Target Feeding & Tank Flow

I have a couple of new additions to my tank a green frogspawn and a candycane.

I've been reading both sides of the target feeding, some people say they never have others swear by it.

Can some people weight in on it here specific to the two that I have?

The questions I have are:

1 - Is it truly necessary?

2 - If so, how long should I keep my flow off for them to eat?

3 - How often and do they graduate to something in the next step past mysis?

 

i feed my frogspawn, blasto, and green candy cane a couple mysis per head once a week. just pile it on their mouth. itll take em 10 minutes to swallow it all usually. after that it blows up real big. the skunks usually steal a shrimp or two from em as well. I target feed the fish and sps as well. I try to not let too much fly around.

 

1. Seriously depends on the coral and your setup. Something like a sun coral almost always requires it, but something like a goniastrea never does. Sun corals are non-photosynthetic, so they only get food from eating. On the flip side, my goniastrea hasn't had tentacles out in months, but has been growing quite a bit.

2. I don't turn flow off at all for the sun coral. I just use a turkey baster, and make sure each polyp gets a bit if the food.

3. Depends on the size of the polyps, how fast they grow, and how big they get.

 

1. zoanthids really to respond to target feeding. Palythoa will. LPS - Photosynthesize the least and eat off of the water column due to their large polyps. Will show most results from target feeding. SPS - no need to target feed as the polyps feed 100% off of the water column and also use the algae as a source for energy. The algae on sps responds heavily to photosynthesis.

2. 5 to 10 minutes max if needed at all.

3. Fatty oils really works best IMO. Meaty food tends to get eaten by fish before the corals get a change to ingest the food. Liquid diet is the easiest.

 

What type of fatty oil do you use?


I have some mysis on both the frogspawn and the candycane but don't see any obvious signs of movement towards being eaten.

I looked away to type this and the food was gone on the candycane but I suspect my little hogs (clownfish) may have taken it.

 

My frogspawn and torch coral won't eat anything I put in the tank. Some corals just won't eat, for whatever reason. The torch is host to my clowns, which try to feed it every day, but it doesn't ever grab food.

 

For some corals it is necessary. If you feed your fish well, the corals will get some, so in that case, it's not necessary to target feed. My Euphyllia seem to go in phases, sometimes they eat, and sometimes they don't. I also give them Reef Chili. I like that food for corals that are harder to feed.

Also, some corals need to be "trained" to respond to feeding. Once they get used to how you feed and what you give them, they seem to respond and eat faster.

 

I feed my clowns every other day (thought they act like I starve them), I divide a cube up between my clowns and I give the rest to my cichlid tank for a treat. What shrimp the clowns don't eat my coral banded shrimp and merry band of hermits take care of.

 

Do you put anything like phytoplex in the water to offset that or do they get all they need from the water column?

 

Those 2 corals literally can't catch phytoplankton. They don't have any structures small enough to do it.