Spot feeding technique - Quantity

[Paulip]

Obviously, we like that our corals have a feeding response. I run a mixed tank. Torch corals always respond, obviously.

I spot feed with a pipette. Let me make analogies: If I "dust" the corals, like blowing a puff of smoke, they do not respond. But if I bury them in slurry (about .05-.1 ml mix for 1" frag) , then they close up and secret mucus. Is this the objective?

I use a mix of 50% diluted coral accel and Hikari Marine S (for broad spectrum nutrition). I wonder if I am just irritating them.

Observations
1) negative: I know my leptoseris produces dark stripes (just like when taken out of the water) during these feedings.
2) unknown: Mushrooms have a closed mouth and the "bump" is elevated after they reopen. Puckered mouth?
3) neutral: zoas and torches are known to reject the food after ingesting.

I would really like to keep things simple with one staple food.

 

[AForys]

I feed my coral the juices from defrosted frozen food mixed with roids and reef chili and dust basically everything, and for the meat eaters like acans/nems/plates etc I do the same only I soak pacific plankton or mysis in the mix.

 

[jrpark22000]

Mucas is a proper feeding response. It's one way coral help to grab more food from the water column, by trapping it within mucas.

Coral feeding depends a lot on the polyp size. It's why torch always seem to eat, they can eat most any size. I use to target feed with the TLF "thing" feeder each sps colony, but found it wasn't worth wild. Instead I now broadcast feed, dumping right into the powerheads followed quickly by shutting the powerheads off. It distributes the food evenly and then leaves it suspended for the coral to grab.

Onto food sizing. I combine 4 foods; coral frenzy, reefroids, esv freeze dried and pe calunus. Each has a different nutrient content and grind size. When mixed each possible coral gets a chane to feed on the size of food it prefers.

It's all trial and error for coral growers but this works well for me. It does add quite a bit of nutrients to deal with, so make sure you are prepared to deal with nutrient export.

 

[phish2277]

I use 3 foods: reefroids, pe calunus, and fauna marin. It seems to be working well. I am thinking of adding coral frenzy to the mix to see their response. I know the mixture that I am using seems to work well for my scans. They are growing l like crazy.