Coral of the Week ~ Stylophora ~

ThomasinKind · Jun 7, 2007

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I've started to research Ozone but I'm still unsure at this point. The more simple the better and in this case, I think it might mean omitting the soft coral(s) all together. Since the focus of the tank with be on 'Stylos' I can handle not having them, just would be a nice addition.

I should also clarify that the small "cleanup crew" will consist of Cerith snails and maybe one or two Turbo snails. I plan to add them around the 4 month mark or so - possibly later depending on how the rock and shallow sand bed are doing.

Scooterman · Jun 8, 2007

WOW this is just awesome, what a great write-up & a great learning experience.

Curtswearing · Jun 8, 2007

LOL....talk about a blast from the past!!!

I'm kind of glad this post is a Lazarus post. At the time, I was convinced that I knew exactly how to run my new 200G SPS prop tank with all my fancy book learnin' because there should be enough C and N in my tank for sure.

I didn't have one of the more common problems with new SPS keepers which is browning out....I had the complete opposite my colors became a little less vibrant. I upped the flow a little which helped but I know this is going to sound funny but I actually needed to make my water dirtier.

I called Mojo. This was a while back so this is going to be HIGHLY paraphrased and based on memory. He said something along the lines of, "Everyone needs to eat and you get different things from different sources. If your only source of nutrition was a salad, you would be missing some important parts of your diet. You need proteins, carbs, and fats. SPS Corals are no different. They cannot get 100% of their diet from their zoox alone, bacterioplankton alone, bacterioplankton digesting fish poop alone, etc.

Then he said something along the lines of, "With that said, when you get done eating a well balanced meal, what should you do with the 'leftovers'? Do you leave them on the table to be wasted and rot, do you throw them under the table so the kitchen looks clean and let them rot there, or do you throw them away and let them rot in the landfill?" "If your SPS are lightening up, feed them more, but make sure your system has a way of getting rid of the leftovers".

I highly suspect that if that tank had been a 75 or 90 with that light bioload, everything would have been just fine. I just had too many mouths in a 200 and I had to slowly tweak the system.

knowcrap · Jun 8, 2007

Regarding feeding, I once received advice from you (Anthony) that said:

feeding must be heavy for most corals... it is uncommon that a coral gets 90% of its needs from light (acros do for example... but little else). You should presume to feed several tiny feedings daily. A mix of phyto and zoo but mostly zooplankton. I liker to use substitutes like cyclop-eeze, coral-frenzy(.com) and some live phyto (I buy/recommend DTs for nutritional quality over home-grown)

Now reading this thread I get the feeling that you yourself are not actually doing many mico-feedings per day but rather have setup your environment to almost provide a self-sufficient feeding cycle through DSB, refugium and fish load. Of course my perception of your advice may be wrong as you were, I think, referring to a more mixed reef environment whereas in this thread you are more referring to a "SPS only" environment.

My philosophy with feeding is always to start with something like one-sixteenth (slight exaggeration) of the manufactures recommendation and to feed on a more regular basis with these "micro-feedings" and observe how this is effecting both the tank inhabitants and the tank itself. I am now also trying to understand the philosophy you are talking about by to create the flow of a food source in your water column.

Effectively what I have picked up here is that a more constant and consistent flow of food sources (where one is simply trying to provide the proper mix of types as sizes of food...as best as one can) in the water column is the best approach. This does not necessarily mean that one must constantly be adding food to the water column but rather one should develop a system that provides for a more regular flow of potential foods in the water column with supplemental feeding through products to help augment this process.

And to note, I would like to consider myself one of those in the intermediate category...knowing there is more to learn and trying my best to absorb, test and apply knowledge as gained. From my experience to date the two most complex concepts to try and understand have been feeding and water flow.

Much of the advice I received at the local LFS's early on was not heavy on flow and its overall importance nor was I told that feeding can play an important role in coral life. Through advice, reading and prctical application I have learned that both of these, when applied correctly, actually are making a much bigger [positive] impact on our system and our ability to properly care for our system than just "blasting our tank with lighting."

To that end many thanks to you for threads like this and to all the people that contribute...it's been a real eye-opener and being able to see so many positive results from application of others advice, or avoiding others mistakes, is very satisfying!!!

Anthony Calfo · Jun 11, 2007

my feeding habist vary as needed by coral/bioload/system needs. More fish & smaller polyps usually means less organismal feeding efforts with prepared foods. Less fishes and larger polyps in the system might mean that I am nearly shoveling food into the aquarium many times per day.

Stylos are middle of the road... just large enough polyps to eat rotifers and many microfoods (which I generally feed heavily to most tanks)