feeding corals

I was reading a few different articles on target feeding corals wondering if I feed enough, or too much.  I stumbled across an article on reefkeeping's site that stated soft corals off of phytoplankton, not zooplankton.  An article on wetwebmedia stated that zoanthids do not feed on phytoplankton, but zooplankton.  Which is it?  I feed both in my system so that NPS and other filter feeders like sponges get something to eat, but now I am beginning to wonder if I should revise how much of each I feed during the week.  Phyto feeding is very minimal anyway because I don't want to have my phosphates spike nor any algae/cyano outbreaks.

 

I may be wrong but I thought zoas just lived off their zooxanthellae? Paly's will benefit from feeding, at least they have a feeding response with zooplankton, not sure I have seen a response with phyto. Probably the best indicator whether you're feeding enough is how things look /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif Many people feed a couple times a week.......an article stating "soft coral" feed off phyto seems rather vague, as the term soft coral encompass many, many different types of coral, some of which may or may not benefit from phyto. Maybe the article was more specific as to which soft corals were feeding on phyto?

 

It's my understanding that phytoplankton is the beginning of the food chain, then followed by zooplankton. It's my understanding that things like copepods, amphipods, etc feed off phyto. Softies like shrooms, etc feed off zooplankton. I think what is important is the size of food that they can consume, not necessarily what it is (phyto, zoo, coral snow). I agree that how the zoa's/paly's /etc look and whether they are reproducing/growing is the best indicator. My motto is feed a variety of different foods containing different sizes so that all can benefit.

I have seen my zoa's/shrooms/ric's eat Fauna Marine zoa food, reef chili, reef roids, etc.... I have seen where my copepods will hang-out where detritus tends to collect on my barebottom tank. Their mouths are too small to see if they were eating it though! lol :=0)