Do Corals Only Feed at Certain Times?

[neoGeorge]

I've been hoping that my corals get fed when I feed the fish with frozen food 30 minutes after lights-on, but I've seen posts indicating that the right time to feed corals is at lights-off. I don't do target feeding, but the wavemaker swirls small pieces of food through the water column and sump pumps are off during feeding.

Looking for your anecdotal and scientific take on when corals can benefit from a tank feeding.

Corals in my NanoCube 28g include:

• Acans
• Montipora capricomus
• Pavona frondifera
• Blastomussa merletti
• Watermelon mushroom
• Blastomussa wellsi
• Echinopora lamellosa "Alien Eye"
• Rhodactis Frilly Mushroom
• Capnella Green Leather
• Caulustrea furcata green trumpet
• WWC bi-color war
• WWC Honeycomb Leptastrea

Thanks!

 

[DSC reef]

Typically corals like LPS will put out feeders at night to capture food. After some time they can start putting out feeding tentacles during the day. We had a large trachyphyllia, acans and some chalice coral that would have a feeding response everytime food hit the water. You have a very nice tank, well done.

 

[neoGeorge]

Typically corals like LPS will put out feeders at night to capture food. After some time they can start putting out feeding tentacles during the day. We had a large trachyphyllia, acans and some chalice coral that would have a feeding response everytime food hit the water. You have a very nice tank, well done.

Thank you DSC reef!

 

[Dana Riddle]

Very nice tank! Veron, in his Coral ID software, uses a couple dozen traits for identification, one of which is daytime or nighttime polyp expansion. Some corals can be 'trained' to feed by addition of certain agents (I once used a drop of cod liver oil to get polyp expansion) and there are reports that certain amino acids (such as proline) are also activators.

 

[neoGeorge]

Very nice tank! Veron, in his Coral ID software, uses a couple dozen traits for identification, one of which is daytime or nighttime polyp expansion. Some corals can be 'trained' to feed by addition of certain agents (I once used a drop of cod liver oil to get polyp expansion) and there are reports that certain amino acids (such as proline) are also activators.

Thanks Dana!

 

[GoPitt88]

Awesome tank! [emoji7]

 

[DSC reef]

Thank you DSC reef!

Your very welcome

 

[neoGeorge]

Awesome tank! [emoji7]

Thanks GoPitt88!

It's a beginner tank, started 2 years ago. I'm so thankful for Reef2Reef and BRStv; it's been a great journey!

 

[neoGeorge]

Doing a search online, this great article from The Spruce came up:

https://www.thesprucepets.com/when-do-corals-eat-2920840

 

[neoGeorge]

Another good article:

https://www.thesprucepets.com/what-do-corals-eat-2924017

 

[vetteguy53081]

My lights ramp down and upon final stage before moonlights I do the actual feeding. I say actual as I add Aquaforest aminos, coral vitamins during the day

 

[swensos]

After time, my corals began putting out feeders during my scheduled feeding times which are during the peak light times. However, at night, they definitely put out their sweepers/stingers.