Conveyor Belts of Mucus - Water Flow On & In Our Corals

[@GwonkReefkeeping]

Excellent video. I try to always give my acros about an hour with the pumps off after target feeding them in order to let them retract the mucus that they capture the food with.

[@Messier87_M87]

Great video, this has completely changed my thoughts on target feeding responses. I always thought that if a coral (especially acropora) didn’t show a feeding response, when being target fed, then they were not accepting the food. These videos clearly show corals feeding through their slime coat. Very cool! I have a big piece of Merulina Ampliata in my tank that never opens it’s polyps during the day, but when you target feed it with a powdered plankton food, it slimes off more than any other coral I’ve ever seen. I guess this just means this coral is more than likely feeding through its slime and I should probably give it more time before turning the water flow back on. Thanks for sharing, I try to read some of these studies, but I tend to get lost with some of the wording.

[@ReefMan]

They do like big words 😂. I would never hesitate to email the authors of the paper if you have questions though. Usually they’re super excited that you’re interested in their work, and have been more than happy to answer questions I’ve sent.

[@borisyurin7120]

Thanks!

[@WickedEfie]

wow, very cool video!

[@aarondus]

Fantastic video! Like Dave it has had me rethinking how, when, and how much I spit feed. As well as the impact of flow patterns. I have been thinking of adding a Tunze wave box to my tank and after seeing this I can further justify it to help move and suspend food in the water column. If you see more articles on flow and internal channeling of foods/water it would be nice to hear your POV.

[@ReefMan]

Thanks! I'll keep an eye out for more articles on the gastrovascular systems of our corals for sure!

[@ReefSwens]

So interesting. Just wondering if they gave a time frame for how long the corals usually take to move the majority of the food to their polyps? Would give us a better understanding of how long the feeding mode should be on for Thanks for bringing this to light

[@ReefMan]

They didn't really say. They do point out that some corals kept their mucus around for 5 minutes, while others were still going after 30 - so I suspect it's quite variable. Luckily, this shouldn't be totally invisible to our eyes if we look closely after broadcast feeding our corals, but to be honest I haven't looked that closely even myself (or maybe my corals were not the type that really slimes a lot)!

[@dayankkumarasinghe]

Can you please do a video about "Is it safe to keep a reef tank with kids?"? I just got into the hobby, but I have a young toddler and I am very much worried about palytoxins and other issues. Thanks in advance!

[@ReefMan]

I don't think you have much to worry about. Yea, there are risks, but it seems like you know about them already. Palytoxin can only really harm you if you're scrubbing rock, or boiling it, with the zoanthus on them. Then there's the dosing chemicals, but you can certainly keep those out of reach. Power cords - but you can protect those inside your stand. I don't think there's much that can really harm a toddler to be honest, at least not if you're smart about it (and it seems like you are!).

[@dayankkumarasinghe]

@@ReefMan thanks so much. Have been worried and stopped setting up the tank because of all these scary posts. I will stay away from Zoas and Palys(I love zoas though), and not take any risks. Thanks again!

[@soysauce76]

Some good 💩, thank you

[@ReefMan]

Glad you liked it!