feeding LPS corals?

[bprewit]

I know that nothing is written in stone when it comes to reef tanks and everyone has a different method that works great for them and not so great for others. I am wondering what people feed their lps corals like open brain, frogspawn, etc. and how often they feed as well as how much they feed at a time? I feed my lps corals things like flounder, shrimp, basically whatever fresh seafood that I find at grocery store. I feed probably every other day for awhile then once a week for awhile. The corals seem to excrete waste much more often but my sailfin tang sits and waits for the corals to do this as the nasty little bugger loves to eat their waste so dont see that feeding them has caused any excess pollution in the tank. I used to never feed them and just kept strong lighting but noticed little to no growth of the corals so started feeding and they responded by opening more, noticable growth, and better color. I dump fresh hatched baby brine in the tank but only every couple of weeks at best for other corals that I have seen eat them like my flower pot coral, polys, and a couple of other corals that were sold to me as acopora but later discovered some type of psammocora. I am wondering if kent zooplex would be as good as baby brine? Is there a better product out there for clams, soft corals, polyps. etc? Thanks for any info

Brent

[kakfish]

Small pieces of shrimp and even Formula I and II and very good for your LPS corals. At the base for the food chain is phytoplankton and all corals including Sponges and Tube Worms would enjoy the stuff. Clams for sure. You can use Kent Phytoplex or you can go to www.brineshrimpdirect.com and order the Tahitian Blend 500ml. The Kent would be expensive to use in larger aquariums. The Tahitian Blend would be the ticket if your into saving money.

Ken
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[matt]

Just remember that most stony corals don't eat phytoplankton, but need zooplankton. The phytoplankton feeds sand bed animals, which then produce zooplankton (larvae) which can help keep stony corals fed. I found my lps corals accept krill, formula 1, 2, and especially formula VHP.

I remember Ken telling me to feed a mixture of decapsulated brine shrimp eggs and nanochloropsis (sp?) which is one of the main ingredients in Tahitian blend. I did this for over a year (still do) to build a healthy sand bed. DTs live phyto has the reputation for being the best, but most expensive, phytoplankton food. since I switched to DTs from algae pastes, I definitely notice less problem algae and overall a more "healthy" looking tank.

Matt

[kakfish]

Ditto on the VHP Matt

Ken
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[fx300]

Can this food be used for SPS?

Fabian

[kakfish]

SPS corals feed on many types of foods. IMO I believe these are the front runners.

Light, Zooplankton (very small micron), Phytoplankton, Detritus, and Fish feces.

Probably in that order too.

Ken
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