Can You Over Feed Corals?

[Squado]

Just wondering, can corals be overfed? I have an open brain which is pretty large (5 inches across) and I feed it every night at least a full silverside or two. Anyway, is that to much? It eats it all the time and tentacles are always out at night, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't stressing it. If I do feed it a lot will that help with keeping its colors healthy?

[tecwzrd]

I would err on the side of caution here, and underfeed. If it's growing, it's happy, and overfeeding can pollute your tank.

3-4 feedings a week is plenty IMO

A varied diet would be more helpful then more food and I'd also feed Gammarus, mysids, plankton, shredded krill, etc ....

[Devilishturtles]

One of the things mentioned at MACNA last year was about how overfeeding can actually be more stressful than underfeeding. The example given was with a bleached out anemone. It was said that the anemone would take long time to consume the silverside, but then in the middle of the night when it figure out that it was too big to digest, it would just expel the entire thing out and get no nutrition what so ever.

So I agree with tecwzrd, variety is good, and in smaller proportions. Feed something like phytoplankton instead of silversides. And only a few times a week. It will probably get more out of that than you feeding it way too much nightly.

HTH

[melosu58]

Believe it or not I dont feed any of my corals except the sun polyps. I have two brains and have never fed them and they have grown plenty. IMO they get all they need from the light and water column. Here is a before and after pic and remember I have never target fed.

[tecwzrd]

Of course you're talking about a 125 gal tank versus a 29 which has about 1/4 the lr in which a lot of the biodiversity from such a large system is self sustaining.