Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

When you feed your corals, how do you keep other fish or inverts from stealing the food from the corals?

You don't. In fact, the best coral food comes out of the back end of the fish.

You can by tiny cyclopeeze or DT oyster eggs. They are too small for the fish. Thats really an expense you don't necessarily need though.

What kind of corals are you trying to feed? In any case, I have found it easier to do when the lights are out for a while and fish have "clocked out" for night. Technically, this is more natural for many carnivorous corals, since they typically eat at night coinciding with zooplankton blooms. I only feed larger mouthed corals and anemones anyway, since they are the only ones that I see benefit in directly feeding.

I am trying to feed my button polyps and candy cane corals. I waited last night until my MH went off. And I fed the fish about an hour before I fed the corals so that seemed to help. I would like to get some clams and a brain coral. Any suggestions as to what kind of corals would be good for a beginner? I want an anenome that my false perc clown will like. I really like the carpet anenomes....do false percs like these?

how big do you want the clam to get is one thing you need to think about. Derasa's get real big around 20", crocea's stay small and have a lot more color to them.
Carpets are one of the more difficult anemone's to keep. i would suggest looking at the anemone & clownfish forum on www.reefcentral.com . Also Shimik's Marine Invertabrates has good basic info about the different anemone's. also Andrew (Amphiprion) knows a lot about anemone's and he can give you lots of good info.

I think I'd prefer the smaller more colorful clams. I'll try to look online today if I have some extra time and do some research about the anenomes.

To start out with, I do not recommend the carpet anemones (Stichodactyla sp.). It is not because they need ton of light or anything like that (Ive seen them thrive under normal output fluorescent), but they seem to arrive in bad condition. It also depends upon the species of carpet. The two species occelaris prefer are also the most difficult carpet anemones- Stichodactyla gigantea and Stichodactyla mertensii (which tops out as the largest at 39"--so BIG tank). If and when you decide to get a carpet, get a healthy one that eats well and FEED it, up to four or five times a week. But as far as recommended anemones go, I would suggest the bubble tip anemone or BTA for short. They are by far the easiest, needed modest light and good feeding. If fed well, they will either grow quite large or split (they can reproduce by dividing). This is not a natural host species for your clownfish, but tank raised clowns will often take to this type. Dont be upset if it doesnt happen immediately, as it may take months. If you get a BTA, find a nice, deep rock crevice and shut down your pump(s) to let it settle. Allow it a few days to settle and begin feeding smaller pieces of crustacean-based meaty foods.

The reason I liked the carpets is because the one(s) at Progressive always look really good. I guess I'll do some home work.

Never a bad idea

my fish eat the cyclop-eeze so thats not a full proof plan either

generally though when using cyclop-eeze or blender mush for the corals, i use a turkey baster, water it down well and bring it close to the coral... keeping it away from teh surface seems to help a bit with my fish.

Yeah I have one of those sea squirts that I use. I always turn off my pumps during feeding time. I saw somewhere online yesterday where someone put a colander over some of her corals when she fed them to keep the fish from stealing the food.

i use some cut off two liter bottles over mine... (gatorade works well due to the large mouth...)

cap it off and leave it for 30-45 min dependin on how fast it eats ;0

works well and the only thing that can get under them is typically the starfish... which usually get food for themselves which keeps the too busy while the corals eat.

Hey that's a smart idea. Thanks for that tip.

Carpet's are mean som'biaches, they hurt like the dickens if you brush against them, and they can and will eat your fish, especially large expensive fish
But they are cool looking and from my experience, trouble free, except for that eating your fish part.

I gave up on trying to keep the inverts away a long time ago. From what I see they really do not need to be fed. In fact I am the most incompetent reef father out there. I would bet I have went at least 3 weeks without feeding my fish. But, the only way they seem to die is jumping out and drying on the carpet.....say goodbye to spookyfish. He did live a nice long 6-7 years.