What do you feed your corals???

[xximanoobxx]

Idk Just wondering what u guys use...

[cocoa_pleco]

mine catch some loose food that my lunar wrasse flings allover, and i dose some phytoplankton once a week, i throw it in my sump and let it go in the main tank. ive got all photosythetic corals so really nothing needs to be fed

[xximanoobxx]

Oh how bout soft corals such as mushrooms and zoas/paly???
I saw a picture of a zoa eating a small shrimp(maybe adult brine shrimp??)

[cocoa_pleco]

probably a brine shrimp or a large pod

you can feed them and most will take food, but its not needed. ive got softies in my 125g, about 5 zoa patches and 8 mushrooms and they only get free floating food

[xximanoobxx]

oh, so they dont need target feeding

[kaybee]

Mysis shrimp, mostly.

I predominantly target feed (the mysis goes from my tweezers directly to the receiving feeder tentacles of the coral polyp):
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It takes time, though, feeding polyps one by one, but 100% of the food ends up in the oral cavity of the receiving coral. I'm not a big fan of indiscriminant feeding.

The corals which I have that are too small to consume mysis shrimp get obtain their nourishment via light and absorbtion of dissolved organic matter (micro-particulates).

Mushrooms, zoa's and paly's can eat mysis as well. Palys have the best feeding response (they tend to capture mysis shrimp like a venus fly trap closing in on an insect). Some corals have stronger and more visible 'prey capture' capability than others (food items being quickly seized and 'swallowed'). I have some corals which readily 'stick' to my tweezer as they engage their stinging nemotocyst cells on their feeder tentacles.

Due to the weaker 'prey capture' capability of common mushroom and zoanthid nematocysts, these will take mysis if target fed. The mushroom, for example will slowly curl around the shrimp and guide mysis slowly down its maw. Larger zoathids can also engulf mysis, though smaller zoathids may not be able to take in anything larger than specks.

You can tell when zoathids (and mushrooms, for that matter) are consuming micro-particulates because the mouths at their centers will be open. But to consume larger foods, they must be target fed (or be lucky to have a larger food item fall on them and not be taken by the water flow or a fish).

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

Depends on what kind of coral I'm feeding. My Frogspawn, Candy Canes, Torch, and Hammers all get mysis, a carnivorous blend, and chopped krill. My Bubble Coral gets a whole krill once a week. My soft corals (Toadstool, Zoanthids, Xenia, Kenya Tree, and Green Star Polyps) that "filter feed" get Phytoplankton and Zooplankton.

[kaybee]

...on some occasions, though, I do feed 'indiscriminently', since it's impossible to effectively target feed when the food is frozen cyclopeeze, rotifers or re-hydrated powder food such as Reef Roids, etc.

But very infrequently, maybe once every 45 days (as a treat for my filter feeding porcelein crab and one of my SPS corals), a few squirts of the smaller stuff.

On the other end of the spectrum, I've got a coral in 'solitary confinement' (a pseudocorynactis deemed, 'the mushroom of death') which takes large food items, such as 3" shrimp from the sea market.

[Dr.Fragenstein]

Cocoa, in recent studies done by Dr.Shimek among others, even SPS that was thought to get upwards to 95% of their energy from light are now bumped down to at tops 80%-85% from light and the rest from capturing small zooplankton.
I agree w/ the whole different corals different foods thing.... I like frozen fish eggs for my LPS, they are small, packed w/ protein and are quickly and easily "eaten" by corals. Fish love them too.

[jimpierce]

I feed my suns cyclopeeze and mysis shrimp once in awhile.

[Fishguy2727]

I feed the tank Cyclop-eeze, DT's, Brightwell Aquatics' Zooplankton, and NLS SW flakes. The anemone gets one silverside every week.