Feeding Mushrooms/Xenia/Monticap ???

[Husky_1]

Hey everyone, I hope your Christmas is going well.

Thanks to Eric, ReefWreak, I have acquired a purple mushroom, watermelon mushroom, some pulsing Xenia, and a small montipora cap frag. I want to make sure that they all get adequate nutrition and want to know what I should feed them.

Here is my current tank stats:

38g main tank (36wx12dx20h), 25 gallons in the sump.
My refuge has some Chaeto, but not much else right now.
Lighting: T5 4x39 (Nova) Lights
Total Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0.1
Ph 8.05
Alk (meg/dl) 3
Salinity 1.025
Calcium (ppm) 480
Temperature 78
Magnesium not Tested
Phosphate 0

My fish/inverts: 1 false perc, 1 chromis, and 1 small purple tang (Please dont judge me on this, the fish is in a much better environment now than it was when it was given to me). 1 sandsifting starfish, 1 serpant star, 5-7 hermits, 5 astreal snails, 4 nassarius snails, and 1 tiger cowrie.

I normally dose 1/4 tsp of lime once a week. I was dosing this once every 3 days, but my tank got cloudy after a dose so I figured I would cut it back. I will increase my dosing if alk/calc falls. My coralline growth is really coming along with the new lights, which has also really made my green star polyps and button polyps greened up since I added the lights.

I normally feed 1x a day, mixing it up between cyclo-peeze (Frozen), frozen formula one, a "special" mix I got from Marine scenes, and Spectrum A+. Every now and again, I also put a piece of dried algae sheet in the tank for the snails etc. I also add some dried pod mix to my tank once a week (This I got from barrier reef as a suggestion to help grow pods and it seems to make my population grow).

So my question is should I feed anything else for the corals? What about integrating something in my refuge that would help automatically feed the corals?

I really want to take advantage of the frag swap coming up, and would like to get prepared. Other than that monticap, I really dont plan on much more SPS, mostly softies and LPS.

Thanks for your help, any suggestions with feeding would be great.

Thanks,
Dale

[Rogger Castells]

Keep the monticap as close to the light as possible, the rest will do fine with no feeding or your current feeding regiment.

[Husky_1]

Will do, thanks Roger.

[ReefWreak]

Dale,

Glad to hear that the corals are doing well. As far as feeding, the mushrooms can be fed, but I doubt that they could catch food out of the water column. About a year ago I fed the mushrooms a couple of times by hand with thawed mysis shrimp. I just turned off the pumps, and placed by hand a mysis on their mouth. They'll open up and eat them. Quite a wonder to watch, actually.

As far as the Xenia, they'll eat dissolved organics out of the water, so cyclopeeze is too big for them to eat (to my understanding). The monti cap will eat small plankton in the water like most SPS do.

I believe that the foods you are feeding are too large for the caps and xenia to appreciate. Phyto or other forms of plankton would be eaten by the monti and possibly xenia, as well as enhance some of the microfauna in your liverock, however it is much more work to feed it, as you've always got to mix it up, and refridgerate it, and it goes bad over time, etc, etc.

[Husky_1]

Eric,
Thanks for the information, I will look into the the plankton, I assume you are talking about phytoplankton and not zoo plankton.

Thanks