Can you overfeed coral?

itom37

Member
I've started feeding my green lobo, and since it has gotten so much healthier. It's really pretty awesome how it has improved. I feed it basically chopped up formula one. Gobbles the stuff up. I do this every day because it seems to help and it is awesome to watch. So can I overfeed a coral?
 

rasta pasta

New Member
I would slow down a bit on the feeding myself. While they will eat meaty foods they are also filter feeders and shouldn't get too much meaty food. This is my $.02
 

perfectdark

Active Member
Originally Posted by itom37
I've started feeding my green lobo, and since it has gotten so much healthier. It's really pretty awesome how it has improved. I feed it basically chopped up formula one. Gobbles the stuff up. I do this every day because it seems to help and it is awesome to watch. So can I overfeed a coral?

IMO You cant really over feed a coral they are going to eat what they want when they want. Offering a buffet 24/7 wont hurt the corals directly but can have huge effects on your tanks chemistry which indirectly will hurt your corals. There are a few people here that I have heard feed their coral tanks 4 to 5 times a day for heavy propogation. But their maintanence schedule is very demanding and they skim heavily.
 

itom37

Member
Originally Posted by 1journeyman
Watch your water quality. That can be one key indicator that you are overfeeding.
yeah, well i'm doing this partially b/c my fish are in QT so I am feeding the tank to keep the bacteria up as I prepare to add them. that's a good point though, thanks.
 

mscarpena

Member
I diagree. I think you can overfeed a coral because I did and so has a freind of mine. I told him no, no you can't over feed a coral because I am a more advanced hobbists than he. We work together and he kind of avoided a few of our regular reef chat sessions. I fed my acans some frozen foods as I do pretty much everyday and man they just looked so hungry still so I feed some powdered foods every once and a while so I fed them some powdered food after the frozen foods. The next morning all looked ok, but a few polyps on each one of my acans were slightly closed up or only half closed up. Some stuff that looked like detritus was coming out of them. I blew it off and this continued for about 1-2 weeks. They did recover and are fine. I was so freaked because these are extremely nice colored rare aussie lords with about 20 heads on each colony worth about $200.00 per colony and all 3 of my colonies were like this. I was so freaked that I literally thought I was going to throw up. So I hunted my freind down and told him what had happened he said same thing happened to me and thats why I have been avoiding you, I did not want to tell you my mistake. He said 3-5 days later his recovered. Mine took a bit longer, but I really feel that you can over feed a coral. So all should be careful. I feed mine probably 5 days per week now. Hope this helps all.
 
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