sps... feeding?

[Johnny Reefer]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

.... This is why I hate articles from the on line mags as reference material as it is one persons interpretation of the data and for the most part they are really loosely interpreted. ....

Further to that, what gets me is whether or not what is written, and what one is reading, is accurate and valid.

Case in point....the following I copied and pasted from the above article excerpt.

Quote:
....study after study after study has found that corals such as Acropora
are highly efficient predators.....

Predator? Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think so. I'm still quite new to alot of reefkeeping aspects and I have not kept SPS yet, but I find it hard to believe that Acropora actually prey on their food. For starters, they're sessile. I don't know..... Maybe I don't understand the definition of predator, but I have thought up to now that predation kind of involves some sort of movement and stalking.

As I said...makes me wonder how much of what one reads is accurate.

Just a thought.

Cheers,

[Aquattro]

Predators prey on food, "prey" defined as such...To hunt, catch, or eat as prey.

so yes, SPS do catch food and therefore are predators.

[GMGQ]

I agree. Food sticks to the polyps because cells on the polyps contract or whatever to make them sticky, then they retract into the skeleton to 'eat' it.

So in the mildest definition of "prey" I would agree that they do.

Originally Posted by reef_raf

Predators prey on food, "prey" defined as such...To hunt, catch, or eat as prey.

so yes, SPS do catch food and therefore are predators.

[Snappy]

If sps polyp extention, especially at night, is for purposes other than eating I would be interested to know what those actually are. Since I have a mixed reef I need to feed my Gorgonians, LPS and Clams etc. anyway, so if the sps want eat it's they can. I feel it's sort of like chicken soup for a cold, may not help but it won't hurt.