The Importance of Coral Nutrition

Fish Think Pink

Club Secretary
Staff member
Board of Directors

soft-coral-feeding-scaled.jpeg
The Importance of Coral Nutrition​

MICHAEL PALETTA
1 WEEK AGO

As we have noted in previous articles most aspects of the hobby have some controversy associated with them. Needless to say, coral nutrition is one of them. For many years the general consensus was that all corals needed to thrive was fish excrement and light. However, after getting a better understanding of coral physiology and looking at the literature it has become clear that corals require more than this.

By simply looking at a coral’s physical structure it only makes sense that an animal that has the largest portion of its body as a mouth would require feeding. Couple that with many corals having nematocysts which may help in food capture and it becomes clear that these animals require food of some type. For much of my time keeping corals I was in the school that thought that feeding corals was unnecessary and that their nutritional needs could easily be met from what the fish left them and from what their zooxanthellae supplied them.

To enjoy the whole article, which includes bacteria importance, ratios, testing and much more for both hard & soft corals, then please go to:
 
Top