Feeding SPS day or night?

[Chris Spaulding]

What time day or night is the best time to feed SPS. During the day I see what I would call good polyp extension but at night its a whole other world. GREAT polyp extension on my SPS

 

[SeaDweller]

I heard it doesn’t matter as supposedly a lot of sps lose their digestive ability once adapted to aquarium life, per Vincent Chalias.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

I don’t know it really matters or not, but I dose my amino acids as soon as I get home because my skimmer is off while the lights are on.

 

[smartwater101]

In captivity, many corals will get used to feeding during the day and extend their tentacles during that time. It really doesn't matter, though. Feeding is supplemental.

 

[jda]

I am of the opinion that it won't matter since you are just feeding the SPS on the backend with the ammonia, nitrate and phosphorous that the food will have once digested by bacteria. I do not think that we people feed their SPS actually feeds them directly - LPS, softies and NPS are totally different story. The PE difference is for gas exchange -no photosynthesis with the lights out, so corals have to put polyps out to respirate more.

 

[bar|none]

I don’t know it really matters or not, but I dose my amino acids as soon as I get home because my skimmer is off while the lights are on.

Curious why you have skimmer off when lights are on?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I was told by a few people that they tend to feed more at night in nature, but I agree that it really doesn't matter when you feed. They can be conditioned to eat during the day.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Curious why you have skimmer off when lights are on?

So they have more nutrition in the water column when they’re getting blasted. And to minimize the ph fluctuation, even though I don’t monitor ph, hahah. Plus Dana Riddle says that’s what he does.

 

[smartwater101]

So they have more nutrition in the water column when they’re getting blasted. And to minimize the ph fluctuation, even though I don’t monitor ph, hahah. Plus Dana Riddle says that’s what he does.

If I remember correctly, most companies recommend turning off the skimmer when dosing Aminos anyway. At least I hope I'm remembering that correctly, because if not, I'm turning off my skimmer for a couple hours for no good reason lol

 

[DarkSky]

My SPS get fed whenever a fish poops or expels ammonia.

 

[Chris Spaulding]

Thank you. I have been broadcast feeding Benepets one time every week. I just noticed that the polyp extension at night is much greater so was thinking maybe I should do this at night so they can catch more with their polyps.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I heard it doesn’t matter as supposedly a lot of sps lose their digestive ability once adapted to aquarium life, per Vincent Chalias.

Yea I lean more towards vincents thinking. On the other hand Dana will probably say they do eat foods. He was talking about a short experiment where they fed one coral daily and it developed thicker branches and more mass than the other coral that wasn’t fed.
The only thing that I can think of that might support Dana’s findings is the blue coral method and how they feed Ponape food and certain corals grew huge massive structures very quickly. I believe the food is helpful after it is broken down though and the food is just feeding the microfauna in the tank more than the corals.