SPS spot feeding??

Was hoping all your brilliant minds could school me on SPS spot feeding.

When to feed? (lights off? on?) What to feed? ect.

I'm sure it depends on what kind of SPS. Right now I have Birdsnest, Montis, Birds of Paradise, Turbinaria and a tiny frag of Grn. Stylo.

Thanks in advance

 

It's hard to answer this question as SPS is a hobbyist term that covers a LOT of different animals. Even with the species you have, there is a huge difference in the size of their mouths.

There are a few basics that is the truth for all SPS. #1 misconception about feeding them is that phytoplankton is food for them. Not true....they are meat eaters. You can INDIRECTLY feed them with phyto as it is food for zooplankton and bacterioplankton corals will eat that.

My favorite [STRIKE]fish[/STRIKE] CORAL food is fish poo combined with excellent flow. If you are feeding fish a proper diet high in proteins, vitamins, amino acids, etc when they poo, they are expelling 90% of that. Bacteria attacks the fish poo. Proper flow blows the bacterioplankton onto the SPS polyps. If you have a low fish load to keep Nitrates down, supplemental feeding will increase growth rates of your corals. There's also many scientific studies that show that increasing the Daily Carbon Budget also helps them to gain even more nutrition via photosynthesis.

New specimens that come out of the ocean will likely only feed at night. However, with time, you can train them to polyp out during the day by making some food available at the same time while the lights are on. The easiest thing to do is put a LITTLE BIT of food in a high flow area. Wait 10 minutes. Once you see polyps come out, then slowly feed each coral. Until they are day trained, you'll want to feed a couple of hours after lights-out.

They have TINY mouths. You want VERY FINE foods. (I.e. Golden Pearls, Oyster eggs, Reef Chili, Rotifers, Rotifeast, oyster feast, cyclopeeze, coral frenzy, etc)

 

+1 Inwall75. Well written!

 

+1K+ to that!

 

That is just about the best answer i have seen to SPS feedings Inwall. K+ to that.

 

Totally agree with everyone +1 inwall! I learned some new stuff in your post thanks!

 

Thanks a ton Curt! I haven't really looked at night while the light are out to see if I notice feeding polyps on my selected SPS. The birdsnest and birds of paradise have PA all day but I'm not sure if that's for feeding.

I usually feed my fish once a day with a mixture of PE mysis shrimp, frzn cyclopeeze, frzn. prime reef and occosionally frzn brine. Would you think this would provide enough food for the corals to get decent growth?

 

For me once or twice a week works out best, and you do not add too many nutrients to the tank.

As Inwall posted they need some trainnng time. If I feed routinely the sps start to show a feeding response about the same time everyday regardless of weather or not it is a feeding day.

Feeding slowly works best for me. I never saw a feeding reponse with products like Snow and similar products. Not until I started with some meaty products did they respond, may just be my experience though.

 

Thanks Cheryl! What kind of meaty products are you feeding?

Do you know if birdsnest/pirds of paradise have feeder tentacles or if the polyps I see all day is the way the bring in their food.

Sorry for all the newb questions. Just want to make sure my SPS all thrive!

Thanks again all!

 

No they don't have feeders like some Acro's do. Normally when I shut down the PH's, my birdsnest and ORA birds of paradise would begin to retract a tad. However with food in the water they remain puffy! Actually even more so than with flow on! That is, after given adequate time so that they can sense food in the water. Usually I feed them after the Acro's as I'm working on training them with lights on.