SPS feeding on phytoplankton

[Ike]

Sounds like a good idea for an experiment. Keep a full blown sps tank healthy with no feeding or fish but dosing N an P to keep levels up.

While it wasn't controlled, I tried something similar years ago after losing several fish from a power outage. It went very poorly and things didn't get back on track until I added fish and fed them well again. Acropora and montipora suffered mightily for months and keeping up with liquid N and P supplements became a downward spiral of dosing more and more and struggling to balance N and P ratios. This was with my TOTM tank a few years prior to the article in my sig.

However, one of my big mistakes in "experimenting" with N and P dosing was using various forms of nitrate nitrate instead of urea, ammonium, or more readily used sources of N.

 

[C. Eymann]

Incorrect ausation and jumps to false conclusions in this hobby runs rampant. JDA makes some good points. In many cases, dumping x into a tank and leading to improvements in growth and coral health leads to the false conclusion that the corals is utilizing and consuming x, when the reason for improvement is often probably as simple as adding something that can break down into P and or N to a nutrient starved tank will yield positive results. The likely reality is that you could probably toss a dead fish or some poop a tank, and as long is the system can handle the input and not get dangerously high levels of anything you will see improvement. Even something as simple as iodide could be a factor, if it's limited corals won't grow. Add some food source or something that can break down into N and P and you're indirectly adding a food source regardless if if the inhabitant can utilize it directly.

The above is probably why so many falsely believe amino acid supplements are beneficial when then it's likely they're just adding some N to an N limited tank.

So you are implying Acropora do not benefit from particulate food capture?, that as long as N/P is provided corals will not benefit from ingested food/suspended planktons/micro fauna?

Why did evolution give corals a mouth? lol I honestly cant believe we are really debating this?



There are have been peer reviewed studies on the subject, mostly using filtered seawater (no food items for capture) for control, and unfiltered seawater (full of natural food items) as well as a (coral food) formulated by AIMS and another group given rotifers.

Corals being fed suspened food items either by raw seawater, rotifers or the AIMS coral food diet not only grew faster, but had lower mortality rates as well compared to the control grown in filtered natural seawater.

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

another study

Interactions between zooplankton feeding, photosynthesis and skeletal growth in the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata - PubMed

We investigated the effect of zooplankton feeding on tissue and skeletal growth of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata. Microcolonies were divided into two groups: starved corals (SC), which were not fed during the experiment, and fed corals (FC), which were abundantly fed with Artemia...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This is a good article to read up on as well

Coral Feeding: An Overview

At present, several factors which influence the growth of scleractinian corals in aquaculture have been identified. These are known as light, water flow, water quality, and nutrition. This article will focus on nutrition, and describe the various ways in which corals feed. It will summarize the...

reefs.com

 

[flampton]

You definitely can do a tank without feeding food imo, but you'll need to add ammonia, phosphate and carbon. Since the water column in a tank is tiny you can't rely on the phototrophic bacterial population. You'll need to expand your heterotrophic population. In essence you'll be feeding bacteria, which can be consumed, as well as the bacteria will feed microzooplankton which can be consumed.

In reality this is still feeding but not in the classical sense with adding preformed complex organics

 

[Ike]

So you are implying Acropora do not benefit from particulate food capture?, that as long as N/P is provided corals will not benefit from ingested food/suspended planktons/micro fauna?

Why did evolution give corals a mouth? lol I honestly cant believe we are really debating this?



There are have been peer reviewed studies on the subject, mostly using filtered seawater (no food items for capture) for control, and unfiltered seawater (full of natural food items) as well as a (coral food) formulated by AIMS and another group given rotifers.

Corals being fed suspened food items either by raw seawater, rotifers or the AIMS coral food diet not only grew faster, but had lower mortality rates as well compared to the control grown in filtered natural seawater.

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

Interactions between zooplankton feeding, photosynthesis and skeletal growth in the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata - PubMed

We investigated the effect of zooplankton feeding on tissue and skeletal growth of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata. Microcolonies were divided into two groups: starved corals (SC), which were not fed during the experiment, and fed corals (FC), which were abundantly fed with Artemia...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This is a good article to read up on as well

Coral Feeding: An Overview

At present, several factors which influence the growth of scleractinian corals in aquaculture have been identified. These are known as light, water flow, water quality, and nutrition. This article will focus on nutrition, and describe the various ways in which corals feed. It will summarize the...

reefs.com

You're drawing false conclusions and making assumptions. At no point did I say they won't benefit from prey capture, but the "prey" needs to be of appropriate size and makeup for the coral to actually utilize it directly. Many corals foods, including those purpoted to b e "sps food" have a micron size larger than what we believe acropora are capable of ingesting and/or digesting. Capture is only one part of it.

Your mouth statement is also based on false logic and assumptions, so I can't believe you're so confidently laughing mocking what's been said. Humans and many other species have many unnecessary physiological traits that have become useless or mostly superfluous or are simply random. That doesn't mean I'm saying corals mouths are that, but it's been shown pretty conclusively that prey capture doesn't make up a significant portion of many photosynthetic sclerectinians nutritional needs, and research and studies that I've seen suggests that many acropora and other genus are at least capable of being highly autotropic.

What you're doing is why we have had a lot of supplements come and go, taking snippets from studies and drawing unintended or unproven conclusions is precisely why we have and had misinformation in this hobby. Too many armchair scientists drawing false conclusions. It's why supplements like strontium existed , went away, and then existed again. It's also why phytoplankton as coral food has been based on misinformation for decades. And yes, there was a time that phytoplankton was widely used and pushed based on misapplication or twisting of the intended conclusions of studies and the false belief that if it's present, it must be needed or useful...

 

[C. Eymann]

You're drawing false conclusions and making assumptions. At no point did I say they won't benefit from prey capture, but the "prey" needs to be of appropriate size and makeup for the coral to actually utilize it directly. Many corals foods, including those purpoted to b e "sps food" have a micron size larger than what we believe acropora are capable of ingesting and/or digesting.

Your mouth statement is also based on false logic and assumptions, so I can't believe you're so confidently laughing mocking what's been said. Humans and many other species have many unnecessary physiological traits that have become useless or mostly superfluous or are simply random. That doesn't mean I'm saying corals mouths are that, but it's been shown pretty conclusively that prey capture doesn't make up a significant portion of many photosynthetic sclerectinians nutritional needs, and research and studies that I've seen suggests that many acropora and other genus are at least capable of being highly autotropic.

Nowhere did I say food capture is absolutely necessary for survival. My argument was there are benefits to be had with providing the appropriate suspended food items in captivity.

If we agree on that, then what are we debating here?

Mocking? seriously dude? I was trying to keep this civil?

False logic? on the assumption that coral have evolved to have mouths and means of digestion because they might use these for benefit by eating/digesting food ?

Now that I will laugh at !

Your above post comes off as pretty stuck up and rude if you ask me? is that your form of backpedaling?

 

[drawman]

It seems to be generally thought that stony corals do not feed on phytoplankton, but rather zooplankton.

I've been seeing some amount of research from the last 5-10 yrs indicating that might not be true. However, this has all been with species I don't believe are commonly kept in reef keeping.

I finally found some research that seems more relevant; various acropora species feeding on phytoplankton.

Elucidating an optimal diet for captive Acropora corals

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

Tldr; they found various acropora species grow well on Isochrysis galbana.

I can't find a public/free version of the paper, but I might have to pay up for access.

I am curious whether they were feeding live phyto and if/how they measured the consumption rates.

Just read most of the materials and methods and results. They were culturing live phytoplankton that they were harvesting daily.

Now I'm not sure if some of the nutrients from these cultures were making it into the tank. They were diluting the harvested phytoplankton in 4L of saltwater but they didn't seem to elaborate.

The acropora samples were allowed to grow for 90 days. It would be interesting to run this study for a longer time period to potentially allow for more statistical significance.

If everyone wants to get up in arms about application well it would be nice to have a systematic review or meta-analysis but this is still better than expert opinion. It would be interesting for someone that wants to implement a low bioload or fishless system which seems like a heroic feat for acropora growers. For everyone else easy street lies with a tank with a high fish load .

 

[Ike]

Are you proposing Acropora do not feed on particulate matter and /or bacteria from the water column?

- There was never really a widespread mentality of "you can't have a successful reef without dosing live phytoplankton"

-Oystereggs, cyclops, marine snow etc etc a "punchline"? and not used anymore? huh?


Acropora do indeed capture food items and bacteria from the water column, if not why would their axial polyps have a much larger ratio of nematocysts : zooanxthelle than radial corallite polyps?

other than "coral -coral warfare and anti predation" why have nemtocysts at all? why have mouths? why have gastic cavities?

I debated this with you shortly after I migrated from RC onto this forum about a year ago, and you disputed that axial polyp extension was strictly for "gas exchange" and had nothing to do with food capture.
Id be glad to post articles/links that reinforce this again, not to throw stones, but a few months ago, in Chaswoods Sunday driver thread, it seemed you didn't really know what an axial or incipient axial corallite was at all ?


Just saying, its brash of you to post on here about this topic in a matter of fact type of way, claiming many widely used coral foods and supplements are just a "phase" or "trend" and are essentially useless in that the coral cannot utilize these supplements for benefit at all..

While I do agree gathering reliable data concerning their effectiveness/benefits would be difficult considering all the variables in a closed reef system.

However, it seems like this post was you claiming every coral food supplement out there is a sham and that sps coral, acropora in particular receive zero nutritional value from food capture?

did I understand that right?

Nowhere did I say food capture is absolutely necessary for survival. My argument was there are benefits to be had with providing the appropriate suspended food items in captivity.

If we agree on that, then what are we debating here?

Mocking? seriously dude? I was trying to keep this civil?

False logic? on the assumption that coral have evolved to have mouths and means of digestion because they might use these for benefit by eating/digesting food ?

Now that I will laugh at !

Your above post comes off as pretty stuck up and rude if you ask me? is that your form of backpedaling?

Nowhere did I say food capture is absolutely necessary for survival. My argument was there are benefits to be had with providing the appropriate suspended food items in captivity.

If we agree on that, then what are we debating here?

Mocking? seriously dude? I was trying to keep this civil?

False logic? on the assumption that coral have evolved to have mouths and means of digestion because they might use these for benefit by eating/digesting food ?

Now that I will laugh at !

Your above post comes off as pretty stuck up and rude if you ask me? is that your form of backpedaling?

No, I don't seem to be the one back pedaling, nor the one that was calling people brash, stuck up, rude... If you'd like to have an actual debate that follows and is cogent rather than just making false and bold statements and resorting to red herrings and ad hominem attacks when called out I'd be happy to discuss. Until then, take care.

 

[C. Eymann]

No, I don't seem to be the one back pedaling, nor the one that was calling people brash, stuck up, rude... If you'd like to have an actual debate that follows and is cogent rather than just making false and bold statements and resorting to red herrings and ad hominem attacks when called out I'd be happy to discuss. Until then, take care.

Thanks for quoting those posts

I believe I have provided credible studies results and sources in this thread proving the point I was making in my posts?


Have you? No

Other than you just making baseless claims, what credibly do your statements have?

Sources? other than your hunch ?


Until you come up with credibile sources to back up your statements

Im leaving this thread.

toodles

 

[josephxsxn]

Leaving some of the above aside. I do think the study the OP found with it's highlights are pretty neat. The idea that Iso is of particular benefit just reenforces it to me of it's importance in the big 3 plaktons. Today I already dose plankton so no change for me but I have considered culturing my own and this makes me consider doing more then just Nano.

 

[Sallstrom]

About the article which this thread started with, Ive read method and result parts and I think it was a good experiment showing that their live Isochyssis treatment resulted in the highest gained weight after 90 days.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I really want to read the whole thing and am thinking about paying for a days rental. Although I always seem to find things in these experiments which make me think that they won’t translate the same way to our tanks. There is so much we don’t know about these corals still so any decent study that is done is very intriguing to me.

 

[Superlightman]

they are news since ?

 

[C. Eymann]

they are news since ?

Well, this happened

Caught Acro eating with polyps

I just caught my yellow tips tort eating either fish waste or coral waste from another coral. I NEVER thought acro polyps could CONSUME food but yeah they can apparently. I thought they were like montipora where the polyps just host dinos for photosynthesis. sorry for quality my camera...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[atlantean]

Started dosing isochrysis to put the final nail in the coffin of my Dinos (their complete disappearance happened after a week of dosing). Noticed more acro polyp activity after dark since dosing.