Target feeding gone wrong!?

[mschrissygil]

I normally just shut my pumps off and pour in my mix of tank water, frozen Spirulina, frozen mysis, frozen Prime Reef and frozen baby brine. A couple of weeks ago, I got some free samples of Coral Frenzy from the LFS, so I added 1/4 tsp mixed with a cup of tank water by itself and poured it in with the pumps off the first time. The second time I put 1/4 teaspoon into my frozen concoction and poured it in with the pumps off. Yesterday, I decided to target feed the concoction and everything seems the same except for my purple Pocci. Everywhere the mixture hit turned brown
Has anyone else experienced this? The only thing I did differently was target feed the SPS and add the coral Frenzy. I know it has to do with the target feeding...Do you guys think it's the Coral Frenzy or something else from the mixture??

Tank parameters as of 2 days ago:
Nitrates 20 (work in progress trying to get them down)
PH 8.4
Calcium 440
KH 10
Magnesium 1250
SG 1.026

Here are some pictures (taken the day before) of what it used to look like

 

[mschrissygil]

Here is what it looked like last night (a few hours after feeding) and 2 more of it this morning.

 

[DonW]

Could just be the mass of nutrients. Sps don't need target feeding or any feeding for that mater. Most of what your feeding is way to big for sps. Its better for maybe lps and fish.

Don

 

[Bricky]

SPS do need feeding. Yes they can 'sustain' themselves by light, but they will use the extra energy from the food (coral frenzy, cyclopeeze, and many other small micron foods) to actually propel their growth. Why esle do SPS have a polyp, and why does that polyp extend itself more at night (when zooplankton is more widely available)? To feed.

Try target feeding the coral with cyclopeeze and see what happens. Polyps would grab up that food in a heartbeat. As far as the color goes, yes you may have raised the level of phosphate in the tank, or like you are thinking the coral frenzy may given your pocci its color. Although I think the color change is only temporary.

 

[mschrissygil]

I was mixing it with the other foods and target feeding because of some posts that I read in the Coral Frenzy forum on here.

I have found the best way to feed it is to mix it up vigoursly in a cup of water and then let set for 10 minutes or so. Then I turn off all my pumps and either target feed or dump in and let it just hang in the water column. I did this one night and actually saw my red goni grabbing food and ingesting it.

i have one Q i put brineshrimp in with it and lat it set for 1 hr to feed my fish at the same time is this a goog idea and good for the fish or no.

Yes, that is a great way to feed. Your fish will love it, too. Just make sure you don't feed too much, this goes for any type of food.

Thank you for trying it.

Since it was all mixed in together I figured the SPS would just grab what they wanted.

 

[DonW]

My understanding is that sps feed on zooplankton in the 1-30 micron range. Frozen brine, mysis and prime reef would be many if not hundreds of times larger. Coral frenzy along with the other stuff is packed with P and who know what else. Detritus along with good lighting is plenty for sps. They may actually catch a lot of foods but do they consume it? There are many people that swear sps need no direct feeding and a handfull that see results by feeding. Personally the only result I've seen from attempted target feeding have been negetive with foods in the 1-30 micron ranges. This would lead me to believe the corals are actually consuming the small foods producing a high nutrient browning. Vs larger foods that have no affect on color with the same high nutrient levels, I would assume because they are not actually consuming the higher micron sized foods.

In theory anyways

Don

 

[Darthv247]

every coral is different IMO. but yeah most sps will eat smaller foods. Ive heard people say that blastmussa will not eat anything target fed to them which is not true of all blastmussa. i have some large polyped aussie blastos that eat mysis etc when target fed so who knows.

 

[Bricky]

I do agree with you Don on the larger size foods. I know if you were to ask Dang (Tamarindthai) if he thought that feeding was beneficial I'm sure you would get a resounding yes. My understanding is that he feeds every night after the lights have been off for an hour or so. He was feeding rotifers and cyclopeeze last I spoke with him. He has had great success with color and growth as I'm sure most are aware.

An experiment could also be done to see if feeding is worth our time. Turn off the lights on a tank that has sps in it. Then just feed that tank with a zooplankton type food that is suitable for sps. I'd bet that the corals would live. I'm sure they would lack color, but I'm confident that they would live. Ofcourse you wouldn't want to do this experiment on your DT.

 

[returnofsid]

According to Anthony Calfo, feeding corals is not only recommended but necessary. Although, this was in his Coral Propagation book, and might have been meant for corals grown under natural lighting.

I've noticed good results from feeding Coral Frenzy and frozen Cyclopeeze, with my SPS and LPS corals.

Corals turning brown, from feeding, could be a result of the zooanthella algae benefiting more from the food than the coral.

 

[tamarindthai]

get them the food size so they can swallow ,, and find the time for them when they are ready for dinner ,,then feed,,like Bricky said
then they will grow

 

[kevinpo]

Hello,
Coral feeding is a quite complicated subject. One of the causes is the diversity of corals themselves. Some corals can receive more than 150% of their daily nutritional requirement from photosynthesis while others less than 10%. As a general rule corals in the home aquarium will need more/different foods than can solely be supplied by photosynthesis (20-50%) such as vitamins and certain fatty acids .

Regarding SPS corals they are mostly carnivores consuming zooplankton (many of which are larva or eggs of a wide variety of worms, copepods, etc.). They also eat Bacterioplankton, Pseudoplankton, and dissolved organic matter. In the wild the above increase to much higher levels after sunset and trigger a feeding response exhibited by the corals as greatly increased polyp extension. Corals are very chemo receptive and can detect low levels of amino acids produced by the zooplankton. You will notice some SPS corals learn to extend their polyps during the day in the home aquarium. Most of us have a substantial fish load in our aquariums which can provide a significant source of bacteria and detritus that can be utilized by corals.

It's late so this is the short version I hope it is of some use though.

Cheers,
Kevin

 

[returnofsid]

Very useful Kevin and thanks!! So it's the fish waste, and excess fish food that the corals are responding to, during the day? So with a decent fish load, corals will get fed, whether we specifically feed them or not.

 

[brandyrb]

I've seen my sps catch and eat mysis shrimp and frozed formula one pieces when I feed the fish, not just hold onto it with their polyps. The food slowly disappears. I've seen my oregon tort, paletta blue and blue tenuis do this.

I can't tell if they actually catch and eat the cyclopeze and rotifers when I feed them, but I imagine they do.

I don't spot feed the sps. I'll spot feed the lps every now and then though.

 

[kevinpo]

Very useful Kevin and thanks!! So it's the fish waste, and excess fish food that the corals are responding to, during the day? So with a decent fish load, corals will get fed, whether we specifically feed them or not.

That is correct. Corals can be very selective about food type and particle size. Corals also have the ability to directly absorb nutrients including free amino acids from the water column. The same coral may exhibit different polyp extension under light intensity variations. Under lower light conditions a coral may try to compensate by trying to capture more food with extreme polyp extension.

One of the problems with feeding SPS is determining the right amount. It is easy to overfeed. IMO/IME if you have nitrates registering you are feeding too much. The goal with SPS corals is to have a balance between nitrogen compound generation and consumption.

Testing has shown the elevated levels of ammonium will cause zooxanthellae to increase and restrict coral calcification by over competition for inorganic carbon. Browning of the coral can be an indication of zooxanthellae population increase due to overfeeding.

Cheers,
Kevin



References:
Hoegh-Guldberg, O. (1999). The impact of increased concentrations of ammonium and phosphate on coral growth and survivorship under field conditions. Journal Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology.

Hoegh-Guldberg, O. and Williamson J. (1999) The relative importance of dissolved nitrogen to the reef-building coral, Pocillopora damicornis. Marine Biology.

 

[mschrissygil]

Thank you! You all have been very helpful.

It is easy to overfeed. IMO/IME if you have nitrates registering you are feeding too much. The goal with SPS corals is to have a balance between nitrogen compound generation and consumption.

That must be where my nitrate problem is coming from. I just cleaned the entire sump and was ready to tackle my overflow next looking for the problem. I will cut down on my fish feeding amount first and see if they stay lower.

Since I have a mix of SPS LPS and Softies, should I still use a coral food like Coral Frenzy, just not target feed the SPS?

Testing has shown the elevated levels of ammonium will cause zooxanthellae to increase and restrict coral calcification by over competition for inorganic carbon. Browning of the coral can be an indication of zooxanthellae population increase due to overfeeding.

Do you have an idea of how long it will take to come back to color?

 

[returnofsid]

Once nutrient levels have come down, and proper water conditions and lighting are met, I've had corals color back up fairly quickly. Within a few weeks. I had a problem with a crappy skimmer and all my corals browned out. Within about 3 weeks of upgrading my skimmer, I started noticing color improvements.

 

[kevinpo]

Do you have an idea of how long it will take to come back to color?

Hello,
7-14 days.

HTH,
Kevin

 

[dhnguyen]

Firt of all, why arent you soaking and rinsing the frozen food in RO before feeding? You DO know that frozen foods (especially the commercial ones) are LOADED with Nitrate and Phosphate right?

Don't believe me? Take a quick test of that tank water that was soaked with the food and see what you get for NO3 and PO4, I think you might shock yourself

 

[mschrissygil]

Thanks guys! Color is back to normal, and no more target feeding SPS for me