Open Brain - Target feeding ?'s
 

Hey everyone,

I was wondering exactly how to target feed. I'm fairly new at this and my tank stocking as well as my tank info is all listed below.

Technically, I know how to target feed. What I don't know is how often and how much.

I just added my open brain last week and the person at my LFS suggested cylop-eeze, (frozen), which of course I purchased.

When I went to feed with the turkey baster, I was really surprised with how many floaters there were in the extremely small piece, at least what I considered to extremely small there were! The fish and the crabs/snails were going nuts. I also seen all the hitchhiker feather dusters all coming out as well as the ricordia.

Is it necessary to feed every day as I thought they would get a lot of food when the fish were fed.

I also seen a posting someplace that said not to target feed unless you see the tentacles come out at night. If they're out, it said it's looking to eat, so feed it. When I first fed mine, the tentacles were not out, but they sure came out when I fed it!

So, I'm just not sure how often or how much to do this. If anyone could help clear this up, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!
Eric

I've found that mine generally don't really eat , even when offered food. The only time four of them open up is when i blast the rock and create a huge crud storm.
They're all growing nicely and are perfectly healthy.
My red radiata is th eonly one that really opens up, so it gets a small bit of fish or cockle once a fortnight or so.

I would say to see what it will eat and when, as that seems to be the easiest thing

Thanks for the imput kizkiz. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy. Are there signs I should be looking for if I need to actually target it?

I feed mine every other day with a small amount of cyclopeeze and mysis soaked in selcon. I always feed at the same time of the day so the corals are sort of trained to extend their feeding tentacles at this time.

Thanks otiso! I must admit I wasn't ready to get two completely different answers. LOL!

So, with that, I'm figuring I just need to monitor and see what works best for mine. With that said, are there certain things I should look for to make sure it's getting enough food?

Yeah some people say you should feed, and others say they don't need it, good lighting is enough. I figure they have feeding tentacles for a reason and if they eat in the wild, they probably should eat in my tank. I target feed my fish as well so not much food gets blown around the tank. That's why I chose to target feed my corals. I've read that tissue recession is a sign of a malnourished LPS, but I have never experienced this myself.

I target feed my brain 2x per week with pencil erasure size chunks of shrimp or scallop along with a squirt of Cyclepeeze. It seems to really like it. Here are 2 pics.

[IMG]http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd135/jpc763/IMG_0676.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i224.photobucket.com/albums/dd135/jpc763/IMG_0679.jpg[/IMG]

Well, thank you everyone. I'll try for twice per week and see what happens. When I first did it, I noticed it open up a bit and the feeding tentacles come up, but nothing like your pic jpc. But, then last night I did it again, and it didn't respond as much as it had before, so I thought maybe I was overdoing it.

Thanks again to everyone.

Basing this on 5 trachys, 2 scolys and a cynarina ;)

Some seem to like feeding and some don't
You'll soon work out which you have, as the ones that don't just won't really be interested.
The bottom line is, it will only eat what it wants. You can't force it :D

My tank is heavily fed anyway, so there are a lot of available nutrients in tank without target feeding, which i think helps.

My lobo is definitely one of the ones that likes feeding. Even during the day it will have some of its tentacles just barely sticking out so it is ready to fully extend them at the first hint of food. My new cynaria seems pretty easy to feed too.

What I'm wondering is how do you know when you are overfeeding your lps? Right now I'm holding back on feeding more because I want to keep my bioload lower but if I didn't have to worry about that how would I know when my coral were "full"?

Feed small amounts at a time.
A lot of corals will take huge amounts, only to expel a lot uneaten when you aren't looking, thus fouling the tank.

I can't see it being a major problem to feed a small amount when the coral is in feeding mode and happy to take it.

Just monitor your params and make sure your system can cope

ime, with most lps they simply won't take the food if not hungry

Mine enjoys mysis.
Usually shows it feeders at night, I shut off my pumps and drop a piece right on it. Tales about 5 to ten minutes to swallow it.
To be honest I don't feed it too often more for fun than anything.

click picture below for slide show.

[url=http://s144.photobucket.com/albums/r174/Kingfish62/?action=view&current=a17c1b17.pbw][IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r174/Kingfish62/th_PICT0053.jpg[/IMG][/URL]