Zoanthid Spot Feeding?

[thesilence87]

I was reading on GARF that you can feed your zoanthids and palythoa a mixture of SeaChem Reef Plus, Spirulina, and mysis shrimp.

I was curious if any of you feed your zoas or palys, and if you feed anything different? Have you seen significant growth rate boosts from spot feeding them?

Lastly, do you guys have any opinions on what would be the cheapest yet nutritional food that I could feed a zoa/paly? Will they take cyclopeeze? Is there something else way cheaper that would do the job?

 

[hammcd]

ive never directly fed my zoas and theyve flurished..i can only imagine the particle and nitrate buildup by trying to feed each polyp seperately...that borders on insanity imo..especially if u have many polyps...id just toss some zooplankton od phytoplankton in occasionally although this probably isnt needed either since they typically already have colonies living within them

 

[seth the wine guy]

I spot fed my Purple Hornets the first few months I had them with Roto-feast and phytoplankton every few days. Used a spot feeding wand and just blew a large cloud of the stuff at them. I went from 5 heads to 25 in that time. The last 3 months I've not spot fed and have only two or three new heads.
I would continue spot feeding if I had the time.

 

[thesilence87]

Thanks Seth, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Did you notice any big spike in your nitrates or did you ONLY spot feed that colony, or did you spot feed all your zoas?

 

[crewdawg1981]

I can say I've honestly never spot fed any of my softies, but it'd be cool to see some more of my zoas. Did you just turn off your flow and hit em with a blast of food from a turkeybaster?

 

[seth the wine guy]

I only spot fed the Purple Hornets bc they were $25 a head and actually the first zoa I put in the tank. I later spot fed my Red Hornets bc of their price too and I went from 3 to 6 in two weeks. After a month I was at 10. I actually just bought some more phytoplankton and roti feast to start feeding again. I've been out for a few months. I expect to see good growth again. Hopefully I can get this colony of Rasta's exploding before I have to ship most of it off.

I've always done a 35g WC each week (I think I have around 200 total gallons) so I've not have much of a nitrate problem. Phosphates, on the other hand, did plague me for a while. I'm at all zeros now. Now that my water is "nutrient poor" I'm not seeing much growth from any zoa's.

I inherited one of those long pipet feeding wands. Looks like a longer, skinnier turkey baster. I would turn off all flow and wait till the water was calm. I would then softly squirt in their general direction. They would be surrounded by a cloud. (Much like Pigpen from Charlie Brown was surrounded by a dirt cloud) I would wait until they closed up then opened again before squirting again.

 

[crewdawg1981]

Interesting....

And keep me updated about the Rastas. Def want one, but its probably for the best that you wont have any for me for a bit. Wallet is a little light this month.

 

[frantz]

Another option I think I read in a book and use myself is to cut the top off a 2L coke bottle and hold it as a reverse funnel over the coral to be fed (or you can rest it on the rocks if its positioned right) and squirt the food in the top. It restricts water flow just to that one area to allow for feeding.