Hello 
This morning I drove 30 miles to shop for corals only to discover when I got home that the lfs had bagged a rock full of tubeastreas rather than the orange soft coral I pointed out! They're beautiful and colorful, and it's a long drive back.
Everything I've read about them indicates that they have to be fed directly in order to survive and stay healthy. My tank is a nano - 15 gallon, with no skimmer, 16 lbs live rock, one clown goby, 1 red-leg hermit, 3 small blue-leg hermits, lots of pods on the walls, nerite, slipper and nassarius snails, 1 feather duster. Has been running for a month, no measurable ammonia, nitrites or nitrates for 3 weeks (the live rock had already been in the lfs tank for 2 weeks.) I feed 1/2 tsp of DT's Phytoplankton daily, measure and adjust KH and calcium daily (KH has been stable for over a week), and add trace elements and iodide as per directions. I can't give a figure on water movement because of the filters I'm using, but it's enough to cause movement of the duster's feathers without causing stress.
Now, the question - since tubeastreas obviously aren't hand fed on the reefs, and since my purponse anyway is to maintain a routine of phytoplankton feeding sufficient to feed enough zooplankton so that frozen food should be unnecessary, will I have to hand feed the tubeastreas or should they be able to capture food constantly flowing by them?
This morning I drove 30 miles to shop for corals only to discover when I got home that the lfs had bagged a rock full of tubeastreas rather than the orange soft coral I pointed out! They're beautiful and colorful, and it's a long drive back.
Everything I've read about them indicates that they have to be fed directly in order to survive and stay healthy. My tank is a nano - 15 gallon, with no skimmer, 16 lbs live rock, one clown goby, 1 red-leg hermit, 3 small blue-leg hermits, lots of pods on the walls, nerite, slipper and nassarius snails, 1 feather duster. Has been running for a month, no measurable ammonia, nitrites or nitrates for 3 weeks (the live rock had already been in the lfs tank for 2 weeks.) I feed 1/2 tsp of DT's Phytoplankton daily, measure and adjust KH and calcium daily (KH has been stable for over a week), and add trace elements and iodide as per directions. I can't give a figure on water movement because of the filters I'm using, but it's enough to cause movement of the duster's feathers without causing stress.
Now, the question - since tubeastreas obviously aren't hand fed on the reefs, and since my purponse anyway is to maintain a routine of phytoplankton feeding sufficient to feed enough zooplankton so that frozen food should be unnecessary, will I have to hand feed the tubeastreas or should they be able to capture food constantly flowing by them?
