Feeding for Coral

[ozy]

Hi

What is the best time to feed the corals? Is it at the begining of the photoperiod or after?

Will it matter?

[bawater]

its too generic of a question.

*Depends on what you keep in the tank.

*Depends on what foods you have to feed.

[ozy]

Oops. Sorry.

I meant feeding planktons. Targeted corals are the SPS and LPS which are photosynthetic. I understand that non photosynthetic like sun coral will be better if I feed in the dark.

The main reason I asked the question is that I have watched an episode of Blue Planet and it mentioned that corals start to feed when it is dark. If the most, if not all corals, starts to feed after dark, then won't it be better I dose the planktons after the photoperiod?

[bawater]

that's correct.

but in the home, some of these corals also get used to day feeding- e.g the sun coral which after a while will extend into feeding mode once you feed the fishes.

If you watch the blue planet series they also stated that there is no other animal that dedicated so much surface area for food capture.

Although photosynthetic , some feed in the day and some at night so feeding both would be optimal.

This ultimately depends on the type of foods you feed - the actual food you feed.

If you want to follow natural feedings - Drip feed phytoplankton during daylight hours(or 3-4hours before lights out). I say drip feed is because this will give you the best of the food- drips will prolong the time that phyto stays in the water even with all the pumps and filters on. Coral are used to feeding for periods(and some 24hrs)-

If you dump everything in,They don't understand that they have to eat in the 30mins that you switch off the pumps. Unless you somehow managed to send them a memo to say that they only have 30mins to eat or starve the rest of the day.

Zooplankton range of foods would be better off fed 1hr-30mins before lights off (or just after lights off), this will follow natural feeding times when zoo rise to the surface during the night to feed on phytoplankton. There is no way you can emulate the amount of food in the water as compared to the wild (if you watch night shots of wild reefs or night dives). Just do the best your filtration can handle.

As i mentioned, it does depend on the corals you keep and the actual specific foods you feed . (there are many bottled foods which just don't have enough nutrition in them).

Plankton is a generic term that can cover a few thousand species.

rgds

[Jun Hong]

I target feed my LPS (e.g. brain, bubble and etc) with mysis once a week when I see their tentacles appear during light off.

[ozy]

Thanx for the advice. This has been most informative and helpful. I will continue to research and be more specific in my future questions.

[corrado]

hi

bawater is right.

I feed only after 2359

where pods activities are supposed to

be more rampant.