What do you feed your corals?

[Reefkeeper]

What do most people feed their corals? I had been feeding DT's live phyto and Kent Phytoplex but someone recently stated that I should be feeding them differently that they need animal matter not phyto plankton.

I have pom pom xenia, another species of xenia, kenya tree, GSP, Hairy mushrooms, and pimply mushrooms, so nothing that hard to keep.

What do you use? Any recommendations?

Thanks.

[Therapy]

Do you really need to feed anything? Seems to me like most of your stuff is photosynthetic.
There is always cyclopeeze

[Dannyboy]

I have pom pom xenia, another species of xenia, kenya tree, GSP, Hairy mushrooms, and pimply mushrooms, so nothing that hard to keep. Out of that list, only the kenya tree would benefit from what your feeding. All the rest are not filterfeeders. Besides that your just polluting the water with uneaten food. Your corals would probably do better without all the extra food.

[Reefkeeper]

I fogot to mention the featherdusters...which is why I initially bought the phytoplankton. ALthough I think my Peppermints dispatched them into the great sea in the sky.

I guess I will stop feeding this stuff until I get some more filter feeders.

[MrKrispy]

I think feather dusters will take some of the phyto. It is really tough to find good answers about what to feed reef inverts, because there isn't a lot of reproduced scientific tests. Assuming DTs is the best because it is alive still, it is limited to a few size plantkons. We don't have real data that tells us which inverts like which size(s) plankton. I think phyto is okay to dose in very conservative quantities, it is great to establish the food web (the marketing people are actually honest there). Larger tanks and those that are mature probably don't really need any planktonic supplements. I still use small amounts of DTs in my 20L for the pods, dusters, etc... but I don't know if they even eat it. They are still alive after a couple of years and reproducing, so I don't want to risk starving them all to death. SPS don't directly uptake phyto, but it feeds the larger plankton (zooplankton; animals not plants) that SPS will eat. LPS like frogspawn, brains, and rics are better getting directly fed large chunks of food like mysis shrimp. You can get the leftovers out of the tank to keep from polluting it.

I prefer to keep a reef tank, not a "sps tank" or coral-only tank, so I try to keep the community alive. If you are concentrating on corals only, I would't bother.

(As far xenia and leather- type softies I have no idea. sorry!)

[Reefkeeper]

Definitely a reef tank with varying inverts and fish in my system. I have always dosed some sort of invert specialty food specifically designed for the varying animals in the system. For example, in the early 90's my 55 had tons of anenomes, mushrooms, varying polyps, calupera growing in the tank (it was legal then), plus the different animals.

All of the anenomes were hand fed chunks of fish, squid, and other marine inverts. The mushrooms and polyps were being fed some sort of invertebrate smorgasboard which was recommended at the time. (It was mostly for the mushrooms, although the polyps were listed as benefiting from it)

In the mid 90s when I got xenia for the first time, the owner of the store I used to go to told me that they were told to add similar additives. Its been over a decade since then and Xenia was brand new to the market then, so I am sure they probably recommend different things now.

[MrKrispy]

I wouldn't think Xenia need anything, they are weeds. Supposedly they need iodine, but I don't know if that is necessary if you do water changes.

[Dannyboy]

I've even heard people say they feed their xenia brine shrimp and swear they eat it. Yeah right! I cant tell you how many times I have burned entire colonies of Xenia by trying to add extra iodine and only when I dont add anything to the tank, it thrives.

[Skuzzlebutt]

I have xenia, mushrooms and zoas right now. I am planning to add a frog spawn and/or torch in the near future. Ron at OG reccomended using BioVital (that's what I think it is called) to help with coral growth. He admitted that it was kind of voodoo because he didn't know how it worked, but swore he had ALOT more coral growth in his tanks when he used it. That sounded good enough for me!