Target or broadcast Zoanthid's nutrition: what do you feed 'em?

A. grandis

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Zoanthids are able to feed particle foods and to absorb nutrients from the water.
Some of us just don't bother to feed them, while others have a neat schedule and believe that's important.
I target/broadcast feed my zoas Coral Frenzy, BRS' Reef Chilli and add Brightwell's amino acid here and there...
They also feed on flakes and pellet foods when I offer to the fish, of course.
To me it's an important to feed them at least twice a month.

Ok, this is the thread to post your knowledge and what you feed the zoas, if that's the case.
Additives, particle foods, liquid foods,...
Anything you do to contribute to the zoa nutrition, besides offering the proper lights for it's zooxanthellae. Doesn't matter what lights you've got.

Let's us know your observations and fails.
What foods do you avoid?
What worked the best for you?

Please go ahead and share your feeding habits, friends. This thread is for all of us.
Please tell us if you do broadcast, or target feeding.

But please, this is about zoanthid's feeding, not "dirty water"! o_O

Aloha,
Grandis.
 

Pola0502ds

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I feed my zoas/palys twice a week with Fauna Marin Ulra Ricordea & Zoanthid Coral food. I take about a 1/4 teaspoon of the food and mix it with Fauna Marin Min D, I add enough to make everything wet and let that sit for a half hour. I have about 40 different types of zoas/palys in my tank and they all seem to react differently towards the food. All the way from "it's obvious they are eating and enjoying it" to "absolutely nothing". I would say out of the 40 different zoas I have about 70% do react to it and eat. The first thing I notice when I feed is that every single mouth in each colony/plug opens up, it's pretty cool. The only complaint I have with this Fauna Marin zoa food is that I think the particle size is too big. I wish I had a way of grinding it down even more. The zoas that are not as responsive, I feel it's because they just can't consume it.

I also make my own fish food and within my mixture I added Coral Frenzy, reef chili, and so other frozen coral food blends. So each time i feed the tank it's like I broadcast feed.

With all of that said, I can't say for sure that feeding them with what I do and as often as I do has any benefits. I haven't been doing this long enough to know because there are so many things that effect the growth of zoas such as placement, flow, lighting. And within that, each type of zoa has it's own general growth rate. Some are known to grow faster than others. Like eagle eyes, I started with 3 heads and have over 200 now. I started with 3 heads of rastas and only have 20 or so heads now and got them both around the same time.

I am interested to see what others have to as well, I am a zoa addict!
 
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A. grandis

A. grandis

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All my zoathids visually react to foods.
Some people say they have zoas that won't react. Perhaps they don't take the time to watch?
Or maybe there are some particular species that will really take a while to grab the foods.
I turn off the powerbeads when I feed my polyps, but I don't bother with the skimmer nor the return pump.
Grandis.
 

saltyfilmfolks

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I do both. a bit more now. I scoffed at the pimply faced kid on youtube squrting mysis juice at his zoas, but boy that makes em pop babies like crazy.
and if you've never seen a grand Paly grab a pod, your in for a surprise.

i hit mine with whatever im feeding the fish btw.
 
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A. grandis

A. grandis

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Yeap, zoas do eat with gusto, don't they?

I did try mysis in the past. I just don't have any right now, but yeah, they love frozen mysid shrimp.

Wow, 60 views and only 2 of you guys replied?
Perhaps most of us here don't feed their zoas?
Grandis.
 

Pola0502ds

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I do both. a bit more now. I scoffed at the pimply faced kid on youtube squrting mysis juice at his zoas, but boy that makes em pop babies like crazy.
and if you've never seen a grand Paly grab a pod, your in for a surprise.

i hit mine with whatever im feeding the fish btw.

How fast do you grandis grow? Ive had a plug of them for 4 months and they have done nothing.


To add onto my post above, i shut everything off for at least a 1/2 hour that way none of the food blows off of them but once you turn the powerheads back on you can see on every single zoa the mucus that formed. Im assuming thats a sign that they are eating right? Not sure. Point is i feel there is great benefit in turning off all flow. They are slow eaters to begin with and if the flow blows the food off then they obviously can't eat.
 

Pola0502ds

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Wow, 60 views and only 2 of you guys replied?
Perhaps most of us here don't feed their zoas?
Grandis.

These forums arn't what they use to be and im referring to any. You can hardly get people to engage in a conversation. I dont even bother asking questions on this forum, well sometimes i do, but most of the time i just post on facebook reef related groups and get TONS of response. The people who are active on this forum probably didnt respond to this thread because its been talked about already a bunch. Im with ya though.

Truthfully, I blame Facebook for the decline of these forums. Everyone is addicted to facebook and way to easy to use. You click on the app and you start seeing everything you want where as a forum has categories and sub categories.
 

saltyfilmfolks

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These forums arn't what they use to be and im referring to any. You can hardly get people to engage in a conversation. I dont even bother asking questions on this forum, well sometimes i do, but most of the time i just post on facebook reef related groups and get TONS of response. The people who are active on this forum probably didnt respond to this thread because its been talked about already a bunch. Im with ya though.

Truthfully, I blame Facebook for the decline of these forums. Everyone is addicted to facebook and way to easy to use. You click on the app and you start seeing everything you want where as a forum has categories and sub categories.
lol. its been a day. some days are def slower than others. and IMO some us the FB just to keep one app or location for convo. a good thing here. no flaming or shaming.

How fast do you grandis grow? Ive had a plug of them for 4 months and they have done nothing.
they doo grow slow. same stuff. no po good light. try dropping some food in one.
 
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A. grandis

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These forums arn't what they use to be and im referring to any. You can hardly get people to engage in a conversation. I dont even bother asking questions on this forum, well sometimes i do, but most of the time i just post on facebook reef related groups and get TONS of response. The people who are active on this forum probably didnt respond to this thread because its been talked about already a bunch. Im with ya though.

Truthfully, I blame Facebook for the decline of these forums. Everyone is addicted to facebook and way to easy to use. You click on the app and you start seeing everything you want where as a forum has categories and sub categories.

Oh man... I didn't know that. I had no idea about such groups and why the forums were so empty and without those rich conversations on very interesting topics, like in the mid 90's, for example.
To tell the truth I thought the level of the hobby got low because people just don't care and follow the line of the internet, meaning search on google, reading stores' reviews and youtube videos.

I don't have a Facebook page that I post anything nor know how to do that app thing you told me to click oI. I'm a very busy man and it's very hard for me to find time in my life for those things and to come here!!! People think I'm very old, but I'm not that old. LOL! I'm just a middle age man.LOL! i guess I better start learning what's around me!!
I'm gonna ask my wife about the Facebook, and talk to my kids to see how I can get into those groups. I like serious discussions where I can actually learn new applicable things.

The people here are very polite and this is a good place, but I know what you mean by saying that "these forums aren't what they use to be". I think they are actually tired of talking about these subjects, like you said.
But again... this is the very first day of this particular post. We need to give it a time...

Can you tell me the name of the reef groups or the best way to find them? Is that the way it works?
Thanks very much!

Grandis.
 
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A. grandis

A. grandis

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im here for learning, dont have a lot of knowledge lol... I would really like to start making my own food....
It is easy to make your own invert food. Just get the ingredients and mix 'em with tank water before offering to the polyps. You can get dry pellets and inverts' powdered foods to the mix... mysis, amino acids,... anything that would be nutritional...

Lets wait and see if someone comes up with some nice recipe...

Grandis.
 

Pola0502ds

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When your kids get you set up on facebook have them go under the groups feature and type in saltwater, reefing, coral, etc, as search terms. Dozens of groups will come up and what i did was just select the groups to join that had the most people. There is one group with 21,000 people. You have a question about anything and tons of people will respond. They are really nice.

I actually dont think we are allowed to talk about facebook on this form. I did one time, about the groups actually, and they deleted my thread. Not sure why, maybe because they dont want to promote it for that very reason but if thats the case they need to do something to get people to come back here and stay here. I love this forum. It is the absolute BEST hands done. Lets stay on topic after this.
 

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I avoid broadcast feeding, mostly because I have way too many fish. I can barely handle the load from what the fish eat, and broadcast feeding would just be way too much.

I also have a blue jaw trigger in my main tank which does not eat coral at all, but a few times I tried to spot feed coral (Goni) it attacked the coral trying (and failing) to get the gonipower. The coral fully recovered but that was the last time my tank saw any foods like that. Also prior to that it didn't seem like the zoas I had really ate anything but for a few types like nukes and purple death. Stuff like eagle eyes, scrambled eggs, dragon eyes, tubbs blue, etc, seem to close from irritation more than actual feeding response. I could be wrong, but that's the way I see it.
 

Tautog

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These forums arn't what they use to be and im referring to any. You can hardly get people to engage in a conversation. I dont even bother asking questions on this forum, well sometimes i do, but most of the time i just post on facebook reef related groups and get TONS of response. The people who are active on this forum probably didnt respond to this thread because its been talked about already a bunch. Im with ya though.

Truthfully, I blame Facebook for the decline of these forums. Everyone is addicted to facebook and way to easy to use. You click on the app and you start seeing everything you want where as a forum has categories and sub categories.
I watch a lot, but I have never seen the small Zoas grab any food, larger palys ate shrimp like a Venus fly trap.
Dumb Question:
I have always been told to strain the juice from frozen foods, but your saying that juice should be used to feed? I feed blood worms, and they are bloody, that juice is red.
But it's all good? Juice is juice? And how long would you turn off the flow for?
My Zoas are growing, but that ugly, ugly juice?
 

Daniel@R2R

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These forums arn't what they use to be and im referring to any. You can hardly get people to engage in a conversation. I dont even bother asking questions on this forum, well sometimes i do, but most of the time i just post on facebook reef related groups and get TONS of response. The people who are active on this forum probably didnt respond to this thread because its been talked about already a bunch. Im with ya though.

Truthfully, I blame Facebook for the decline of these forums. Everyone is addicted to facebook and way to easy to use. You click on the app and you start seeing everything you want where as a forum has categories and sub categories.
I'm going to disagree with this. Reef2Reef continues to grow in daily interaction at exciting rates. In general questions asked here get solid useful answers, and we even have an awesome team of volunteers in the forum called the #reefsquad that bring their knowledge to intentionally help people with issues. R2R is growing and a lot of what keeps us getting stronger is that the Reef Squad rocks! Plus, the culture here is aimed at creating a community of members that are friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. Just throwing in my .02.
 

Pola0502ds

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Lets say you have fresh food to make up your mix. You wash it and drain those juices. Put in a blender and freeze. You use all of it, plus whatever juices there are, at least i do after that. When they say use the juices they really mean when you thaw a cube of food that has already been rinsed well, let the thick stuff settle to the bottom and pull off the top. The thinner stuff at the top is what you wanna use because they have small mouths.
 

Pola0502ds

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I'm going to disagree with this. Reef2Reef continues to grow in daily interaction at exciting rates. In general questions asked here get solid useful answers, and we even have an awesome team of volunteers in the forum called the #reefsquad that bring their knowledge to intentionally help people with issues. R2R is growing and a lot of what keeps us getting stronger is that the Reef Squad rocks! Plus, the culture here is aimed at creating a community of members that are friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable. Just throwing in my .02.

Disagree all you want brother, its america

Listen to the reef threads pod cast a few eposides back, gary and christine talk about this very subject about how the forums are not what they use to be.

Can someone delete all these posts about facebook, we are hijacking this thread. My fault.
 
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Daniel@R2R

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On the question of feeding zoas, most of the info I've seen suggests that zoas (the smaller ones...not the larger palys) don't actually consume coral food. I don't know enough to assert one way or the other (I'm not much of a zoa guy), but I would think that whether or not that info is true, the fact that it is what's stated will cause people to not feed zoas as much as other corals...but I could be wrong on that.
 

Daniel@R2R

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Disagree all you want brother, its america
Not all of us here are from America ;), but I get ya. I just wanted to be sure that those in the thread know that the empirical data shows R2R is GROWING not declining (I don't know if Gary and Christine are aware of that fact or not). Happy Reefing! :)
 
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