coral questions

1.what is a good food recipe for corals and fish that my wife can thaw out and feed everything while im out of town .
2.what corals cannot touch or be near each other i know this is a broad question just looking for personal exp.
3.is there any sps corals i should stay away from running t5 lighting

You are asking some really difficult questions. Before I give you a general answer I must tell you that reef keeping requires hours and hours of research and good friends to help you out. My rule of thumb, never purchase anything without researching first. I have learned this hard way. Now for your questions:

1) I leave the tank sitter with prepackaged food like frozen mysis, blood worms and etc. I put the contents into a ziploc and write the day the fish should be fed on the bag. There are some new, non-frozen, foods on the market that I really like also.

2) Don't put anything next to SPS. Some softies and LPS don't get along. Watch out for corals similar to the frogspawn. They extend their feeders at night to catch food. They will latch onto their neighbors and suck the life out of them. Again, you have to research each coral because none of them are the same.

3) Personally, I would not keep SPS under T5's. However, that was the light of choice before MH's so you can do it. My general experience, milliporas, encrusting montiporas and some of the more exotic acroporas may not survive, long term, under t5's. I would only keep corals such as montipora digita, montipora capricornis and some staghorns under t5's. Even then, you must keep them up high in your tank so they receive as much light as possible. Again, each coral has different needs so research-research-research.


Hope that helps!

BigBlue wrote:You are asking some really difficult questions. Before I give you a general answer I must tell you that reef keeping requires hours and hours of research and good friends to help you out. My rule of thumb, never purchase anything without researching first. I have learned this hard way. Now for your questions:

1) I leave the tank sitter with prepackaged food like frozen mysis, blood worms and etc. I put the contents into a ziploc and write the day the fish should be fed on the bag. There are some new, non-frozen, foods on the market that I really like also.

2) Don't put anything next to SPS. Some softies and LPS don't get along. Watch out for corals similar to the frogspawn. They extend their feeders at night to catch food. They will latch onto their neighbors and suck the life out of them. Again, you have to research each coral because none of them are the same.

3) Personally, I would not keep SPS under T5's. However, that was the light of choice before MH's so you can do it. My general experience, milliporas, encrusting montiporas and some of the more exotic acroporas may not survive, long term, under t5's. I would only keep corals such as montipora digita, montipora capricornis and some staghorns under t5's. Even then, you must keep them up high in your tank so they receive as much light as possible. Again, each coral has different needs so research-research-research.


Hope that helps!

great answer!!! does a frogspawn feed on sps when is latches on or just kill it?? didnt know if they could suck the life out and use it for them

I will have to research that one. Not sure if it is actually feeding or just stinging. I know one thing, I have watched them latch onto ricordia and the ricordia slowly disappeared in a few hours. Yikes!!!!

If you have ever seen the TV documentary "Life" or "Blue Planet", I can't remember which, there is an episode where a coral ingests the other one and it is filmed in time lapse over night. It's fascinating to watch if you can find it. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Ok I found it! Skip to about 10:10 if you just want the see the coral war but the whole episode is worth watching.

Thanks for the videos!! The info I found: The frog has a strong sting, sweeper tentacles that can extend beyond the coral, and is highly allelopathic. The sweeper tentacles serve two primary purposes.  One, they sweep and sting nearby corals to make room for their own growth. Two, they latch onto other corals for a tasty meal.  I guess a nearby coral is in big trouble if it tastes like country fried steak smothered in gravy!!

That last video was awesome! Thanks for sharing!

Here's another cool video of a jellyfish firing nematocysts. These are the things in stinging jellyfish and corals that make you BURN.

i have ricordia and frogspawn and a toadstool pretty close maybe i should do some rearanging no problems so far but i dont want any either my toadstool is growing really fast and the frogspawn is a close second

jmg32595 wrote:i have ricordia and frogspawn and a toadstool pretty close maybe i should do some rearanging no problems so far but i dont want any either my toadstool is growing really fast and the frogspawn is a close second

Wouldn't hurt to separate them. Make as much room as you can between corals.

I have a ricordia and toadstool almost right next to each other and they don't seem to mind. Ricordia is HUGE, probably diameter if 5 plus inches. The toadstools are small though. Not saying that they'll live in harmony forever but so far so good.