Quote Originally Posted by lhoy
How about basic maintenance tips (stirring sand, etc.) that are NEVER written about in Marine books?
The theory behind stirring sand, at least what I have read, is that by doing so you are feeding your corals bacteria released from the sand. Investigation of the gut contents of some corals, especially SPS is that one of their main foods is bacteria coated on small particles such as fine grained sands. Let me see if I can find some more material on that. SPS feeding would be a good topic. I think a lot of the supposed coral "foods" out on the market are probably too large to effectively feed SPS. Something else may be feeding on it, like zoas or anemones, but not SPS. The majority of bacteria are sessile, meaning that they grow on a substrate. What is present in the water column are called planktonic bacteria and are primarily sloughed off from the sessile populations by mechanical action such as water flow ina pipe or something like stirring a sand bed.