In the wild corals eat a lot. Check out the presentation that Jake Adams posted on Reefbuilders yesterday. The coral farmer from Indonesia talks about how often the water there is turbid with various types of food (algal blooms, etc). So, I think feeding can play a role in our tanks. The problem is no one knows what the ideal is, if any. FWIW, I try to feed reef roids at least once a week as a broadcast. I also think scraping the tank walls helps. And of course, feeding the fish heavily so they poop a lot and produce plenty of nitrates and phosphates is important.
I agree completely about feeding habits in the wild. I feed as much as I can and still keep nutrients from blowing up and causing browning.
I just posted something regarding this. I have fed aminos, coral food etc while keeping PO4 at .03-.05 ppm (Hanna ULR). The SPS color and PE hasn't been great. I recently was out of town for a week and set up an auto feeder to dump a mixture of pellets and flake in the water twice a day. When I returned my sand bed was very colorful and the glass was filthy. When I peered through the filth the SPS color and PE was dramatically improved. Alk consumption had spiked. I had no idea I could see such a quick, positive reaction in my SPS. For my tank it seems dirtier water in general is better. The pellets are that Neptune stuff coated in coral food, perhaps that's magic? I can deal with the extra cleaning duty if this is the result.
Also I agree with this. I have always had dirtier tanks and great color. The threshold for nitrate seems really high before you start to see browning; Im talking 40ish. On the other hand, my last system, a 75 gal mixed reef with massive tidal current flow and 3 x 250 w MH + VHO actinic, was extremely dirty - red on the api scale no matter what I did or how many water changes, had chaeto (though knowing what I know now, nowhere near intense enough light on it) and skimmer... It stayed high. But nothing in it suffered.... Fish thrived, nems probably couldve been healthier now that I think about it but they didn't die, LPS grew, softies grew, and sps grew like crazy with amazing colors. That system defied what just about anyone will tell you about sps. lol
My current tank still runs dirty but within much lower ranges.... nitrates 7-20 ( I try not to let it get that high but occasionally it creeps up that high) and phosphates .03 to .5 at the highest - but I did start to see colors fading a bit when that happened. Averaging nitrates 10-12 and po4 .04 seems to be the sweet spot in my tank where everything is really happy with great color and PE.
As for what I use..... kalk and
BRS pharma calcium when I don't want to raise my pH anymore; Randy's 2-part for alk as needed (I use one recipe when pH needs a boost and the other when it's where I want it); and I've tried several mg supplements all with good results (Brightwell Mg Hydrate, Randy's recipe, and B-ionic). I also use red sea colors if it's more than a week or so since my last wc. For "food" I mix roids and
BRS reef chili, reef nutrition eggs, and phyto and do a somewhat target sweeping feed. I have aminos but since my nutrients are always a bit high I see no need to use them.
