How to feed an Euphyllia coral

[ahochan]

Hi,

I just got a Euphyllia coral for my tank (most likely a torch coral).
According to my "marine invertebrates" book it likes meaty foods.
Does this mean that I should feed it small chunks of shrimp or fish, and if so what size chunks are best?

I have a bottle of kent zooplex, and I was thinking of feeding that using the "coke bottle" trick I saw in a post here. Any thoughts?

[Devilishturtles]

I usually take a turky baster and place items (squid, mysis, brine) near the mouth of the coral. It will latch on with it's polyps and start to consume it. I doubt the addition of phytoplankton would help the coral much at all. I would attempt more meaty foods such as the ones I listed above and maybe some shrimp, scallops, etc. from the store.

HTH

[melosu58]

I have had mine for several yrs and never fed them at all. They get all they need from the water column and lights. You can look at this thread to see the difference. For no target feeding it looks pretty good.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=93156

[lando]

Agreed. No need to target feed these animals. If you already feed meaty food to the tank on occasion, it will get what it needs from the water colume. Light is still the main energy source.

[Ziggy953]

I agree with Mike and Brian, my torch and frogspawn both get things from the water column when I feed the fish. I've not target fed them anything.

[ahochan]

I'm a bit worried about my lights. My tank is 60 cm with a 36 W florescent fixture (blue+white tube). Does this figure into the equation in any way, i.e. weaker lights means more target feeding?

While on the subject of lights, I am considering an upgrade, but I guess my tank is too small for MH. Any ideas?

[Ziggy953]

36w NO (normal output) is not enough light! I would suggest at least a PC or T5 fixture. You really need more light to support corals. And I would say that if your corals aren't doing well the light could have a LOT to do with it!

[lando]

Yes, if this is NO lighting it is simply not enough to sustain photosynthetic corals. They need the light to survive. Target feedings will really do nothing to maintain this coral long term and can end up causing water parameter issues.

[ahochan]

How do I tell the difference between NO and PC? Is there such a thing as a 36W PC tube? I checked a few webshops, and the pictures I found of PC tubes look very similar to what I have.

Here's the homepage for the light I have (not very informative
http://www.azoo.com.tw/azoo_en/modul...eview&bkid=267

And here's the tube I'm currently using:
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/chanet/15753/

[Devilishturtles]

Those look like PC lights, and not very much of them. More lighting would help a lot, but since you are in Japan it's hard to reccomend a lighting fixture. See if you can get a hold of a T5 HO fixture, that would be great.

For my torch coral, I feed it about once every 2 weeks and it just gobbles up the food.

[ahochan]

Thanks for the tip, guess its time to do some research at the LFS. If I'm not mistaken, T5 HO is a special type of HO fixture?

I've searched around a bit on Japanese webshops, and I haven't found any fluorescent fixture that seems like a definite upgrade over what I already have. Plenty of MH though, but I'm a bit unsure about that since I think my tank is too small for MH. Also electricity is very expensive here (not to mention that I'd need a bigger cooler to survive the upcoming hot and muggy summer)

I did find a couple of interesting things though:
More of the type of tube I already have: http://item.rakuten.co.jp/chanet/11275/
MH rack: http://www.rakuten.co.jp/bluespot/13...357739/357749/