How corals eating phytoplankton

[thedude]

I've been trying to figure out how a coral eats something as small as phyto. Most use stinging cells to capture food and I wouldn't think a stinging cell would work well on something so small.

The only other way I can think of for a coral to catch phyto would be in their slime coat, and then that gets funneled into the gut. If that is the case then, the little that we put in our tanks would seem to be a drop in a bucket as far as getting some food to the coral.

I use DT's and I mainly target feed the corals. I have noticed improvement in the tank but was curious on how it is being used.

Ideas?

[EricHugo]

please see thread on Dendronephthya below, search the forum for this topic which has been covered many times, and also read my articles on Reefkeeping on feeding corals. Its all there, trust me!

[thedude]

Found it, kind of what I suspected. DT's are more for the bottom of the food chain, and just feed the zooplank. that the corals eat.

I never saw any reaction from my corals when squirted with DT's. So I really didn't think they were feeding. I did notice the increase in zooplank.

thanks

[ReefDiver]

Hi Chris:

Just curious as to how you would notice an increase in Zooplankton? How would you measure or observe this increase? :confused:

[thedude]

I can see them increase. As far as measuring it, I can't give you exact numbers, but you can see an increase in numbers and types.

Pods are what I'm referring to. The pods we have in our tanks are part of the overall group of zooplankton.

Some are the type that swim in jerky motions, others are like little shrimp that resemble rolly poley bugs, others are longer "shrimp" that swim in more of a straight line, and the others are very small, but they swarm.