Feeding corals

[Drfu]

Originally Posted by MitchM

Drfu,
Trace elements are not what feed corals. Trace elements provide the minerals necessary for the corals to carry out their life functions.
Simply put, to feed a coral, they require sugar and protein. The zooxanthellae through photosynthesis provide the sugar. For protein, corals need to capture prey and digest it.
SPS corals require much less protein than larger fleshy corals. SPS corals can get by with bacterioplankton which will occur naturally in your aquarium.
Photosynthetic corals with a larger fleshy mass require more protein than that and will benefit from extra feeding.
Non-photosynthetic corals require all their nutrients from capturing prey.
If you try to keep all those corals in the same aquarium, you will end up either underfeeding the larger fleshy corals or overfeeding the smaller SPS corals. Nutrient overload will give you algae problems and suffering corals.

I don't come across much in the way of debate anymore regarding coral feeding other than aquarists trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They try to force corals to survive in environments that are unsuitable, trying to create a certain look but become discouraged when they run into inevitable excess nutrient problems.

In order to save you some grief down the road, I would suggest that you limit your coral selection to a certain type, learn about the proper care for them and keep those corals only.
There are quite a number of good studies out that will help you learn about coral feeding.

Good advice, thx.

When you say only keep one type do you mean only sps soft or hard,lps only or softies? Is that too much of a blanket statement or are their types of corals that just require the same care, ie all photosynthetic that require just proper lighting/flow/placement within a tank and let the water column take care of the rest. If this is the case then is their a list of these on one spot? Their are so many types of them out there & like you said, to save grief down the road. Thanks again for your input!

[MitchM]

Originally Posted by Drfu

Good advice, thx.

When you say only keep one type do you mean only sps soft or hard,lps only or softies? Is that too much of a blanket statement or are their types of corals that just require the same care, ie all photosynthetic that require just proper lighting/flow/placement within a tank and let the water column take care of the rest....

It depends on what you want for an aquarium and how much work/expense you want to put into it.
A high nutrient environment tank will take a lot of involvement on your part. You would need to be constantly adding and removing food in order to prevent excess nutrient problems.
A low nutrient tank would be easier to take care of. I don't like a small tank having soft corals (like leathers) because they would outgrow it quickly.
SPS are very sensitive to water quality and a small tank's parameters can change very quickly, so I wouldn't recommend those.
If you're interested in actively feeding corals, I would go with Myka's suggestion and have LPS corals which you could target feed; they are very forgiving plus relatively slow growing. They don't absolutely require feeding on your part but it's interesting to watch.