acan feeding question

[palmer373]

i havent been able to feed my acan for a while. it is really happy, inflated, and is growing. im just curious, the only way they will eat is if their "arms" catch the food? ive only seen the arms come out at night about 1-2 hours after the light turns off. is there any other way to get them to feed? i tried "force" feeding if you will call it that, i just put a peice of PE mysis in each mouth and tried to get it to eat, it didnt work. any ideas?

[lho]

Have you tried frozen Cyclop-eeze?
LPS and fish really like it.

[palmer373]

hmmm that stuff in the blocks you buy in the bags? lol im heading to my fav LFS thursday, ill see if i can find any. i was also looking for a new fish food, my old one isnt cutting it, maybe cyclop-eeze will work. Thanks!

[Reef Bass]

Acans normally feed at night. Their "arms" are tentacles which emerge from around the oral disc. They can be trained to accept food during the day.

[palmer373]

oh ok thanks, how do you train them? just throw in food that they like at night and hope they will take it during the day?

[blasterman789]

I'm a bit new to Acans, but not to feeding LPS.

The thing mine like the most is beef heart - period. Tried many foods, and beef heart seems to get the most aggresive response and fastest intake. Even if the Acan is sunbathing in the day it will happily grab some beef heart dropped on it.

What I do is use a clear 1/4 plastic tube, and drop some beef heart slowly down to the Acans with the tube. It's more accurate and less disruptive than a turkey baster, and doesn't waste as much. Also helps to turn your pumps off.

[palmer373]

wow, i raise pigs but not cows, maybe i should try pig heart LOL! thanks for th einfo blasterman. i just bought some instant ocean cyclop-eeze gel food, im gonna try it and ill let you guys know.

[2006]

Honestly they don't have to be fed. I think feeding corals does more for us then the coral sometimes. Of course this is assuming you have fish and feed them. The corals will catch their share plus fish waste. It may take some time but I would guess you will start seeing them extend their tentacles during the day in a couple of weeks. My acans have tentacles out for the better of the day but it is still nothing compared to when the lights go out.

[lamann]

I'm able to feed my acan's pellets. I drop a few pellets on top and the acan will form a "funnel" so the pellets drop in and then "swallows" the food. Discovered they liked pellets by accident.

[palmer373]

i tried cyclop-eeze when i saw the tentecles out last night. im not sure if it ate it cause i was tired of sitting there and waiting so i just went to bed lol. yah part of me is saying why do we spot feed in the aquaria cuase in the wild, there is no one spot feeding every coral, they catch their share. my corals are on a frag rack ina low flow area right now so that was the only reason i was gonna spot feed.

[footballdude2k3]

i have 12 acans, they all eat whenever i want them to. i turn off all flow and use tweezers to drop a piece into the head, the arms grab and it eats. i feed rods reef, they all love it, growth has been great as well.

[JamesJR]

Mine take shrimp with gusto. I go to the market and keep them in the freezer, clean them and run hot water over them for a few minutes and then cut them into smaller chuncks and feed each polylp a good size chunk. At first I would turn the pumps off to get them to feed but now they have a very strong feeding response and can still feed in the strong current. Feeding them definitely is good for them.

[palmer373]

ive heard a lot of good thigns about rods reef so ill check that out, thanks guys the frag seems to be healing (after a month lol) but i havent seen them take food yet still :/

[palmer373]

wait do you feed Rogger's complete blend reef food?