-4 times a week. See what happens i guess?

 

[ChrisKSB]

I direct fed my very first coral, for the very first time today...it was worth it!

Now I'll go and read this thread and absorb the knowledge...