Carnation diet

[xxbrian29xx]

A friend of mine is willing to give me one of his carnation corals. I was wondering if I needed to suppliment them with anything to keep them happy and healthy? AS far as my friend he says he doesn't feed them anything, and they look great. I would understand that because his tank has been running for a couple of years. My tank is only about 2.5-3 months old. I do not dose anything and I do weekly water changes. I have a 20g tank with 1 fish and he is fed flake food.

Brian

[Telco Guy]

You can feed it phytoplankton. We have a member here that sells this,

http://www.coralforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=6288

or there are a number of commercially grown brands. Also, I believe that you can also use something called Marine Snow as a supllement to feed carnations.

Good luck, and post some pictures.

It is highly unlikely that it will eat the phyto. Most corals are meat eaters. However, the phyto will feed the filter-feeders who may spawn providing food for the coral. The best thing that you can feed it is fish poop...it's like a multivitamin for them. If your flow is good enough to keep the poop in the water column and you give it good lighting, it should do well.

[Telco Guy]

Carnations are not photosynthetic. They do not need, nor will they use light.

As for food, Garf.org has done some experiments where they introduce fine air bubbles in the water through a powerhead or other pump. The theory is that the proteins in the water will stick to the bubbles and the carnations will catch the bubbles and consume the protein. The idea came from the fact that carnation corals are often found where there is turbulent water. Garf claims to have had good luck with this method.

As for the phyto, that also came from the Garf site. Another thing you could try is rotifers.

LOL....oops. I didn't even pay attention to the species name so ignore the lighting portion of my post.

Phyto has been found in their gut in undigested form. As a result, it is not proven that they eat it. Based on the fact that the only octacoral proven to eat phyto is sea whips, I'm playing the odds and assuming that they do not either. However, no one knows for sure.

[Telco Guy]

Well, I guess the question would be what is the actual species of the coral in question. According to this site:

http://www.tidalgardens.com/pages/coral/dendronephthya.html

Dendronephthya feeds almost exclusively on phytoplankton, and requires both a steady supply of phytoplankton and sufficient flow to carry the food to its polyps.

[Telco Guy]

Here is the article on Garf.org that talks about "Foam Feeding" or carnations.

http://www.garf.org/37/feed/feed.html

I've kept Dendro's before and I've never added phyto. However, I did keep them in my "dirty nano". (i.e. no skimmer, just water changes). They could very well be like sea-whips, but they have the capability of eating other things as well....I just don't know what they are.

[Condiman]

I do agree that they do not nessicaraly need phyto in there diet. I have a small one in my tank and I have not seen any change in growth since I have been dosing phyto.

[Condiman]

Ohh and Telco thanks for the plug :coolbeans: