How to Feed a Chalice...

tangboy · Mar 10, 2011

Was feeding some mysis to some of my Duncans, Acans, Favias and was wanting to try feeding my chalices. How does one go about that? Just place a single mysis on each eye?

I noticed before I turned pumps/PHs back on that one of the eyes on my Pink eyed WM Chalice was opening up but it was a VERY slow/small process compared to Acans and Favias.

Thanks in advance!

fsu1dolfan · Mar 10, 2011

Yeah my chalice eats much slower than everything else. I use my turkey baster and dump some food over it....some eyes pick it up and eat.

foxhuntr · Mar 10, 2011

my chalices put thier feeders out about an hour after lights off......i just mix some mysis,brine and cyclops in a cup of salt water and use a turkey baster and squirt it over the feeders.....they grab it and pull it into thier mouths....

tangboy · Mar 10, 2011

I guess the eyes on my chalices (still 1 or 2 eyed frags) are still too small to get feeders out or have not quite adjusted to being in the tank after 1 or 2 weeks...

akabryanhall · Mar 10, 2011

For me, mysis are way to big to feed my chalices, I used to use cyclopeez, but you have to be careful about using it too much and fouling up your water.

gqjeff · Mar 10, 2011

Use fauna marine lps pellets or the fm Zoo/lps food.

Sea MunnKey · Mar 10, 2011

Turn off all powerheads, wavemakers etc. and slowly spray small particle foods like brine or mysis shrimps via turkey baster on top of the Chalice and especially around or on top of the mouths area. The less water movement the better the chance for the chalice to grab the food. I would usually leave the powerheads off for at least a minimum less than 2 hours.

Fish and shrimps are a problem as they tend to pick the food and spit them elsewhere even though they've been heavily fed prior to Chalice feeding. All the reason why I don't like too many fish in a tank but more like confine to a fish only tank ... if possible.

Paul

swannyson7 · Mar 10, 2011

You may also want to cut the top off of a soda bottle or water bottle to keep them shielded from fish. They have a poor feedong response, so they're easy prey for hungry fish.

Rayzback · Mar 10, 2011

I've been using an funnel turned upside down recently. I bought a glass one off ebay... and the weight of the glass keeps it held down. No need to turn off the pumps, and they have all the time in the world to feed uninterrupted.

fsu1dolfan · Mar 10, 2011

tangboy said:
I guess the eyes on my chalices (still 1 or 2 eyed frags) are still too small to get feeders out or have not quite adjusted to being in the tank after 1 or 2 weeks...

I am pretty sure that some chalices have larger feeders than others....mine is a pretty large colony and i rarely ever see the feeders.

Great tip with the bottle/glass/funnel. Works well with all kinds of corals!

tangboy · Mar 10, 2011

I am not getting any fish for quite a long time, I like keeping it simple with just corals that don't HAVE to be fed but CAN be fed if I want to spur on growth.

I turn off all pumps and power heads and use large pipettes to feed what I can. I tweezer mysis for the Acans and Favia because it's easier to drop them on the mouths then to slowly push a pipette :/

I will try smaller bits spread on the surface of the chalice for a longer period of time.